October 23, 2017
One of the biggest themes of the Eagles' 2015 and 2016 seasons was how many passes the teams' skill position players dropped.
For some reason, as heavily as the NFL is covered from a statistical metric standpoint, there are no reliable sources for drops. By my count, in watching every incompletion on the season, the Eagles dropped 43 passes in 2016
While drops are certainly subjective to some degree, the following is a representation of the number of drops by each Eagles player in 2016. We'll order them by number of drops, but the column to the far right shows the total drop percentage of what we'll refer to as "reasonably catchable passes," or drops divided by (drops plus catches). To be clear, that's not total targets, which I believe are a bad measure of drop percentage, seeing as the receiver often has no chance of catching some of those targets. Got it? No? Yes? Well whatever, here's what I came up with:
| Player | Drops | Catches | Drop % of catchable passes |
| Dorial Green-Beckham | 12 | 36 | 25% |
| Jordan Matthews | 8 | 73 | 9.9% |
| Nelson Agholor | 6 | 36 | 14.3% |
| Trey Burton | 4 | 37 | 9.8% |
| Darren Sproles | 4 | 52 | 7.1% |
| Kenjon Barner | 2 | 5 | 28.6% |
| Zach Ertz | 2 | 78 | 2.5% |
| Byron Marshall | 1 | 3 | 25% |
| Wendell Smallwood | 1 | 6 | 14.3% |
| Paul Turner | 1 | 9 | 10% |
| Ryan Mathews | 1 | 13 | 7.1% |
| Brent Celek | 1 | 14 | 6.7% |
| Others with no drops | 0 | 18 | 0% |
| TOTAL | 43 | 380 | 10.2% |
The following players with at least one reception had no drops:
The two biggest offenders of drops were Dorial Green-Beckham, who had absurdly bad hands, and Jordan Matthews. Green-Beckham was waived by the Eagles before training camp even began, and Matthews ended up being a throw-in player in a trade with Buffalo for cornerback Ronald Darby.
Through six games in 2017, here's how many drops I count for the Eagles' players:
| Player | Drops | Catches | Drop % of catchable passes |
| Torrey Smith | 4 | 14 | 22.2% |
| Nelson Agholor | 3 | 20 | 13.0% |
| Alshon Jeffery | 1 | 24 | 4.0% |
| Darren Sproles | 1 | 7 | 12.5% |
| Wendell Smallwood | 1 | 7 | 12.5% |
| Zach Ertz | 1 | 34 | 2.9% |
| Trey Burton | 1 | 6 | 14.3% |
| Others with no drops | 0 | 14 | 0% |
| TOTAL | 12 | 126 | 8.7% |
The following players with at least one reception have had no drops:
Obviously, the biggest offender so far this season has been Torrey Smith, who has dropped four passes vs. just 14 receptions. Still, that's not even as bad as Green-Beckham's season in 2016, which was over a much larger sample size.
On the bright side, where DGB seemed to be oblivious to how bad he was, Smith understands that he needs to play better:
In the middle of the worst stretch of my career...I'll bounce back...proud of the team
— Torrey Smith (@TorreySmithWR) October 1, 2017
When comparing 2016 with 2017, here's what the drop percentage of catchable passes looks like:
| Year | Drop % of catchable passes |
| 2016 | 10.2% |
| 2017 | 8.7% |
Doug Pederson offered up some reasoning for the Eagles' improvement in catching the football.
"I just think that it's another year in the system, another year with Carson," he said. "Guys are really working hard before practice on jugs machines, so they're staying after and throwing after, throwing during practice. Once say the defense's portion of the practice is up, they're over there throwing on the side. And it's just a constant work in progress. It's just a focus and attention to detail. Mike Groh has done a great job with individual drills with focus and concentration on the ball, and I think that's a big credit to why the guys are hanging on to the football."
The Eagles have indeed been better with drops so far this season, and Wentz has done a good job getting the football right back to players who have just dropped a pass. For example, on Zach Ertz's lone drop this season, which was in the end zone, Wentz went right back to him on the next play for a score. He has also gone right back to Nelson Agholor on the very next play after two different drops.
Still, there's room for improvement, as a drop rate of 8.7 percent isn't awesome, and must continue to improve. If you're looking for a silver lining here, by the way, Wentz is having an MVP caliber season despite his receivers continuing to drop a fair amount of passes.
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