Roob's Observations: A shocking trend that helps explain Eagles' offensive woes

Roob's Observations: A shocking trend that helps explain Eagles' offensive woes

The shocking first half-second half disparity of the Eagles’ offensive numbers, the best option at outside corner and a simply unbelievable streak that makes no sense.

We’re not used to Roob’s 10 Random Eagles Observations coming off losses. It’s a whole different 10 Obs vibe. Two weeks in a row now. Can the Eagles end their rare losing streak Sunday at US Bank Stadium, site of one of the greatest triumphs in franchise history?

They’d better.

1A. To understand why the Eagles have been so much better on offense in the first half than the second half, all you have to do is look at Jalen Hurts in the first half vs. the second half. Among 32 quarterbacks who’ve thrown at least 50 passes before halftime, Hurts is second (to Jared Goff) with a 75.3 percent completion percentage and sixth with a 108.1 passer rating. Among 32 QBs who’ve thrown 50 passes after halftime, Hurts ranks 26th in completion percentage and 21st in passer rating. This is where that predictability Lane Johnson talked about comes into play. It just feels like by the second half, defenses have a pretty good sense of what the Eagles’ offense is going to do and the things that worked early aren’t working anymore. The numbers sure bear that out.

1B. We’re seeing the exact same dynamic in the running game with Saquon Barkley. Exxact same pattern. Among 33 running backs with 25 carries before halftime, Barkley’s 4.6 average is 11th-best. Among 39 backs with at least 25 carries after halftime, Barkley’s 2.5 average is worst.

1C. Overall, the Eagles actually have the 8th-most first downs and they’re 12thwith 5.7 yards per play. Not awful. Second half? They have the 2nd-fewest first downs and are averaging an NFL-low 3.7 yards per play. And get this: First half, they’re scoring touchdowns on 35 percent of their possessions – 4th-highest in the league – and they’re averaging 2.8 points per drive. Second half, they’re scoring TDs on 15 percent of their possessions – 4th-worst in the league – and averaging 1.2 points per drive.

1D. When the entire offense is decent in the first half and stalls to almost a complete halt in the second half, that points directly at one thing. Coaching.

2. I was just wondering something. What are the Eagles good at? Anybody? On either side of the ball? What do they do exceptionally well? What do they even do moderately well? What can they hang their hat on? What can they go into every game depending on? “Well, at least we have this?” I got nothing. They’re 30th in offense, 28th in rushing offense, 29th in passing offense, 28th in sacks allowed, 25th in first downs per game, 20th in punt return average, last in kick return average, 27th on third down, 21st in defense, 26th in run defense, 12th in pass defense, 27th in sacks, 24th in first downs allowed, 26th on third down, 21st in takeaways, 24th covering punts, 25th covering kicks. Other than red zone, where they’re still best in the league, and ball security, where they’re tied for third, they’re not top-10 in anything, and they’re bottom 10 in almost everything. Are they a good team that’s struggling or just an average team? The next couple weeks will answer that. Either way, this is not an ideal formula for winning football games and it’s been shocking to watch. Honestly, the first four games seem more like an anomaly than the last two. We have to understand this is just not the same team as last year. Josh Sweat is a Cardinal and has four sacks, Brandon Graham is retired, and Jalyx Hunt and Nolan Smith, have no sacks. Milton Williams has 2 ½ sacks for the Patriots. Jalen Carter doesn’t have any. Isaiah Rodgers has been a touchdown machine, and Kelee Ringo and Adoree’ Jackson keep getting benched. Tyler Steen isn’t Mekhi Becton. Cam Jurgens isn’t playing as well as last year. Landon Dickerson can’t stay healthy.Jalen Hurts hasn’t been as consistent or efficient as last year. Different team. Starts with both lines and goes out from there. And of course a different play caller, who has not done a very good job of getting the most out of the vast talent the Eagles have on offense. So while it might be tempting to ask, “How could a Super Bowl team play so lousy?” The answer is simple. This isn’t that team.

3. That said, it’s important to remember that every team in the league has issues right now. Not like anybody is running away with either conference. Nobody is unbeaten and only three teams have one loss. The Eagles have played the toughest schedule in the NFL – their opponents have a composite .569 winning percentage and the four teams they’ve beaten have a composite .604 winning percentage. Both are highest in the NFL. Look around the NFC. The Commanders have already lost three games after losing just five all last year. The vaunted Lions are 4-2 just like the Eagles. The Packers are 3-1-1 but lost to the Browns – the Browns’ only win. The Falcons are 3-2 but got shut out by the Panthers. Out West, the 49ers are 4-2 but have lost two of their last three, the Seahawks are 4-2 but they’ve only beaten one winning team. The Rams are 4-2 but the Eagles beat ‘em. The Bucs are 5-1 but the Eagles beat ‘em. The Eagles are an NFL-best 3-1 vs. winning teams, they’re 3-1 in the NFC and they’re 3-0 against 2024 playoff teams. With the Steelers losing to the Bengals Thursday night, the only one-loss teams are the Colts in the AFC and Packers and Bucs in the NFC. The point isn’t that the Eagles don’t have issues. It’s that everybody else does, too.

4. It’s pretty clear we’ll see at least some Jihaad Campbell lining up on the edge Sunday with Nakobe Dean and Zack Baun at inside linebacker. And we should, considering that Eagles edge rushers have netted 2 ½ sacks this year, and 1 ½ of them just retired. With his quickness, power and instincts, he could really be a difference maker as an edge. Normally, you’d be hesitant to ask a rookie to learn a new position, but Campbell can handle it, and playing the edge is actually less demanding than playing linebacker, so that won’t be a problem. My only concern is that Dean hasn’t played since January, didn’t have a training camp, only played five special teams snaps against the Giants and probably isn’t ready for a greatly expanded role just yet. Maybe eight to 12 snaps on defense? That might even be too much. Dean was a Pro Bowl-caliber linebacker last year and if he’s healthy and fit, he can be a real playmaker. If anybody can find ways to get Campbell, Baun and Dean on the field at the same time it’s Vic Fangio. Nolan Smith will be back at some point fairly soon, and that should help, but right now the Eagles are desperate to find some pass rush, and Campbell makes sense in a lot of ways.

5. The Eagles haven’t had more than one interception or more than two sacks in a game this year, the first time since sacks became an official stat in 1982 that they haven’t had either a game with more than one INT or a game with more than two sacks six games into a season. There have been only nine longer streaks of games in NFL history to open a season with both one or fewer INT and two or fewer sacks.

6. Marcus Mariota in 2018 with the Titans and Joe Flacco with the Ravens in 2016 both beat the Eagles before they joined the Eagles, but who was the last quarterback to beat the Eagles after playing here? You have to go back to Week 3 of 2012, when Kevin Kolb, who spent his first four seasons with the Eagles, passed for 222 yards and two TDs in the Cards’ 27-6 win over the Eagles in Glendale, Ariz. Kolb only won one more game the rest of his career.

7A. Thanks to an awful return game, the Eagles have the worst average drive start in the NFL so far this year. Their 62 drives have started on the average at their own 27-yard-line. Last year they had the 2nd-best drive start in the league, starting at their own 32-yard-line. That’s five yards per drive and that might not seem like a ton, but over 62 drives that’s over 300 yards the Eagles have just given away. Field position has killed the Eagles this year. They’ve scored on only 33.9 percent of their drives, 6th-worst in the league, and after halftime that figure drops to 21.2 percent – by far the lowest in the league. The Giants are 2nd-worst at 27.3 percent. The league average is 36 percent. Even with the big comeback against the Rams, the Eagles have scored on just seven of 33 drives after halftime. They’ve punted on 18 of those 33 drives – nobody else has punted more than 14 times in the second half. The Eagles are 20th in punt return average, last in kick return average and 25th covering punts.

7B. The corollary to that is this: The Eagles have run 352 plays this year and 47 of them – more than 13 percent – have gone for negative yardage. Only the Raiders – with 48 – have had more negative plays. As for just running plays, the Eagles have had 27 negative plays, most in the league – one more than the Raiders and Seahawks. Last year, the Eagles had negative gains on 11 percent of their runs. So far this year it’s 17 percent.

8A. Nick Sirianni sure doesn’t seem like he’s in any hurry to take play calling duties away from Kevin Patullo, but his past history says maybe it’s not that far out of the question. It was seven games into 2021 that Sirianni essentially fired himself as play caller and replaced himself with Shane Steichen. That one worked. And it was 13 games into 2023 that he replaced defensive play caller Sean Desai with Matt Patricia. That one didn’t work. But both those moves tell you that Sirianni isn’t afraid of making that kind of major change in the middle of the season if he feels like there’s a desperate need to do it. And the offense right now is worse – way worse – than the offense in 2021 or the defense in 2023 when he made those changes. I don’t think all the offense’s issues are on Patullo, but if things don’t get significantly better over the next several games, I don’t know how you don’t consider making a change.

8B. Who would replace Patullo? There’s no obvious answer like there was in 2021 with Steichen, who was a play-calling magician. But tight ends coach Jason Michael did it when he was Titans offensive coordinator under Ken Whisenhunt. Quarterbacks coach Scot Loeffler called plays when he was at Bowling Green. And passing game coordinator Parks Frazier called plays for the Colts in 2022 after Jeff Saturday was fired. Running backs coach Jemal Singleton hasn’t done it, but I have no doubt he could. There are options if Sirianni decides to go that route.

9. Chatted for a few minutes Wednesday with Jakorian Bennett, who will be eligible to return to practice next week after spending a month on Injured Reserve with a pectoral injury. Bennett said he feels great and he’s hopeful the Eagles will open his practice window and activate him in time for the second Giants game a week from Sunday. After the bye week might be more likely, since the Eagles like to give guys coming off IR two weeks of practice before they get them back on the field. But from the limited time we’ve seen Bennett – the last few weeks of training camp, two preseason games, 24 defensive snaps the first three games of the season – it seems pretty clear he’s a better option right now at outside corner than Kelee Ringo, Adoree’ Jackson or anybody else on the roster. The analytics agree. Among 104 corners who’ve been targetted at least 10 times this year, Bennett’s 72.9 opposing passer rating is 23rd-best in the league and the 5.0 yards per target he’s allowed ranks tied for 16th. Small sample size, but Jackson is allowing 7.1 yards per target and Ringo is allowing 9.1. All I know is the instant Bennett is healthy, he needs to play.

10A. It’s a truly remarkable streak that hasn’t gotten the attention it deserves, but Eagles cornerbacks have now gone 23 consecutive regular-season games without an interception, since Kelee Ringo picked off Tyrod Taylor in the 33-25 win over the Giants on Christmas Day, 2025. Before that? James Bradberry a month earlier. The Eagles’ last 17 regular-season interceptions have been by safeties (Reed Blankenship 5, C.J. Gardner-Johnson 5), linebackers (Zack Baun 2, Jihaad Campbell 1, Nakobe Dean 1) and safeties (Sydney Brown 2, Drew Mukuba 1).

10B. The last month in which Eagles corners had two interceptions was November of 2022, when Bradberry picked off Davis Mills in Houston and Josiah Scott intercepted Aaron Rodgers at the Linc.

10C. The last Eagles corner with two INTs in the same month was Rasul Douglas in December 2018, when he picked off Dak Prescott at AT&T Stadium and Josh Johnson at FedEx.