Iggles Blitz

by Tommy Lawlor

Efficient

Posted January 18th, 2025 | 2 Comments »

Nick Sirianni praised Jalen Hurts in his Friday press conference for being “efficient”. I’m sure some people found this less than inspiring and others might have wondered if it was really a compliment. It certainly was.

If you skip Hurts rookie season when he was a backup, he threw a career low amount of passes in 2024, only 361. In the previous three seasons, he threw at least 432. Going down to 361 is quite a drop.

You can argue that 2024 was Hurts best season as a passer, because he was so efficient. He set career highs in the following categories:

Completion percentage
TD percentage
Yards per attempt
QB rating

Hurts wasn’t a volume passer. He was an impact passer. That’s what this team needed. The Eagles led the league in rushing attempts. They finished second in rushing yards. When Saquon Barkley is having one of the greatest seasons ever produced by a RB, you don’t force a bunch of passing attempts. You feed the ball to Saquon.

While this was (and is) a running team, Hurts still had to make key plays.

And

And

Just think back to last week’s TD throw to Goedert. Hurts saw the blitz and called an audible. He got the ball out quickly and put it right on Goedert. DG then did the rest.

Making plays like these with limited opportunities can be tough. Hurts is able to come through when his team needs him. We’ve seen several games where Hurts took the offense down the field right when the team needed it. He’s done a good job of making the most of his chances.

It will be interesting to see if this version of Hurts can carry the Eagles to the Super Bowl.

Dallas won Super Bowl VI after the 1971 season. Roger Staubach threw a total of 51 passes in three playoff games. Dallas ran the ball and played great defense. Staubach just had to make a few key plays and the overall team was good enough to win it all. Football has certainly changed since then, but that doesn’t mean the formula can’t work for this Eagles team.

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Good news on the injury front.

The Eagles will have everyone available on Sunday.

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Weird stat. The Rams haven’t faced many special RBs in the playoffs. Back in 2020 Aaron Jones ran for 99 yards on them, on only 14 carries. The Packers ran for 188 as a team. Sony Michel was 18-94 in the Pats Super Bowl win back in 2018.

If the Rams do shut down Saquon, it will be due to great defense and not some weird stat history. This Rams defense has been vulnerable to the run for most of the season so I don’t expect that to change drastically.

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Focus

Posted January 16th, 2025 | 2 Comments »

Football is football. The team that blocks better, tackles better and executes better is going to win. That’s true in September and January. But things can be crazier when the playoffs roll around.

Since there are no longer 32 teams to cover, the media focuses on the teams that are still alive. That means more stories, more interviews and more scrutiny. That can distract some teams. The Eagles get as much media coverage as any team in the league so they are used to a lot of attention. Still, things do escalate in January. Which team will handle the noise better?

Extra media attention is just one of the many distractions that can roll around at this time of the year. Weather can get more extreme and become a factor. That will be the case in Philly on Sunday. The forecast calls for snow and cold weather. The Rams are from sunny California and play their games inside. The Eagles have an advantage since they live in the northeast and play outside. Which team will handle the weather better?

Matthew  Stafford played in a pretty famous bad weather game in Philly a decade ago.

That was such a fun day. I don’t think we’ll see anything that crazy, but the weather will make things interesting.

Good teams focus. They can put on blinders and ignore everything on the outside. Nick Sirianni has done a really good job this year of getting the Eagles to stay focused. They have only lost one game since September despite dealing with some oddball issues and situations. This team has been able to lock in.

They’ll need to be able to do that on Sunday.

The Rams played their best game of the year last week. They have been red hot for a while now. The only game they’ve lost since playing the Eagles was Week 18 when they rested their starters. Don’t be fooled by the Rams 10-7 record. Injuries killed them early on. Once they got healthy, they started winning.

This should be a tough game.

The Rams blowing out the Vikings was a favor to the Eagles. Seeing that kind of a performance certainly had to get the team’s attention and should help keep them focused. I don’t think they will overlook the Rams.

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There will be one more issue for the Eagles to deal with. Kellen Moore is doing head coach interviews with multiple teams. This won’t affect the players. It could affect Moore. The gameplan is already finished so him doing interviews late in the week shouldn’t be a big issue. Still, anything can have an impact when the playoffs roll around.

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AJ Brown was back at practice on Thursday. That was expected and is good news. Dallas Goedert was out due to an illness. Hopefully he’ll be better by Sunday. Goedert gave the offense a big lift last week, as a blocker and receiver.

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Brandon Graham had a major impact in the first game against the Rams. He won’t be able to play on Sunday, but he’ll still be around the team. BG is the ultimate trash talker and brings fun to the football field. Here he is from the Giants playoff game in 2022.

It is great to know that Saquon is one of the good guys these days.

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