PHILADELPHIA - Thanksgiving Day seems to be a good time to get into the weeds with something the Eagles talk about a lot when it comes to their struggling offense, the nebulous term of “efficiency.”
There is no magic number to measure efficiency. However, in the football wonk world, the closest you’re going to get is “EPA” or Expected Points Added, an advanced statistical measurement that puts a number on how much a specific play improves a team's scoring chances.
It does that by comparing the expected points before a play to the expected points after the play, considering factors like down, distance, field position, and time remaining.
The statistical model estimates the "expected points" a team is likely to score from that same situation based on historical data and recalibrates for every play moving forward.
It’s not perfect, and nothing ever will be in what Nick Sirianni often calls the “ultimate team game,” which is layered in context.
What Wins In The Ultimate Team Game?
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Nov 23, 2025; Arlington, Texas, USA; Philadelphia Eagles head coach Nick Sirianni looks on before the game against the Dallas Cowboys at AT&T Stadium. | Kevin Jairaj-Imagn Images
Others like Chicago's Ben Johnson, who will be in Philadelphia for a “Black Friday” showdown against the Eagles, have embraced the idea of EPA, especially in the passing game.
“The way I understand it right now from our analytics team, the EPA in the passing game is really one of the most critical factors in determining wins and losses,” Johnson said in the spring at the NFL owners meetings. “That’s probably changed over the last five years or so. I would have said five years ago turnovers, takeaways, that was number one. From what I understand now, that EPA for the passing game has now surpassed that.”
The Eagles are still in the mode of winning the turnover battle first and foremost, coupled with the explosive play rate. They currently employ a risk-averse offense that often frustrates fans but almost guarantees winning if the turnover battle lands in Philadelphia's favor with the end game being 40-2 in the Sirianni era.
The Bears and Eagles will meet as division leaders with identical 8-3 records. However, Chicago is believed to be ascending and Philadelphia is struggling to live up to the high bar of its Super Bowl LIX success.
EPS is the best we have to measure efficiency and the larger the sample sizes get you are provided a clearer picture to what a team actually is.
To put it bluntly, the 2025 Eagles offense isn’t the 2024 version which rode one of the greatest offensive lines in history and a historic rushing season by Saquon Barkley to the Super Bowl LIX championship.
This season, the Eagles’ rushing attack is down a mind-numbing 145% in efficiency year-over-year, according to Sumer Sports, ranking 21st in the NFL flipping from a positive impact of the offense as a whole to a negative one.
While the much-maligned passing game is also down 36%, it is still above water on a per-play basis and is No. 12 in the NFL.
Overall, the Eagles' offensive efficiency is down 80.4% overall but is still in the top half of the NFL at No. 24.
"Black Friday" will serve as a test to see if Johnson's evolving thoughts are the way to go in the long run but the small smaple size of one game day means "old school" could still win out especially with with cold and windy conditions expected at Lincoln Financial Field.
**PREDICTION: Eagles 23, Bears 16**
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