September 25, 2023
A few days ago, we solicited questions for an Eagles mailbag via Twitter or whatever it's called now. Thank you as always for doing half the work for me. This is Part II of a two-part mailbag (Part I here). Let's just get right to it.
Question from @bigseb31213: What’s going on with the offensive line in pass pro? The focus has been in the secondary and passing game, but the “best O-line in football” has given up the 2nd most sacks?
In 2022, the Eagles took 48 sacks (44 during the regular season, four in the playoffs). When we assigned blame for each of those 48 sacks, it was determined that offensive linemen were responsible for 18.5 of them. In 2021, the Eagles took 32 sacks. I assigned blame to offensive linemen for 14.5 of them. In other words, Jalen Hurts being sacked a bunch of times doesn't necessarily mean the offensive line is at fault.
Here are the seven sacks the Eagles have allowed so far, with what I see on each sack thereafter:
Eagles sacks allowed, first two games pic.twitter.com/GAiOmyFM6p
— Jimmy Kempski (@JimmyKempski2) September 24, 2023
• Sack 1: This looks like a miscommunication. The Eagles are in empty, and the Pats are rushing 6. Lane Johnson is put in a situation in which he has to choose between two rushers, and the Eagles' linemen are taught to take the inside guy, who has a shorter path to the quarterback. It looks to me like Cam Jurgens should have had 90 and Dickerson should have come off of 91 and blocked 8 (easier said than done). It's hard to say whether this was scheme, whether Hurts should have hit a hot, or if it's on the O-line. It's at least partly on the O-line here, in my opinion, with Jurgens probably being the most at fault.
• Sack 2: Hurts has adequate time, but he eventually vacates the pocket and steps out of bounds for a loss of 0. It's funny to me that this is even considered a sack, but whatever.
• Sack 3: Hurts doesn't see the corner blitz until it's too late, but clearly no offensive lineman is at fault here.
• Sack 4: All of the Eagles' offensive linemen win their reps, and D'Andre Swift does enough against the blitzing linebacker to give Hurts a lane to step up into. Hurts tucks and runs and loses 1. This one is not on the offensive line.
• Sack 5: 40 and 91 criss-cross in front of Jurgens, and he blocks neither. Goedert wrecks 91, but 91 and 40 still create enough disruption in the backfield to mess up this play, and 99 cleans up. I'd put this one on Jurgens.
• Sack 6: Hurts has eleventy billion seconds to throw before eventually trying to run and being taken down by 99. Again, not on the O-line.
• Sack 7: Very next play, Hurts takes another terrible sack (totally on him), and 99 gets his third cheapy of the day.
Of the Eagles' 7 sacks allowed this season, 5 were not on the O-line, and they have mauled in the run game. I think you can still feel good about them.
Question from @ImKnotImpressed: The Bucs have a solid defense and what now seems like a formidable offense. What will be the front office response be to a loss, with obvious needs at linebacker, safety, slot, and returner? You think a loss pushes Howie into making a move?
There's a very small pool of teams willing to trade good players away this early in the season, but if a trade opportunity arose and it made sense for Howie Roseman to jump on it, then sure, I think he'd be willing to do a deal sooner than later.
There will be more teams willing to sell in 5-6 weeks than there are now, and thus a wider pool of players will become available later. I don't think the Eagles are so egregiously bad at any position where they'll make a panic trade. They have so many other great parts on their roster that they can weather some weaker areas. A win or loss in Week 3 won't accelerate their urgency all that much.
Also, I would rank the trade likelihoods like so:
I can't see them trading for a return specialist.
Question from @DanzMike: You commented that the Eagles [probably] aren't going 6-0. What is your guess at their record after next four games and who you see them dropping a game to?
OK, so if you look at ESPN' "matchup predictor," just to use one analytic example, their chances of winning the next four games are as follows:
One can quibble with those percentages (too high, too low, whatever), but if you look at each of those four games individually, the Eagles are clearly the better team in every matchup. We can all agree on that I think, right? However, someone smarter than me can compute the mathematical probabilities of the Eagles winning all four of those games based on the above percentages, and it won't be over 50 percent. I'll likely pick the Eagles in all of those games, but the odds are that they will lose at least one of them.
Question from @SeanBalzer: What the hell is going on with Rashaad Penny? Just not the same guy after last year’s leg injury?
I thought it made sense for Penny to be a healthy scratch Week 1, since (a) Boston Scott is the primary kick returner, (b) Penny doesn't play on special teams, and (c) the Eagles typically aren't going to dress four running backs on gameday.
Did he look good on his three carries against the Vikings? No, he didn't. But... he only had three carries. That's probably not a big enough sample size to write him off as cooked. I do think that the Eagles should get him some more carries to find out sooner than later if he is, though.
Question from @ThisFnGameIsOvr: Did the Eagles not want to resign Gardner Minshew or did he want to go elsewhere?
After Minshew went 0-2 against the Cowboys and Saints, the Eagles showed what they thought of his starting performances when they put an obviously hurt Jalen Hurts back out on the field against the Giants' backups to secure homefield advantage throughout the playoffs Week 18.
They wanted to upgrade at backup quarterback, and were willing to pay Marcus Mariota significantly more to do that. (To be determined if Mariota is better.)
Question from @mcilvadk4: What happened to the weekly chat?
The chat software that we used became way too expensive, and frankly it kind of sucked anyway, so we dropped them. The chats will be back at some point, I think (?), but not until we find another provider offering similar services that charge reasonable prices.
Follow Jimmy & PhillyVoice on Twitter: @JimmyKempski | thePhillyVoice
Like us on Facebook: PhillyVoice Sports
Add Jimmy's RSS feed to your feed reader
