Eagles Are Showing You That They Don’t Trust Bryce Huff, Yet
Every player has bad weeks. you can take the greatest Football players of all time, and find weeks where they simply had no impact. Even Aaron Donald had games like that. So the fact Bryce Huff was bad in week 1, is not itself an indication he is a bust of a signing.
There is a bigger problem for him from that game though. Not having sacks or even pressures can be forgiven. My problem is the Eagles themselves showed they do not trust him.
Bryce Huff Still Not Ready To Play 3-Downs
He played only 45% of the snaps. The 4th most among the Eagles Edge Rushers. Josh Sweat, Brandon Graham, and Nolan Smith all saw the field more than him. It was only by a few snaps in some cases, but they signed Huff to replace Haason Reddick. They paid him to be their best edge rusher and he remained a part-time player.
It was the biggest concern for him coming into the season. With the Jets, he was a part-time player and played just 42% of the snaps as a pass rush specialist. So people questioned if he could be a full-time player here. Those feelings were only spurred on when Vic Fangio told the media he was not ready to play 3-downs at that point.
“I do think he has the talent to do what we want him to do. It’s just he’s got to get familiar with doing it. So, it will be a work in progress. Does he look like he can do it today? No. I do think he eventually will.”
Huff went on to not have a great camp. We did not hear his name all too often. Now we get to game 1, and he is a part-time player, and the writing is on the wall. They still do not trust him to be an every-down player, at least not yet.
Bryce Huff Costs More Per Snap Than Some Elite Edge Rushers
They paid him about $17 million per season. Among pass rushers, he has the 17th-highest AAV. So he is not being paid to be an elite edge rusher. But he is getting paid to be a full-time star player. He is being paid to play a majority of the snaps.
At $17 million per year and 30 snaps in week 1, Huff got paid $33,333 per snap. For reference, Myles Garrett got paid $30,637 per snap. Going back to last year, Haason Reddick got paid $17,000 per snap. Even if Reddick made the type of money he wants, he would cost about $32k per snap.
By the way, he also got paid more per snap than Jalen Hurts, the most expensive man on the team. By extension, he got paid more per snap than everyone else on the offense, and more than everyone on the Eagles defense.
Nick Sirianni gave a long-winded answer when asked about the lack of snaps for Huff that made it sound like it was just the flow of the game. He compared it to a WR not getting a lot of targets on any given week. But that is different. That WR is still on the field, they just didn’t get targeted. This would be more like if out of nowhere AJ Brown only played 45% of the snaps. If that happened, and there was no injury, we would be asking some serious questions.
If the Eagles trusted Huff, he would be out there more. Even in 2022 where they had a heavy rotation, Reddick played over 70% of the snaps, and Josh Sweat played over 50%. Friday night, Sweat played over 60% of the snaps.
We will hear from Fangio on Wednesday. I am sure the reporters will ask him about it. Fangio to this point has been very honest with the media, so we might get a straight answer. I am very curious what he has to say, because judging by how they used him in week 1, they do not trust Bryce Huff yet.
Update: Vic Fangio was asked by reporters what Bryce Huff needs to do to earn more snaps. His answer was pretty blunt.
Not a ringing endorsement. It confirms that the reason he got so few snaps was that Fangio does not trust Huff to get more snaps yet.
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7 Numbers That Tell the Story of The Eagles Win In Brazil
4,795
Let’s start with the fact that it was not your typical trip. They weren’t driving up the turnpike, flying to Dallas, or even flying cross country for a West Coast road trip. Those trips would all be easy compared to the flight to Sao Paulo. The flight from Philly to Sao Paulo took about 10 hours and traveled 4,795 miles. For reference, a Flight to Los Angeles and back would be 4,776 miles, and take just over 10 hours. Not one way, round trip. A flight from Philly to London takes about 7 hours, and you travel 3,545 miles.
This is one of the most brutal trips a team has ever had to take. Combine that with it being week 1, and the field being terrible, sloppiness is not surprising. That is not an excuse, it is just acknowledging the situation. The Packers went through it too, in fact their trip was e. Most people assume the Packers will be a great team, and they looked worse than the Eagles. At least the Eagles survived to learn from that mistake. The Packers not only lost, but Jordan Love will now miss a few weeks. We will see over the next few weeks how much the trip had to do with it. Maybe nothing, maybe everything. But these International games tend to be a bit sloppy. And this trip was worse than almost any other in NFL history.
1
A few people on defense are getting their flowers after week 1. Quinyon Mitchell is getting praise for an impressive debut. People have lauded Zack Baun, who looked great. But Slay deserves his flowers too. People kind of take him for granted, but even at 33 years old, he is still an elite corner.
Slay allowed 1 catch all game long. They hardly threw his way all game long. That is the type of thing I like to see from my CB1, that they are so shutdown the ball is not even thrown their way. It is why with many great corners, you see their takeaways go down. Teams stop throwing their way. Slay took his side of the field out of the game. I think in general Slay gets underrated in Philly. But he was great in week 1.
