Iggles Blitz

by Tommy Lawlor

Assessing the Eagles

Posted November 19th, 2024 | 3 Comments »

Thursday night games mean you can spend the weekend watching football and relaxing. You can watch the other games without the baggage of being in a foul mood after an Eagles loss or being giddy/delusional after an Eagles win.

My biggest takeaway is that the Eagles are good and that the Lions are the only team that is definitively better. Detroit is the most dominant team in the league. That doesn’t mean they’ll win the Super Bowl, but they look different than the other 31 teams.

KC and Buffalo played in a great game, with the Bills winning. That gave the Chiefs their first loss of the season. Those teams are a notch below Detroit, but both have flaws. Patrick Mahomes looks mortal this year, with 15 TDs and a league-leading 11 INTs. Travis Kelce is averaging a career-low 8.2 yards per reception. Josh Allen has been Superman for the Bills, but it feels like he has to do that for them to win. The supporting cast is talented, but erratic. Buffalo’s defense is 16th in yards allowed and has given up 120 or more rushing yards in 6 games this year.

The Niners blew a late lead, again, and lost to Seattle. SF is now 5-5. They are technically in last place in the NFC West since they have lost to the Cardinals, Seahawks and Rams. They blew leads in all of those games. Things are so bad in San Francisco that some fans are talking about firing Kyle Shanahan. That would be nuts. He’s an offensive guru and has gotten them to a pair of Super Bowls. He does have some flaws that have cost the Niners, but finding a better coach would be tough.

This season just feels odd for SF. They’ve had key injuries and some key mistakes really hurt them. There is still a lot of talent and DVOA still says they are one of the best teams in the league. SF could be dangerous in the postseason…if they make it to the postseason.

I don’t know what to say about the Vikings. They’re 8-2, same as the Eagles. Every week I see them battling a bad team and winning ugly. They do win, but it is hard to be confident in what you’re seeing. Sam Darnold feels like he might be regressing a bit. The Vikings haven’t scored 30 or more points since September. The defense has had some struggles against competent offenses.

The Steelers and Ravens played another tough, tense game on Sunday. Pittsburgh has proven to be far better than I anticipated this year. Russell Wilson was awful in Denver, but he’s back to playing good football. I still have trouble buying the Steelers as a title contender. The Ravens are 7-4 after their loss. They have the best offense in the league, but a highly inconsistent defense. Baltimore can be erratic within games. They love to build up big leads and then almost blow them.

The Eagles are far from perfect. The offense starts slower than any of us would like. The passing game can be very up and down. The defense struggled to take the ball away for much of the year, but has improved recently. We’ll have to see how that goes. Jake Elliott has proven to be human and missed more kicks than anyone expected.

All that said, the Eagles have shown the ability to take over games. The defense has been stifling and the offense is dangerous when it finally gets going. I know some people still are nervous because of last year’s meltdown. This team is different. Set the players and stats aside. Just look at how this team has handled adversity. Jacksonville got the benefit of a highly questionable (if not awful) call and that turned the game around. The Jags had a chance to win at the end, but the Eagles made the play that sealed the game. The Eagles had some tough luck against WAS and trailed at the end of three quarters. The team never flinched. They scored three straight TDs to take control of the game.

The 2023 Eagles found new ways to lose. The 2024 Eagles have found ways to win. The defense keeps games close and then the offense comes alive to blow them open. This is a very different team.

As it turns out, the Eagles had a great offseason. That has helped the team to get off to an 8-2 start and put itself up at the top of the league. The Lions still look special, but it would be fun to see what the Eagles could do against them. Maybe we’ll get that chance in January.

*****

Speaking of a great offseason addition…

*****

And another one.

Mitchell is now starting to get some pub as Defensive Rookie of the Year. He’s playing at a high level and is a key reason the defense has been as good as it is.

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Number One

Posted November 17th, 2024 | 4 Comments »

Jayden Daniels, meet Vic Fangio. And Jalen Carter and Zack Baun and Quinyon Mitchell. The electric rookie quarterback looked powerless against the surging Eagles defense on Thursday night.

After the win over Washington, the Eagles have the number one defense in the NFL in terms of yards allowed. The Eagles haven’t finished a season number one since Gang Green back in 1991. Heck, I don’t know the last time the Eagles were number one in the middle of a season. We’ve seen a lot of good defenses since 1991, but being #1 is special. It will be fun to see if the guys can keep it up.

One of the complaints some people had is that the Eagles hadn’t played many good offenses. Washington is a Top 5 scoring team even after the Eagles loss. They had scored 27 or more points in 6 of the 10 games leading up to Thursday night. Washington had all their OL back. They had RB Brian Robinson back. What they didn’t have was an answer for how to solve the Eagles defense.

This was a short week so Fangio didn’t put together a complex gameplan. He figured out something that he thought would work against the Commanders offense and then relied on his players to execute it.

The Eagles have a good enough back six/seven that they can trust those guys to cover well. By playing zone, defenders kept their eyes on the offense and could see if Daniels tried to run. Man coverage can leave you vulnerable to QB runs (something the Eagles offense is good at exploiting). The Eagles pass rush posted 3 sacks, but was regularly disruptive. Between the outstanding coverage and the effective pass rush, Daniels didn’t look comfortable very often. He threw a lot of short passes, mainly to TEs and RBs. His WRs had 28 yards for the game. That’s insane. Even crazier, Reed Blankenship caught the same number of passes from Daniels that Terry McLaurin did…one. Yikes.

This defense isn’t getting lucky. This isn’t a fluke. Fangio has a sound scheme. He’s been around long enough that he has a good feel for what will work against the offense the Eagles are facing.

The real magic has been in player development. Zack Baun played 660 snaps on defense in his four years with the Saints. He has played 584 defensive snaps this season and is playing at an All-Pro level. Nakobe Dean is playing the best football of his young career. Nolan Smith has taken a big step forward this year. Rookies Quinyon Mitchell and Cooper DeJean are playing like stars. Fangio and his staff are getting the most out of their players.

The Ravens will be a huge test in a couple of weeks. That is a dynamic offense with a ton of weapons. That could be a matchup of the #1 offense and the #1 defense, which would be really cool.

I was happy when the Eagles hired Vic Fangio. I was hoping for a Top 10 defense, which would pair with an explosive offense and help the Eagles get back to playing good football. The defense playing at such a high level has helped the Eagles win 6 games in a row and elevate itself to being one of the top teams in the league.

*****

Not every game has been a blowout during the winning streak, but you can see the Eagles are dominating the yardage battle.

If not for some fluke plays, the final scores would look better. There was the blocked FG in CLE, the fumble/non-fumble vs JAX and allowing the garbage time TD to WAS. If the Eagles can clean some things up, this team could really start to open some eyes.

*****

The Eagles run game has been amazing this year.

1st in Attempts
2nd in Yards
1st in TDs
4th in Yards per Attempt

They have run for at least 113 yards in every game. They have run for 144 or more yards in 8 of 10 games. They did that 6 times last year and 5 times in 2022. I think we can call that the Saquon Barkley effect. D’Andre Swift and Miles Sanders played well the past couple of years, but Barkley is on another level. His combination of speed and strength makes him a special player.

It also helps that Kenny Gainwell and Jalen Hurts have run better since the bye week. Gainwell has had a run of 10 or more yards in 5 of the 6 games. Hurts has run for 9 TDs in that span and has a run of 12 or more yards in 4 of the 6 games.

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