The 5 Numbers That Tell The Story of the Eagles Beating the Packers
The Eagles beat the Packers 40-33 to get to 10-1. How did the Eagles pull it out? What stood out on the offense? How did the defense look? Here are 5 numbers that tell the story of the Eagles’ Sunday Night win.
8.16
The Eagles dominated on the ground all game. By the end, they had a ridiculous 363 yards on 49 carries. That is 7.4 yards per carry. But you have to remember they attempted 4 QB sneaks, and had a couple of short runs that ended in the Endzone. On those plays, the potential yards they can get are capped. If you take them out, they actually averaged 8.16 yards per rush. That would be a good number for passing yards per attempt. It is an insane number for rush yards per attempt. This team can run at will. And while Hurts and Sanders deserve a ton of credit for that, so does this offensive line. They bully people in the run game.
48
On the Packers 6 scoring drives, 4 of them started past their own 40-yard line. The Packers had drives that started at their 41, their 47, Philly’s 37, and Philly’s 13. Their other two scoring drives each started at their 25. The defense was bad. But they were also put in bad spots all game long. The Packers averaged starting at their own 48-yard line on scoring drives. Part of that was the kickoff squad sucking. But a long fumble return and a turnover on downs also contributed to that. Now the offense scored 40 points, so I can’t blame them too much. But I can blame the special teams. They have sucked all year, and last night was an egregious example of that. Outside of Jake Elliott who has mostly been fantastic, the Eagles’ special teams have been a disaster this year.
14.9
Now with the context of the short fields taken care of, the Eagles’ defense still was not good enough. And most concerning was the play of the secondary. The Eagles allowed 14.9 yards per pass attempt. They were getting beat badly, and a lot of that came over the middle of the field. With no Avonte Maddox and no CJ Gardner Johnson, after he went down early with a rib injury, the middle of the Eagles’ defense was vulnerable. Josiah Scott and Marcus Epps both got burned on different occasions. And while Reed Blankenship made some great plays, he also took an awful angle on the Christain Watson TD that took himself out of the play. Slay and James Bradberry are great, but they can only cover one man each. And we saw Tight Ends, slot WRs, and RBs burn them in the Packers game.
27.5
Despite an off week vs the Colts, we saw this week that this Eagles offense is still elite. At 27.5 pts per game, they are 3rd in the NFL. Only the Chiefs and the Bills score at a higher rate. They have only failed to score 20 pts in one game this season. And they do it in a multitude of ways. We saw that in this game. They can be a quick strike team like at the end of the first half where they moved down the field and Quez found the endzone. But they can also drag out a drive to burn time, as we have seen at the end of multiple games this season. They are a deadly run team, but we also saw Hurts deliver great passes into the end zone. The defense is a work in progress with all the injuries. But even without Dallas Goedert, this offense is dangerous.
14.3
There is a lot to knock the Eagles’ defense for this game, as already pointed out. But it is worth mentioning one thing they did really well. The Packers converted just 1 of 7 3rd down conversions. A rate of just 14.3%. It had been a problem for them in some recent games. But while they struggled overall in this game, there were some moments that stand out. They had a couple of key sacks to stall drives. There was the Blankenship pick that ended a decent drive for the Packers. They certainly need to be better. But even in a bad game from them, you saw that they can be dangerous. They continue to get takeaways and continue to get to the QB. Obviously keeping teams out of the end zone is the most important thing. But we saw in the Eagles Super Bowl that defenses can make an impact even when they do give up points, as long as they step up in key moments. And that is exactly what they did last night.
