Philadelphia Eagles

Eagles-Ravens Film Review: The offense did enough

Posted on by newssite

Analyzing Philadelphia’s offensive performance from their Week 13 win over Baltimore.

What a fantastic win for the Philadelphia Eagles! This was not the greatest offensive performance, and there are definitely a lot of things to work on, but the offense did enough against the Baltimore Ravens in the end to get the win.

Offense

The Eagles didn’t have a lot of success on the ground in the first half, but they did start the game with this fantastic run! The Eagles ran a lot of counter in this game and they must have seen a flaw with the Ravens’ defense when it comes to dealing with counter. This is a wonderful way to start the game. It’s impossible to highlight every offensive lineman every week, but I thought they all were good once again. In particular, I thought Mekhi Becton was dominant at times. Just look at the strength on show here. The EDGE defender nearly goes flying. Although they didn’t run the ball that well in the first half, I was glad they stayed committed to the run. These runs wore down the defense and helped the offense down the stretch.

Right, shall we talk about the Eagles’ struggles at the start of games? I haven’t really got into it at all this season. It feels like one of those fluky things that will eventually correct itself. But, this was the first week I was a little worried by what I saw. This week, I noticed the issues with the passing game. I don’t think anyone covered themselves in glory on the first few possessions. Jalen Hurts wasn’t pulling the trigger when he had open receivers, such as below. As you can see below, the receivers were not getting open and would sometimes run the wrong route. Lastly, I thought the playcalling was very safe and basic and didn’t provide Hurts with many options.

I have a theory this week. I think that Hurts needs to get into a rhythm before he feels comfortable. It seemed clear to me this week that Kellen Moore was calling very conservative plays to attempt to get him going. Hurts just doesn’t seem to start very well at all. A good example was the 3rd down deep shot he missed to AJ Brown along the sideline. If that exact throw was in the 2nd half, I’m convinced he makes it 99 times out of 100. Whatever the issues with the passing game, the Eagles need to start quicker. It may not matter now, but you don’t want to end up 10-0 down to a top team like the Detroit Lions later on in the season.

Seeing as that was quite critical of Hurts; it is fair to point out that some of the play designs in the game were really poor. I mean, what is this on 3rd down? This is about as easy to defend as you can get. The very best offenses make the defense cover a lot of ground. You want to stretch a defense vertically with speedy receivers and then stretch a defense horizontally to create a lot of space in the middle of the field. What does this play call do? None of the above. It makes it so easy for the defense and gives Hurts absolutely no options if the comeback routes are not open. He bails from the pocket and takes a sack, but this is not his fault. The passing concepts have to be better early on in games. I do like Kellen Moore, and I think he’s been a very good hire, but I’ve been saying for weeks that I’m still not convinced by the designs in the passing game.

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