Stop Comparing The 2024 Eagles To The Eagles From Last Year

The Eagles 2023 season is a dark cloud that hangs over the franchise even a year later. The city saw a team start 10-1, only to win 1 more game the rest of the year, before being thoroughly crushed in the playoffs by a mediocre Bucs team.

So it is easy to understand why some fans would be a bit slow to get excited about a 7-2 start. We saw them start this well only a year ago, and it all started falling apart at around this same time. But those fears, while understandable, are unfounded. Because this 2024 Eagles team has very little in common with that 2023 team, apart from the good record over the first 10 or so weeks.

I have seen a few people say that the Eagles schedule has been too easy, and we saw last year what happens when the schedule gets harder. But I think we remember a different 2023 season. They went 4-2 in that "Gauntlet" everyone was worried about. They beat the Chiefs, Bills, and Dolphins, and split with the Cowboys.

Before the season if you were told they would go 4-2 in that stretch, people would have thought they would win it all. But then dropped the last 2 games of that gauntlet, and they kept losing. They let Drew Lock and the Seahawks beat them. They let a 4 win Cardinals team beat them. They let the Giants with a backup QB beat them. They lost to the Jets earlier in the year.

There was no beating up on bad teams going on last year. They actually had an impressive strength of schedule and beat some very good teams. But every game was a struggle no matter who they played.

This year, the schedule is much easier, at least on paper. Their hardest game so far was week 1 vs the Packers, which they won. But they haven't played a team with a winning record since the bye week. The difference is they are beating these teams up. The Browns game was close, but they blew out the Giants, Bengals, and Cowboys, and should have blown out the Jags if Sirianni just took the points, and there was not a bogus "fumble" return for a TD.

They have a point differential of +82 in this span. So far this year they have the 4th best point differential in the league. Even when they were 10-1 last year, their point differential was middle of the pack.

The two seasons are not alike in how they played out to this point at all. In fact, they have more in common with 2022 and 2017. In those seasons, the Eagles had what people called an easy schedule. But they kept beating those "easy teams" on the road to the Super Bowl.

Do you know what else makes this different? Quinyon Mitchell, Cooper Dejean, Zack Baun, a healthy Nakobe Dean, and a more seasoned Jalen Carter. The leap from James Bradberry and whoever they ran out in the slot last season, to Mitchell and DeJean, is astronomical. The gap between the linebackers last year, and this year, is astronomical.

Last year, the 6 guys who had snaps at LB combined for 67 stops over 17 games. A stop is any play in the run game that is considered a win for the defense, meaning you stopped them either for no gain, or a minimal gain. This year Dean and Baun have already reached 67 stops in just 9 games. Baun alone is on track to pass all of the Eagles linebackers from last year.

Mitchell and DeJean have given up for just 176 yards combined over the last 5 games. 35.6 yards per game, and no TDS allowed. There were weeks where Bradberry and the slot corner combined for that in 1 game, let alone across 5 games.

The Eagles Linebackers and Secondary were both among the worst units in the league last year. Now they are among the best. And before you bring up the opponent, James Bradberry alone gave up 112 yards against Drew Lock at one point last year, including getting beat for the game-winning TD.

The Eagles defense got younger, faster, and better. Swapping out Haason Reddick for Bryce Huff hurt a bit, they are worse on the Edge this year. But every other part of the defense got better. I didn't even have to mention the difference Saquon Barkley makes on offense, but that is pretty significant too.

I think Sean Desai and Brian Johnson got a bit of a raw deal last year. Desai had a terrible roster, and Johnson had Sirianni's playbook to work with. I don't think it is fair to blame everything on them.

But the leap from two inexperienced guys, to two Coordinators proven at this level, is pretty evident. Especially on defense. There were times last year when it looked like the defense had no clue what to do. That is poor coaching. Changing coordinators mid-season only made it worse. Now they have Vic Fangiom one of the most experienced and respected D Coordinators in the league.

The players are always in the right spot, they don't bite on every single fake, they don't look baffled by motion, and they finish their tackles. What we are witnessing is a well-coached defensive unit. The talent makes a massive difference and is probably more important than the jump in coaching, but that talent is also better coached than they were last year.

As for Kellen Moore, he implemented some things that actually brought the Eagles' offense into this century. They aren't using motion as much as Moore did in past stops, but they are using it way more than Sirianni ever allowed.

None of this is to say the Eagles are going to win it all, or even make the Super Bowl. There are other good teams, even if it feels like there are fewer good teams than usual. The Lions will be a tough out. The 49ers, despite their rocky start, could be a tough out now that CMC is back. If they make it to the Super Bowl, the Chiefs, Ravens, Bills, or whoever makes it out of the AFC, will all be tough outs.

Winning is hard. Only 1 team can do it. The point is that they are in that mix though. They were not last year. Even when they were beating the Chiefs, they did not have the feel of a Super Bowl team. This team does. They are contenders, and Tyrone Johnson talked about them being contenders this week on The Best Show Ever.

If it doesn't happen this year, the good news is that their core, outside of Lane Johnson, is not only young but locked up long-term. The offensive group of Hurts, Barkley, Brown, and Smith have at least 2 more years left. Hurts, Brown, and Smith are here until at least 2028. The left side of the line is here for the foreseeable future. And Carter, Mitchell, and DeJean all have at least 3 more years after this. This team is not going anywhere.

But before we even think about the bright future, we should acknowledge the present is pretty bright too. Stop worrying about another Eagles collapse, and enjoy the rise. Because this team has very little in common with the one we saw last season.

A little over a month ago, as the Eagles were coming off the bye and a close win over the Browns, there was panic around the city. The head coach was a "clown" according to multiple talking heads in the National Media, and the offense was underperforming. Now they are 7-2, with 5 straight wins. They sit atop the NFC East, and the top seed in the NFC is in arms reach. They are also top 10 in both offense and defense.

Yes, it was the Cowboys. Yes, the Cowboys are terrible. Yes, it was Cooper Rush and later Trey Lance. Yes, all of the teams they have beaten in these 5 weeks have had losing records. Those are all important bits of context.

Related: Eagles Roll Over Cowboys To Take Over 1st Place In NFC East

But don't let that context distract you from the reality of how good this team has looked. Even against losing teams, there are so many takeaways from those 5 games that tell the story of a team ready to contend. They are doing things we saw them do in 2022, but never saw last season. There might still be lingering doubt because of the 2023 season, but this team is not like that team.

For one, they did not beat up on bad teams last year. They lost to the Jets, Cardinals, Giants (with a backup), and Seahawks (with a backup), but then pulled out close wins over the Dolphins, Chiefs, Bills, and Cowboys. The comparison doesn't fit. Last year's team never beat up on the teams they were supposed to, and the defense or offense never looked like this.

So what should we take away from this team. Both in their win over the Cowboys and in the 4 wins prior to that. Just how real are the impressive numbers coming out of these games? Are they back to being a real contender?

The biggest difference so far this season has been the defense. They went from a defense that was old and slow, to one that is among the youngest and fastest in the league. We will get into some of the individual accomplishments in a bit, but first, let's look them as a unit.

In these last 5 games, they are 1st in both points allowed per game (13), and yards allowed per game (200.8). Now you might be thinking so what, look at how they have played. So let's actually look at who they have played, and how those teams have played against other defenses in these past 5 games.

That is while counting the 7 points for the Browns that came off a blocked FG return, and the 7 points for the Jags that came off a "fumble" return. Yes they have played bad teams, but they have done better against those teams than anyone else. And the Bengals may have a bad record, but they are still a top 10 0ffense. Don;t discount this defense just because of who they have played.

Cee Dee Lamb is one of the best WRs in the league. Sure he had Cooper Rush throwing to him, but shutting him down is still no simple feat. He put up decent numbers with Cooper Rush throwing to him in the past. But he put up just 21 yards yesterday. To be specific, when he was covered by either Quinyon Mitchell or Cooper DeJean, he had just 6 yards. 

The Eagles have a dynamic pair of young corners now. Quinyon held Ja'Marr Chase to just 16 yards a few weeks ago. teams have stopped even throwing his way because he has his side of the field so locked down. DeJean isn't just shutting his WR down, he continues to make impressive open-field tackles. We remember the tackle on 4th down against Chase, well he made a similar play this week against Lamb, albiet not in as big of a situation.

These two aren't just good for rookies, they have been 2 of the best corners in the league the past 5 games. Oh, and they have them on rookie deals for the next 4 seasons. That is a reason to be excited not just for this year, but for the future.

I saw a few people say Jalen Hurts can't throw a deep ball after he missed Devonta Smith deep with an underthrown pass. So I wanted to give this piece of information just to show how wrong that is. Not only he is great at throwing the deep ball, he is one of the best in the league. His 102.4 QB rating on throws 20+ yards downfield is better than Josh Allen (69.3), Patrick Mahomes (81.9), Jared Goff (93.8), CJ Stroud (62.1), and Joe Burrow (97). It puts him top 5 in the NFL, and he throws the deep ball more often than most QBs with a league-leading 9 throws of at least 40 yards.

He struggled with the deep ball early in his career, but in the last 3 seasons, few players have thrown it better. He came back later in that same game and threw a perfect 44-yard bomb to AJ Brown.

A stop is any run play that is considered successful for the defense. What that actually means varies from situation to situation, but basically, the defense won that play. Last year the Eagles LBs in 17 games had a combined 67 stops between 6 different linebackers. This year, in 9 games, Nakobe Dean and Zack Baun have 67 combined Stops. 

The Eagles LB group has made such a big leap this year. From being one of the worst vs both the run and the pass to being among the best vs both. They consistently grade out as two of the best LBs every week, especially Baun. You keep seeing them make plays on both sides of the field, whereas last year we saw the LBs either whiffing or getting run over, if they were there to make the play at all.

From the start of last season, through to week 7 this season, no team had fewer takeaways than the Eagles. In a 21-game stretch, they had just 12 takeaways. Per Rueben Frank, they are on the 3rd team in history to do that.

Since then, they have been forcing them left and right. 3 takeaways against the Bengals, 3 vs the Jaguars, and 5 this week vs the Cowboys. That is 11 takeaways in a 3-game span, 3.6 per game. Vic Fangio noted before this span that the team needed to improve in that area. Championship defenses force turnovers.

Go back and look at the least 10 Super Bowl winners, you will notice nearly all of them were in the top 10 for takeaways. Them turning this around is a massive deal. By the way, since we were talking about Baun already, it is worth noting he forced 2 of the Cowboys fumbles.

D'Andre Swift was a nice back for them last year. He hit the holes when they opened, and was near the top of the league in yards before contact. But yards before contact has a lot to do with what the O-Line is doing. It takes a decent RB to take advantage of that, but what separates good backs from great ones is what they do after contact.

Well in 17 games Swift had 582 yards after contact. Saquon Barkley, in 9 games, already has 570, including 3.3 per carry. He shares the league lead with Derrick Henry.

In the last 2 years, the Eagles had backs good enough to win when the O-Line one. But Barkley has the experience running behind a bad line, and he knows how to win without that help.  Barkley is among the best backs in the league. His presence has made a massive difference for this offense, which continues to be among the best in the league ever since AJ Brown returned.