Week 15 Eagles Power Rankings Roundup: A Little Stumble

After having several fairly easy wins in a row, the Eagles finally had an ugly week. They won, but they had some problems with the Panthers, and it has led to a tiny bit of panic setting in. But has it changed how people think about them around the league? Here is the Week 15 Eagles Power Rankings Roundup.

"The Eagles had one of the worst defenses in the league in 2023 and have done a complete 180 under new coordinator Vic Fangio. Philadelphia allows the fewest yards per game (284.2) and is tied for second in points per game (18) compared with 30th last season (25.2)."

So you beat the Ravens convincingly, you go down 1 spot, but barely beat the Panthers, and you jump a spot? 3 or 2 is probably where they should have been all along, but the line graph for where ESPN has the Eagles every week is just odd.

"Jalen Hurts has left some meat on the bone. He held onto the ball too long against the Panthers, missed some downfield chances, checked down too often, and was guilty of some bad decisions. A.J. Brown also only had four targets, which is criminal. Philly is a Super Bowl-caliber team, but the latest showing certainly wasn't its best."

Yea AJ Brown not being utilized enough has to change. Get him involved early with designed plays in the 1st quarter. Maybe then the 1st quarter woes will go away. We have seen quite enough targets for Johnny Wilson or Jahan Dotson on the first drive of the game.

"It wasn't pretty against the Panthers, but good teams have games like that. The good news is they still found a way to win it."

I think last year's onslaught of ugly wins has soured us too much on the whole concept of ugly wins. If you win ugly every week it is bad. But they have not had many ugly wins this year. The wins over the Commanders, Rams, and Ravens were not ugly.

Sometimes teams win ugly. The Lions did it vs the Bears on Thanksgiving. You won't look great every single week. They struggled, and they survived, as long as it is not a trend, don't worry about it.

"QB Jalen Hurts is two wins shy of the third 11-game winning streak (playoffs excluded) of his career. But rather than the focus being on such success, he's at the center of another potential meltdown as internal complaints about Philly's struggling passing game are surfacing despite the team's loaded win column."

I maintain the problem is just the lack of attempts. They have swung too far toward the run game. They need to keep things more balanced and take more risks in the passing game. Hurts has a great deep ball, and you have 2 great WRs, let it rip downfield the bit. They have thrown just 4 passes further than 20 yards in the last 4 games.

Related: Jalen Hurts Needs To Take More Risks Throwing The Ball

"The moment a team trades for, drafts, or signs a great wide receiver, there must be a Batman villain-type countdown clock to when the bomb of discontent explodes."

Dropping a team 4 sports because they won is insane. The Chiefs have won that way all season long, and they moved up 2 spots this week. Oh no, a WR wants more targets. Now he is like every single star WR in the league, sound the alarm bells.

If you react this wildly to one ugly game, you don't have opinions, you have reactions. Connor Orr sounding the alarm bells in his Power Rankings just makes him sound silly.

"Apparently there's some panic over the Eagles getting just 108 passing yards in a win on Sunday vs. the Panthers. Jalen Hurts is averaging barely over 200 yards per game. Apparently, when Philly is on a nine-game winning streak, you have to find something to worry about."

Saying the Eagles need to be better in the pass game is reasonable. Acting like the sky is falling because they had 1 ugly game in a 9 game-winning streak is not reasonable. Thank you to Frank Schwab from Yahoo Sports for keeping things in perspective.

They literally just beat the Ravens, and did so pretty easily. That should have ended all doubts anyone has if this team is the real deal or not.

The Eagles won their 9th straight game, are 11-2, and at worst will probably be the 2-seed. Those are the numbers that matter most. Over the course of these 9 wins, they have mostly looked like a Super Bowl Contender, separating them from what we saw from the Eagles last year.

Sunday's game vs the Panthers had far more in common with what we saw in 2023 though. It was sloppy on both sides of the ball, and they just barely escaped with a win over a team they were favored by 13 points over. The passing game was mostly non-existent, and the usually dominant defense was leaking oil all game long.

Related: Eagles Survive vs. the Panthers To Keep Winning Streak Alive

Again, they won, and that is what matters most. But for the first time in several weeks, there was stress involved in that win. They handled the Commanders, Rams, and Ravens pretty easily. All of those games were comfortable wins by the end, even if there were speed bumps on the way.

But the Panthers game was close from start to finish. They needed a 4th down stop in the final minutes of the game to seal their win. The switch never really flipped for the Eagles. We had seen them start slow, only to eventually make up for it by being unstoppable in the second half. That didn't quite happen this week. They never found their rhythm and needed a lucky drop by the Panthers to come away with the win.

So how should we view the game? Was it just a blip on the radar for a great team, or are there concerning signs that could eventually cause a loss? Should we be worried about how bad the passing game looked? Is Jake Elliott a problem waiting to happen? Let's dive into the numbers from the game to find out.

Let's start with the thing that is the most concerning trend, mostly because it is actually a trend we have seen all season long. Jake Elliott is bad this year. But he is specifically bad when it comes to 50+ yard FGs. From anywhere else he is 18 for 19. But he is now 0 for 5 from distance. The first kicker to go 0 for 5 from 50 plus since the early 90s. It got to the point that with a long FG on the table near the end of the game, they instead chose to take a delay of game, and then punt from the Panthers ' 41-yard line.

The Eagles clearly don't trust him from a distance, which is a problem. They are not the only team with kicker problems, but the team most in their way, the Lions, have a kicker who is 5 for 5 from long distance. That NFC Championship game, provided the Eagles and the Lions both get there, could very well come down to a FG.

The Lions have a massive advantage in that case. Jake Bates has been as reliable as it gets. Meanwhile, the Eagles don't even trust Elliott right now, that is a problem. And the Eagles just might need to be more aggressive on 4th down when they are in that 50+ yard FG range.

The Eagles passing game is very top-heavy, They have AJ Brown, Devonta Smith, and not much else at WR. Johnny Wilson has been great as a blocker but does not provide much else yet, Britain Covey can't stay healthy, and Jahan Dotson has been a massive disappointment. They usually also have Dallas Goedert, but with his injury, we likely won't see him again until the playoffs.

Which begs the question, how did they go through the whole first half with Brown and Smith combining for only 6 targets? The first of which didn't come until there were 6 seconds left in the first quarter. The first and only target to AJ Brown in the 1st half didn't come until there was 1:26 left in the half.

With Goedert out, the offense should run through 3 players outside of Hurts. Brown, Smith, and Barkley. Obvioulsy you keep others involved a bit. But the Eagles need to get those guys involved way earlier. There have been too many first drives where those guys don't get involved. Stop running plays for Dotson or Johnny Wilson early, and get Brown going with some early slants.

Okay, the first 2 numbers were negative, but they did win, so let's get a little positivity. Specifically let's look at the positives of something that had people a bit down right now, the passing game. Only 108 yards passing is obviously bad. Hurts did have 2 passing TDs, both in the Red Zone, but moving the ball through the air was an issue all game long.

But let's look at the big picture. While they may have averaged just 5.1 yards per pass in this game, they average 8.0 on the season, good for the 7th best number in the league. Better than Josh Allen, better than Joe Burrow, and better than Justin Herbert. The counting numbers for Hurts are lower because the Eagles have a more balanced attack than anyone in the league. But when they do throw it, they have usually been very efficient, just not on this Sunday.

Hurts has been able to push the ball downfield this season, he is still tied for 1st with the most passing TDs of 20+ yards (7). Among QBs with at least 5 starts, he is 6th with a Passer Rating of 103.9 on passes over 20 yards.

The passing game needs some work. As said earlier, they need to get Brown and Smith more involved early. But it is not as broken as people want to act like it is. They just have some issues they need to work out.

Cooper DeJean had been having a tremendous rookie season, he hit his 1st roadblock on Sunday, and its name was Adam Theilen. Theilen accounted for 102 of the Panthers 191 passing yards. He caught 4 passes for 49 yards against Dejean. Not too bad, but 3 of those 4 catches were for 1st downs, all coming on 3rd down.

1 game does not mean DeJean is not as good as we thought he was. He has been tremendous and has played better against better WRs. But it is a reminder that he is a rookie, and is going to make mistakes. The Eagles' defense, as good as it has been, is relying on a lot of youth. That can be a very good thing and has been for most of the year. But youth has its issues too, and we saw it a little bit on Sunday.

Credit to him though, he battled through his struggles and still made some plays. You can tell a lot about a player from how they react when they struggle, and he handled his first off game well.

Eagles were still able to run the ball very well on Sunday. Saquon himself averaged 6.2 yards per carry, but as a team, they averaged 6.7 per carry. We have learned this team can run on anyone. The Panthers' run defense is brutal, but they also just ran all over the Ravens who had been the best run defense in the league.

Running the ball a lot is a viable game plan. They need to keep it balanced and get the passing game working as well again. But we should not be worried that some team will come out and stop the run, because no team has been able to do so yet.

Saquon just set the Eagles record with 4 games to go. So you can't even say he has an extra game because he did it in 13 games. He may still break Eric Dickerson's record. They have the best run game in the league, between both Saquon and Hurts, who looked explosive on the ground.

The bigger issue in the week 14 slate of games was not how the Eagles played, but that the Lions won again. They remain a 1 loss team. Could they lose 1 more over the last 4 games? Sure. But that win over the Packers pretty much means that the Eagles will need the Lions to lose 2 games to pass them in the standings.

They have the Bills this week. That could easily be a loss. But then the Lions would also need to lose to either the Niners, Bears, or Vikings. And they will need the Vikings to lose a game as well. All of that, on top of the Eagles needing to win out.

The path to the 1-seed is looking very narrow. The good news is the 2-seed is close to being wrapped up. It will be very tough for the NFC South or West winners to catch the Eagles are this point. That goes double for the Commanders in the division. The difference between that 1 seed and the 2-seed is massive though. Only 1 team gets the bye, and it would guarantee home-field throughout the playoffs.