NFL Analysis
12/19/23
6 min read
Eagles' Offensive Identity Crisis Makes Super Bowl Return Unlikely
Think about all the Philadelphia Eagles' worst moments on offense from Monday night's loss to the Seattle Seahawks.
On the game's second drive, Jalen Hurts chucked it deep on second-and-5 to DeVonta Smith for an incompletion. That was followed by a false start and another incompletion, sending the punt team on. Series over.
Two drives later, their two-minute drive attempt stalled out with three straight incompletions.
More of the same haunted the Eagles out of the half. They called three straight passes on their first drive of the third quarter, only gaining yardage on a second down scramble by Hurts. The other two plays were incompletions to Dallas Goedert and Kenneth Gainwell.
Hurts threw an interception on a first-and-10 shot play to Quez Watkins on the next drive early in the fourth quarter, killing a drive where they were nearly at midfield in a 17-13 game.
Seemingly at random, the Eagles just kept getting away from the run game. All of their scoring drives were slogs that required run after run after run to trudge down the field. Yet, they often abandoned that identity in favor of a passing game that lacks a consistent heartbeat.
Eagles' Identity Crisis
Monday night's loss was maybe the most egregious example of the Eagles getting away from who they are at their core, but it's been a problem all season long.
No matter how well they're running the ball in a given game, they always have these stretches where they don't want to, and they try to spice things up with the passing game. It almost always feels like a case of change for the sake of change.
That's such a departure from what the Eagles were a season ago under offensive coordinator Shane Steichen, now the Colts head coach. Steichen was devilishly good at finding the thing that squeezed the life out of opposing defenses and hitting that button repeatedly.
More often than not, it was the run game. Some weeks, it was RPOs. Some weeks, it was the quarterback run game. Other weeks, it was getting Jason Kelce activated on the perimeter. Still, they almost always had an answer in the run game they could sculpt the game plan around and lean on whenever they needed a scoring drive.
Rookie playcaller Brian Johnson has struggled to find that same rhythm. It's not that Johnson never runs the ball or doesn't have stretches where they pound the rock — the Eagles still run the ball at an above-average rate — but anecdotally, you feel the Eagles stray from the run game in baffling ways.
The spurts of going away from the run game are frustrating for two core reasons. The first is that this is what the team is built to do. Look at the roster up front.
Eagles Are Built to Run
Jordan Mailata may as well be The Hulk at left tackle, right tackle Lane Johnson is a stud, and Kelce's movement skills at center give the Eagles run game flexibility no other team has.
They've also got a rushing threat at quarterback in Hurts, even if he's not been 100 percent this year.
The Eagles have been lights out running the ball this season, too. Hurts individually has not been as dynamic, but the designed run game is still moving people. Through 15 weeks, they rank second in success rate (54.4 percent) and sixth in EPA per designed run (0.01), according to TruMedia. They were better in 2022 but are still mashing teams this year.
Also, just think back to when the Eagles have been at their best these past two seasons. Some monster deep throws to A.J. Brown and Smith surely come to mind, but as an overall operation, the Eagles are their most devastating when they are sitting on the ball and daring teams to win at the line of scrimmage.
With the Tush Push as a cherry on top, defending the Eagles on the ground is exhausting.
Passing Game Grounded
Part two of the equation is the Eagles are not the same team throwing the ball this season. Swapping out Steichen for Johnson certainly plays a role there.
As he did with the run game, Steichen did an awesome job finding the easiest answers in the passing game and forcing defenses to stop it before moving on to something else, all without ever feeling like he was wasting plays. Johnson hasn't found that groove.
The quarterback is also partly to blame. Hurts has not taken to the "new" offense well. For whatever reason, perhaps the lingering knee issues, Hurts has not played with the same confidence in the system and from the pocket he did a season ago.
Anything beyond RPOs, shot plays and simple quick-game concepts have been a roller coaster for Hurts all year.
Monday night's game showed precisely that. Hurts and the passing game succeeded on a few RPOs and picked the Seahawks apart underneath with curl and flat routes, but they connected on almost nothing else.
Johnson has not found the right mix of concepts to get Hurts going in the intermediate area during certain parts of the season, especially on true dropbacks without play-action.
The team has relied on the raw talent on the roster being conducive to explosive plays. Hurts throws the hell out of a go ball, and Brown and Smith are excellent down the field. Brown is also one of the scariest players in the league with the ball in his hands. Against many teams, that talent level wins out in the aggregate.
Losing to a 6-7 Seahawks (now 7-7) team on Monday night is what it looks like when those explosive plays don't show up at the end to save the day like Superman.
Time Is Running Out
This loss doesn't ruin the Eagles' season. They're already a playoff team. Taking the crown in the NFC East will be more challenging now, but winning the division won't get them the first seed over the 49ers.
The Eagles will have to win a road playoff game at some point if they want to get back to the Super Bowl, and losing to the Seahawks doesn't change that.
That being said, the loss does put a spotlight on the Eagles' clunkiness on offense and inability to find who they are. The Eagles should know who they are because they were that team one short season ago but haven’t recreated that same magic this year.
For the early parts of the year, that was excusable. Adjusting to a new playcaller, especially one as green as Johnson, is more than understandable.
It's not a crime to need to get your sea legs under you in the NFL.
Postseason ball is three weeks away, though. There isn't much sand left in the hourglass before this becomes a problem on the biggest stage. If the Eagles can not embrace their true identity in the next month, their hopes of reaching the Super Bowl again will be slashed.
