January 08, 2024

Eagles snap count analysis: Week 18 at Giants

Breaking down the Eagles' personnel usage from their regular season finale against the Giants.

By Jimmy Kempski
PhillyVoice Staff

Vincent Carchietta/USA TODAY Sports

The Giants TKO'd the Eagles in just 29 minutes, and prominent starters like Jalen Hurts and Jason Kelce watched the second half from the sidelines.

In their Week 18 loss to the New York Giants, the Philadelphia Eagles played 65 snaps on offense and 67 on defense.

Disclaimer: Once the Eagles pulled Jalen Hurts, Lane Johnson, and Jason Kelce at the end of the first half, I just started writing and barely watched the second half at all.

Quarterback

• 37 snaps: Marcus Mariota

• 28 snaps: Jalen Hurts

Analysis: Hurts was 7 of 16 for 55 yards, 0 TDs, and 1 INT. Wink Martindale and the Giants came out blitzing Hurts out of the gate, as the Eagles knew for certain that he would. We shouldn't be surprised by now, but they had no answers for the blitz.

Hurts didn't play well, and he has had a disappointing season on the whole, but it's also true that the offensive staff has not put him in a position to succeed schematically. The success of the offense is dependent on Hurts, A.J. Brown, and DeVonta Smith making superhero plays. Sometimes they make them. Sometimes they don't. But the Eagles' coaching staff hasn't beaten their opponents during game prep from Tuesday to Friday for the bulk of this season, and have consistently needed the players to bail them out on gameday.

Running back

• 25 snaps: Kenny Gainwell

• 20 snaps each: Boston Scott and Rashaad Penny

Analysis: D'Andre Swift did not play due to illness.

The long wait for Penny to get some carries resulted in a stat line of 6-16-0.

Wide receiver

• 64 snaps: Quez Watkins

• 53 snaps: Olamide Zaccheaus

• 35 snaps: Britain Covey

• 17 snaps: Julio Jones

• 12 snaps: A.J. Brown

Analysis: Brown's reception, fumble, and injury set the tone for where this game was heading. Once he went out, it felt a whole lot like the team knew they were screwed.

Watkins had 8 catches for 93 yards and a TD, shown below:

Mariota finds Quez Watkins for the @Eagles TD

📺: #PHIvsNYG on CBS
📱: Stream on #NFLPlus https://t.co/X0vcyHUoyR pic.twitter.com/JKXnXbyxdO
— NFL (@NFL) January 7, 2024

He then celebrated his performance on social media:

Quez Watkins posts his TD celebration from today on his IG story: “I’ll 4eva bet on myself! 🤐” pic.twitter.com/EwXEWDEnrq
— Eagles Nation (@PHLEaglesNation) January 8, 2024

Watkins hasn't made the plays that have come his way over the last two seasons, and then when he finally did — during one of the worst team losses in franchise history — he made sure people knew, lol.

Tight end

• 38 snaps: Jack Stoll

• 23 snaps: Dallas Goedert

• 18 snaps: Grant Calcaterra

Analysis: Goedert finished this season with 59 catches for 592 yards and 3 TDs. He missed three games, but it's hard to view his season positively given the expectations.

Offensive line

• 65 snaps each: Jordan Mailata and Landon Dickerson

• 37 snaps each: Jack Driscoll and Sua Opeta

• 33 snaps: Fred Johnson

• 32 snaps: Cam Jurgens

• 28 snaps each: Lane Johnson and Jason Kelce

Analysis: Like Hurts above, the offensive line isn't completely absolved of blame for their failings against the blitz, but it's far more on the scheme than the players, in my opinion.

Edge defenders

• 41 snaps: Nolan Smith

• 30 snaps: Brandon Graham

• 26 snaps: Haason Reddick

• 12 snaps: Josh Sweat

Analysis: The pass rush has been non-existent over the last month and a half, but also, the defensive scheme is trash:

Hard for me to understand

Am I seeing this wrong defensive guys? pic.twitter.com/yMX4lFHz5x
— Dan Orlovsky (@danorlovsky7) January 8, 2024

But also, we saw this last week against the Cardinals and they didn't fix it.

#Eagles insisted on playing 5-man fronts against Arizona's 12 personnel. Watching live it looked like all Arizona had to do to trigger the Reddick zone drops was line up in 2x2 double nub looks with the twin WRs to Reddick's side. Shouldn't be that easy to negate a pass rusher. https://t.co/DJYY4zkO34
— Deniz Selman (@denizselman33) January 1, 2024

Brian Daboll likely showed that formation on the first play of the game to test if Reddick would drop into coverage, and I imagine he was pleasantly surprised to see that the Eagles hadn't adjusted.

Interior defensive line

• 37 snaps: Moro Ojomo

• 35 snaps: Jalen Carter

• 30 snaps: Marlon Tuipulotu

• 23 snaps: Milton Williams

• 17 snaps: Jordan Davis

Analysis: I thought Tuipulotu had a good game, so there's that! He seemed to be making plays when I'd pick my head up on occasion. (If he didn't have a good game, I don't care, and please don't contact me to disagree.)

Linebacker

• 62 snaps: Nicholas Morrow

• 32 snaps: Zach Cunningham

• 29 snaps each: Shaq Leonard and Patrick Johnson

Analysis: It looks like Barkley was Morrow's man on this long completion down the sideline.

Saquon having a DAY. 46-yard catch down the sideline.

📺: #PHIvsNYG on CBS
📱: Stream on #NFLPlus https://t.co/X0vcyHUoyR pic.twitter.com/AxAVsctnse
— NFL (@NFL) January 7, 2024

The All-22 from the first half of this game is going to be so ugly on both sides of the ball.