Week 4 Eagles Power Rankings Roundup- Defense Steps Up

Very few people predicted the Eagles defense to go down to New Orleans and shut down the hottest offense in the NFL. It turns out that is exactly what they did. The Georgia guys, Jalen Carter and Jordan Davis were fantastic. Not just rushing the passer, but against the run. After being the worst run defense in the league, they held Alvin Kamara to just 3.3 yards per carry.

But did that change how the NFL media views them? Or were the head coaching mistakes and Jalen Hurts turnovers enough to keep people down on the Eagles? Let's take a look at the Week 4 Eagles Power Rankings.

So in 3 weeks, the Eagles went from the top 10, to 18, and then back to the top 10. CBS changes its power rankings like Christian Bale changes his body weight between films. There is no way swings should be that drastic over 2 weeks. At some point, you need to stick to your guns and not drastically change your opinion after each game.

"Saquon Barkley is going to have a massive season. His 65-yard touchdown run on Sunday was a major reason the Eagles escaped with a win in New Orleans. He scored the go-ahead TD later on too. Barkley is the new favorite to win NFL Offensive Player of the Year at BetMGM, and for good reason."

Through 3 weeks, Saquon has arguably been the best offensive player in the league. One drop aside, he has done everything they could possibly hope for from him. The Eagles got by with mediocre running backs the past two years. Just look at what D'Andre Swift and Miles Sanders have done since leaving Philly if you need proof those guys are mediocre. Having a great RB takes the offense to another level.

"While they sort out their collective issues, thank goodness Jalen Carter is around. We don’t know ultimately how consistent Carter can be on a game-by-game basis, but his ability to destroy a game plan is incredibly useful for instilling fear in offensive coordinators everywhere."

The consistency part is a great point. It is the one thing we still need to see Carter provide. Where was this guy in weeks 1 and 2? Where was he in the last 7 games last year? He has the talent to be great, but he needs to show it more consistently. If he figures that part out, we are talking about a guy who wins multiple Defensive Player Of The Year Awards.

Dallas Goedert has taken heat for not living up to expectations, but he showed up big time when they needed him vs the Saints. The majority of his yards came after the catch too. He was 4 yards deep when he caught the 61-yard reception that set up the game-winning TD.

When the Saints scored a go-ahead TD with 4:38 left in the game, Eagles fans were likely thinking here we go again. A week after blowing a late lead the the Falcons, they did it again and were about to be 1-2. With no AJ Brown, no Lane Johnson, and no DeVonta Smith, could they actually go down the field and score a TD to reclaim the lead?

At the time on Twitter, fans did not seem confident. But that is exactly what they did. Hurts hit a wide-open Dallas Goedert in the flat, and he took off running for 61 yards. He was dragged down before he got into the End Zone, but Saquon eventually punched it in. On the following drive, Reed Blankenship picked off Carr, and that was all she wrote. The Eagles Wound up winning 15-12.

Related: Eagles Defense Makes A Statement In New Orleans

The 1st 3 games have not been pretty. Eagles fans will be justifiably mistrustful of ugly wins after last year, where they had 10 of them over the 1st 11 games. But 2-1 is 2-1. The Cowboys and Niners can't say that. Both of those teams would have taken ugly wins this week as opposed to both of them dropping 2 games in a row.

Should we look at this as a positive, or should we be worried going forward? How good was this defense in week 3? Could this offense be playing better than the numbers show? Are they leaving too many points on the board? Is Jalen Carter finally living up to the hype? How impressive was Dallas Goedert? And is Bryce Huff already a bust of a signing?

Let's break down the game. The good, the bad, and what we should take away going forward.

Anyone watching the game would have come away recognizing how good Jalen Carter was. He is still looking for his 1st sack this season, but sacks are not everything, and a defender can have a massive impact without actually recording a sack. Jalen Carter registered 4 pressures, 3 hurries, a QB hit, and deflected two passes. But those 4 pressures are not the 4 I am talking about here. More notable for me was his 4 defensive stops.

A stop is any tackle that counts as a successful play for the defense. That is a vague definition, but I got the stat from PFF, and this is how they define it.

Carter was terrible against the run in weeks 1 and 2. He was disappointing in the pass rush but still did make some impact. We also know that he is going to be able to get after the QB. But in the run game, he had just 1 stop over the first 2 games. But apart from just pressuring Derek Carr, he was helping shut down the run too. Jordan Davis added 2 stops, and a sack of his own. Those two, Carter and Davis, are so important to this team. It is no coincidence that the game they look great is the first week this defense looks great.

Dallas Goedert had his best game in an Eagles jersey on Sunday. 10 catches for 170 yards. There was another case where he was wide open, and Hurts didn't even see him, that would have gotten him a TD. The thing is, he did a lot of that after the catch. He averaged 11.9 yards after the catch per reception. 119 of his 170 yards came after the catch. On average, he was only 6.3 yards past the line of scrimmage when he caught the ball, but he still went off for 170 yards.

Running after the catch was always his biggest strength. They gameplanned to get him the ball in space, and he made the Saints pay. Including his 61-yard catch and run on the game-winning drive that set up a Saquon Barkley TD. He was only 4 yards deep when he caught it. Meaning the other 57 yards were all his legs. It was a great design by Moore, using Dotson as a distraction to make the Saints DBs run into each other, but Goedert was the one who ran 57 yards.

They needed that out of him with Brown and eventually Smith out of the game. He answered the call.

The Saints came into the game averaging over 400 yards per game, and over 40 points per game. The Eagles held them to 219 yards and 12 points. It was the hottest offense in the league, and the Eagles stuffed them. They allowed only 24.3 yards per drive. Coming into the year, the Saints only had 4 total drives where they didn't get at least that many yards. They only had 4 drives where they didn't score in the 1st 2 games. The eagles forced a punt or a turnover 6 drives this week.

Were the Saints playing a bit over their head in the 1st 2 weeks? Sure. They also did it to the Panthers and Cowboys, who both look terrible so far. But everyone expected them to pummel this defense. The Eagles were the worst run defense in the league coming into week 3, and they held Kamara to just 3.3 yards per carry. Rashid Shaheed was one of the most explosive WRs in the league, he got 0 catches despite 5 targets. The Eagles' defense deserves a ton of credit for dominating a good offense.

The Eagles offense is off to a slow start. They scored 34 points in week 1, but then just 21 in week 2, and only 15 in week 3. That said, they are moving the ball with relative ease. Their 411.7 yards per game is 2nd in the NFL behind only the Ravens. It is points that matter, and they need to find a way to turn those yards into scores, but there is a great offense ready to emerge. They just need to cut down on the mistakes.

Hurts has turned it over 3 times this season when inside Jake Elliott's FG range, twice in the red zone. Sirianni has controversially gone for it, leaving points on the board. Points that could have made the difference in week 2, and points that may have made the week 3 win much easier. If all of those turnovers, including the turnovers on downs, were turned into field goals, they would have 18 extra points. That would take them from being 11th with 23.3 pts per game to 3rd with 29.3 pts per game. 

Still, with no AJ Brown, no Lane Johnson, no DeVonta Smith, and no Mekhi Becton, this team moved the ball. A lot of that is Saquon Barkley, but Hurts, when he isn't turning it over, has moved the ball as well. This offense could be great, they can't keep making as many mistakes as they do though.

The joke continues. 3 weeks in, the number 0 on the back of Bryce Huff's jersey also represents his impact on the game. He has 0 sacks and 0 tackles. If you try to calculate how much he gets paid per tackle, you would not be able to. I put $17 million divided by 0 into the calculator on my phone, and it gave me an error message. Because by the basic rules of math, you can not divide by zero. Anything divided by 1 is itself. But zero is nothing. You cannot divide something by nothing. It doesn't even give you a number, you just get the word ERROR. 

Even worse for him, his snap count continues to dwindle. He played just 18 of the snaps, compared to 35 for Brandon Graham and 34 for Josh Sweat. He is a situational pass rusher, who can't rush the passer. It is still early, but it is looking like a disaster of a signing. He has clearly fallen out of favor with Vic Fangio, and with how bad he looks when on the field, can you blame Vic?

They can't keep asking a 36-year-old Brandon Graham to play 60% of the snaps. Huff, and Nolan Smith, ned to find a way to be productive.