November 22, 2023
In their Week 11 matchup against the Kansas City Chiefs, the Philadelphia Eagles played 56 snaps on offense and 79 on defense. Let's just get right to the snap counts, and some notes.
• 56 snaps: Jalen Hurts
Analysis: Hurts was 14 of 22 for 150 yards, 0 TDs, and 1 INT. He had 12 carries for 29 yards and 2 TDs, with a couple Brotherly Shoves mixed in. Those numbers are not going to wow anyone.
That was a difficult night for Hurts, who faced constant pressure on his dropbacks, and who did not get much help from his best receiver. A.J. Brown. I thought the INT was on Brown, who did not run his route.
"You’re better off just running the original route." - Peyton breaks down what went wrong on the Jalen Hurts - AJ Brown missed connection that led to the INT. pic.twitter.com/9Bx1J99QzQ
— Omaha Productions (@OmahaProd) November 21, 2023
It's hard to know for sure whether the Eagles coach this in a way in which Brown has the option to turn his route up the field, or if he was just freelancing. My guess is the latter, but I will seek clarification on that this week.
I do think Hurts made some great throws. His deep ball to Brown was in a good spot, but it looked like Brown had difficulty tracking it, and could not make the play. That's usually a touchdown, in my opinion.
His deep ball to Smith was the biggest play of the game offensively. Nick Sirianni said that Hurts audibled at the line on the play. At the snap, you can see that Hurts takes a long hard look to the left side of the field, but he is going to Smith all the way here. The look to the left keeps deep safety occupied and leaves Smith one-on-one with a safety on the right side. The throw is good-not-great, but it doesn't matter because Hurts engineered an ideal matchup with his pre-snap recognition.
BIG TIME PLAY 🎯 pic.twitter.com/qRNiLbqolo
— Philadelphia Eagles (@Eagles) November 21, 2023
That is high level quarterback play from Hurts, and his continued improvement mentally is really encouraging to see.
• 36 snaps: D'Andre Swift
• 17 snaps: Kenny Gainwell
• 7 snaps: Boston Scott
Analysis: Swift had a good game. 12 carries, 76 yards (6.1 YPC), 1 TD to go along with 3 catches for 31 yards. He had a number of memorable plays in this game:
• He had a 17-yard run down to the 4 on a weird looking play in which Hurts was trying to give the ball to Swift, who didn't initially take it. That play looked doomed initially, but Swift made a play.
• Next play, 4-yard TD run to the right.
• He had a 35-yard gain down to the Chiefs 15 on a jet sweep. That was a nice looking play. Swift was coming across the formation in motion pre-snap almost at full speed and he took the handoff without breaking stride. The timing on that play was outstanding, and the Eagles likely repped that quite a bit.
• He had 2 screens in the middle of the field that were set up nicely. One went for 20 yards. Another had some nice potential, but Swift didn't follow his convoy of blockers down the field for some reason.
We did not memorialize Swift's performance in our postgame "10 awards" post, but probably should have. Bad job by me.
• 53 snaps each: A.J. Brown and DeVonta Smith
• 32 snaps: Julio Jones
• 22 snaps: Olamide Zaccheaus
• 1 snap: Britain Covey
Analysis: Smith was the star receiver for the Eagles on Monday night. He had 6 catches for 99 yards, including the 41-yard bomb shown above. That was a great concentration catch.
Brown only had 1 catch for 8 yards on 4 targets. Obviously, he has been a star player this season and as a big reason as any why the Eagles are 9-1, but as noted above he did not have a good game.
• 31 snaps: Jack Stoll
• 12 snaps: Grant Calcaterra
• 10 snaps: Albert Okwuegbunam
Analysis: During the week leading up to this game, a reporter asked Sirianni if Dallas Goedert's continued presence on the 53-man roster meant that he could be back from his forearm injury relatively soon, and Sirianni acknowledged, “There’s a reason he’s not on IR yet.”
We'll see. I thought the Eagles missed Goedert's contributions in the passing game on Monday night.
• 56 snaps each: Jordan Mailata, Landon Dickerson, Jason Kelce, Cam Jurgens, and Lane Johnson
• 3 snaps: Jack Driscoll
Analysis: Steve Spagnuolo is a really good defensive coordinator, and he gave the Eagles' offensive line a lot of difficult looks to try to block up. Chris Jones had 2 sacks, Trent McDuffie had 2 sacks, and George Karlaftis had 1.
I saw Lane Johnson getting some heat for one of Jones' sacks, shown here:
Chris Jones has his 2nd sack in three plays 😤
— NFL (@NFL) November 21, 2023
📺: #PHIvsKC on ESPN/ABC
📱: Stream on #NFLPlus https://t.co/f0JSux0GFT pic.twitter.com/Y75Hu2wsJE
That's a blocking technique that the Eagles use for plays in which they're inviting edge rushers up the field (screens, draws, etc.), allowing them to take themselves out of the play. Johnson is trying to shove Jones further up the field. He just doesn't get enough of Jones, who is unfazed by Johnson's push and is able narrow his angle to the quarterback.
This play fails because the screen isn't there, but Hurts has no chance of improvising because Jones is on him so quickly. So it's debatable whether you might give Johnson at least partial responsibility for this sack, in my opinion. (I probably wouldn't.)
Side note: Chris Jones is a beast.
• 68 snaps: Haason Reddick
• 67 snaps: Josh Sweat
• 25 snaps: Brandon Graham
• 5 snaps: Nolan Smith
Analysis: Reddick and Sweat played a lot, and Sweat looked exhausted after the game. Would the Eagles like to get Nolan Smith some more snaps? Sure, but expect Reddick's and Sweat's snap counts to remain high when the Eagles get into dogfights like the one they were in Monday night. Those guys are star players and they simply aren't going to come off the field very much in close games.
The way the schedule shapes up, the Eagles could really use a few comfortable wins in their final three games against the Giants, Cardinals, and Giants so that Reddick and Sweat can get some rest. But for now, against this difficult stretch of opponents, expect them to play a ton.
Reddick had a sack, bringing his total on the season up to 8.5. He needs 1.5 sacks to have his fourth straight double-digit sack season. Sweat did not have any sacks, but he had the finishing blow on defense when he forced Patrick Mahomes into an intentional grounding call.
• 58 snaps: Fletcher Cox
• 43 snaps: Jalen Carter
• 37 snaps: Jordan Davis
• 28 snaps: Milton Williams
• 9 snaps: Marlon Tuipulotu
Analysis: Carter had some highlight reel rushes, but they didn't turn into big plays. He'll get his. It's only a matter of time. Daniel Jeremiah noted that he was getting held a lot in this game:
Jalen Carter gets held on almost every play.
— Daniel Jeremiah (@MoveTheSticks) November 21, 2023
Personally, I thought the Chiefs' offensive tackles got away with holds all night on Reddick and Sweat, but certainly their interior guys were guilty of some of that as well.
Williams was really good in the run game, as shown by Fran Duffy:
One guy who popped on every single drive last night? Milton Williams. Has taken huge strides every year as a pro and is playing his best football #FlyEaglesFly pic.twitter.com/fvgCKXe6ap
— Fran Duffy (@EaglesXOs) November 21, 2023
He had 5 tackles on the night on just 28 snaps.
• 72 snaps: Zach Cunningham
• 55 snaps: Nicholas Morrow
• 2 snaps: Christian Elliss
Analysis: Cunningham has been a really nice find off the street for the Eagles this season, but I thought that some of the Chiefs' effectiveness in the run game in the first half fell on the shoulders of the linebackers.
The Colts waived Shaq Leonard on Tuesday. If he clears waivers, I think it's a no-brainer for the Eagles to try to add him.
• 79 snaps each: Darius Slay, James Bradberry, Reed Blankenship, and Kevin Byard
• 44 snaps: Bradley Roby
• 27 snaps: Sydney Brown
• 13 snaps: Eli Ricks
Analysis: Byard had his best game since joining the Eagles, by far. He baited Mahomes into a red zone INT, and played really well against Travis Kelce all night.
I thought Blankenship was an under-the-radar superb player on Monday night, covering up for the rest of the defense on runs that got to the second level. He made a lot of open field tackles and minimized damage. He also got 3 snaps on offense, by the way, on kneeldowns. The Eagles average -1 yards per play when Blankenship plays on offense. #Analytics.
Roby played the most snaps in the slot, as expected, but Ricks got some playing time as well. Roby was up and down. His "Peanut punch" on Kelce was one of the biggest plays of the game, but he also got roasted by Marquez Valdes-Scantling late in the game, but was lucky that MVS dropped it. To note, that might have been a coverage bust and not totally on Roby, but Roby also couldn't run with MVS.
I thought Slay and Bradberry were both solid in coverage against average receivers, but they both missed tackles.
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