The Brandon Graham Injury Will Weigh Heavy On The Eagles

Even at 36, Brandon Graham was still making his presence felt for the Eagles. He had 3.5 sacks off edge, 12 stops, and 20 pressures. 1 of those sacks and 1 of those stops came in the Rams game, where Graham seemed to be all over the place.

But then what was a great night for him, turned into a nightmare. He left the game with an injury and afterward told the Eagles media he had torn his tricep and his season was over.

It is awful for multiple reasons. Firstly, because it just sucks on behalf of BG. He is an Eagles legend. He holds the record for most games played in an Eagles jersey. He just moved into 3rd place on the franchise sack list. It was BG who got the strip sack on Tom Brady that helped seal the Eagles 1st ever Super Bowl. For this to be how his career potentially ends is a shame.

But beyond feeling bad for Graham the human being, it hurts the Eagles as a team. Edge Rusher was already a bit of a weakness for them. Bryce Huff has not panned out so far this season and is currently on the IR. BG getting hurt too means they have just 3 Edge Rushers left. Josh Sweat, Nolan Smith, and Jalyx Hunt.

Sweat is having a bounce-back year. He is up to 7 sacks on the season. Nolan Smith after a disappointing rookie season has emerged a bit this year and is up to 3.5 sacks. Hunt has not played a ton in his rookie season yet, but has impressed in limited snaps.

This is nothing against those 3, but the loss of BG puts pressure on an already thin position. They signed KJ Henry to the practice squad, but they certainly can't bank on him helping. They can maybe get by now with just those 3 guys, but one more injury could be disastrous for them.

NFL insider James Palmer joined The Best Show Ever this week and talked about how the Brandon Graham could hurt the Eagles.

"They're just thinner at Edge. They haven't been able to get a whole lot of edge presence throughout the course of this year. This is actually a really big loss because it's not just the legend that is Brandon Graham who will never pay for a beer in Philly for the rest of his life. It's he was playing outstanding at 36 years old."

Luckily Graham said he will still be around as a leader. So they don't lose him entirely. That is a very important part of his place on the team. Saquon specifically credited Graham with how quickly he was able to fit into the Eagles locker room.

But the loss of the player will be big. Not saying it will sink their defense, that unit could still be very good, but the loss of Graham will be hard. Not just because they lack depth at Edge, but because he was playing so well this season.

The guys left will have to get by for now. They will not be able to handle any more injuries. Huff will be back at some point, and hopefully, he plays better when he does return. But for now, they are going to feel the loss of Brandon Graham.

The Eagles went into the bye week 2-2, and not many people had them as contenders. Since then, all they have done is win, literally. 7 games since the bye week, and they won all 7 of them. Most recently, they went out to LA and blew out the Rams.

Related: Eagles Impose Their Will On Rams, Like They Do To Everyone

For most of this winning streak, you could have argued their schedule was too easy. Browns, Giants, Cowboys, and Jaguars are all getting beaten by most teams. But even in that stretch, there were impressive moments. Beating the Bengals may not be impressive, but shutting down their offense is. And now they have beaten the Commanders and the Ramns in back-to-back weeks.

Looking only at their record, the Rams do not look like a tough opponent. 5-6 does not scream good team. but what that record does not show is they were 4-1 in their last 5 games, and the difference between their 1-4 start and that 4-1 period was getting healthy. The Eagles played a fully healthy Rams team. Cooper Kupp and Puka Nacua were both on the field. And they beat them pretty easily anyway.

This Eagles team is legit. The defense continues to play like one of the best units in the league. The offense, even without Devonta Smith, imposed their will on an impressive Rams defense. The first half might have been close, but like they have every week, the Eagles just bust the game wide open in the second half, and fans got another relaxing 4th quarter where they didn't have to worry about a comeback.

Just how good are they though? Let's take a deep dive into the numbers to see what the Eagles are doing to the Rams, and to everyone else in their way.

In the first half of games, Saquon Barkley is decent. He averages 4.4 yards per carry and has 3 TDs. Not spectacular, but quality production. In the second half of games, he is unstoppable though. He has 922 yards and 7 TDS on 116 carries. That is 7.9 yards per carry. 

By the way, that 920 yards is the 3rd most in the league. Not the 3rd most in the second half, the third most period. Only Derrick Henry and Josh Jacobs have more than 920 rushing yards this season. In the second half alone, he is the 3rd best running back in the league. Add in his first-half numbers, he has 207 more rushing yards than the next guy, Henry, and his 126.7  rushing yards per game is nearly 20 yards higher than Henry at 107.7.

This speaks to the Eagles' basic game plan. They wear teams down.  They beat you up, and eventually the dam breaks. And once it breaks, there is a flood. It is why they lead the NFL in 2nd half-points per game at 16.8. They play old-school physical Football. And most modern defenses are not built for that, as teams went smaller to try to counteract the explosive offenses of the modern era.

The Rams gave the Eagles' defense a little bit more trouble than most teams have. Not too much. They still held them to just 14 points before a garbage-time TD. But we are talking in relation to the past several games, where they just completely shut other offenses down. The Rams were able to move the ball a bit on the Eagles.

But no one could have expected the Eagles' defense to never give up yards. What matters is how you adjust. And after not forcing a third down in the entire first quarter, they were much better the rest of the game. In the next 7 drives, they gave up just 118 yards. That is 16.9 yards per drive. I took the final drive where they scored a garbage time TD out because at the point the game was over. But in the drives where the pressure was on, the defense was great. They were particularly great in the 2nd quarter.

Puka Nacua had his way a little bit, and the Darius Slay concussion is something to monitor as they were picking on Isaiah Rodgers a ton. But they faced the tough test of the Rams passing attack and mostly passed with flying colors.

Jalen Hurts is not putting up huge pass numbers. partly because the Eagles have the most balanced attack in the league, and run the ball more than any other team. So he is throwing less, and therefore, has fewer yards than a lot of other top QBs. But look a little deeper, and you will see just how efficient he is.

For one, he has just 1 interception in the last 7 games. A big deal given his penchant for throwing them last year and in the first 4 games this year. But more than that, he is not even throwing many incompletions. In those 7 games, he averages just 6.6 incompletions per game. His completion rate was over 70% in 4 of the 7 games. Most of his incompletions by the way are throwaways.

Hurts might not blow anyone away in the box score. But he is playing very well, and giving this Eagles offense exactly what they need. Oh and for what it is worth, he was a perfect 5 for 5 over the middle of the field.

We saw Quinyon get his toughest matchup last week with having to stick to Terry McLaurin all game long. He passed that test with flying colors. This week it was Cooper DeJean's chance. Cooper Kupp spent most of his time in the slot, that was where he lined up 65.9% of the time. So DeJean saw him more often than anyone.

Dejean was targeted 4 times and gave up just 11 yards when covering Kupp, per PFF. He also wound up on Puka Nucua a few times. And while he did give up 1 18-yard gain, he also had a tremendous play where he broke up a pass to Nacua. By the end, he had given up just 38 yards to Nucua, better than most of the Eagles' secondary did.

Now Mitchell did get beat once and gave up his 1st TD of the season to Cooper Kupp. But 1, it was in garbage time when the Eagles switched to a soft zone, so it is hard to blame him fully. And also, Quinyon gave up just 21 yards before that drive, including only 14 when covering Nacua.

The two rookie corners faced another tough test, and they looked fantastic. It is time to stop saying they are being tested, and just acknowledge they are fantastic players. Even if they do hit a speed bump at some point, there is no reason to doubt them going forward.

Nick Sirianni takes a lot of heat, often deserved. But you have to give the guy credit, all he does is win. He had 1 awful 1-6 stretch last year, but outside that the dude rarely ever loses. He has his team 9-2 this year. But even more impressive is what he does on the road. He is 5-1 this season, but 23-9 since taking over as the Eagles Coach. That is a road winning % of (.719). Only Andy Reid has a better road record during that span.

It was actually pointed out to Sirianni last week heading into the game, and this was his response.

"We take pride in that. I just think that speaks volumes of our players and coaches that they handle that. I didn’t know that stat. That’s a cool stat, and we take pride in that. That’s just another opportunity to lock arms, and go at it together, and try to battle all game and win.”

Flaws and all, we need to acknowledge the guy knows how to win. He has his finger on the pulse of that team. The locker room loves him. He may occasionally baffle us, but if it leads to wins, who cares?

The Rams blocking plan was simple. Don't let Jalen Carter beat you. They double-teamed him 62.9% of the time on pass-rushing snaps per Next Gen Stats. At one point in the game, that rate was 79%. And he was still disrupting the game, and the Rams still probably got away with some holds against him.

The guy is playing nearly every snap right now, and he gets double-teamed on the vast majority of them. Yet you will still notice him making an impact. He is not exactly stuffing the stat sheet, but anyone who watches the game knows how much of a game-wrecker he is. What Carter is doing directly leads to sacks and pressures for his teammates.