There’s no experience that can quite mimic the nature of NFL fandom. One week, hope and faith seem all but squashed only to see them burst through the curtain like a WWE entrance the following game. That is unless you’re a Browns fan, in which case life is just a continuous decline. After tumultuous showings in back-to-back games, Dallas fans felt apprehensive entering a matchup with a playoff hungry Los Angeles Rams squad.
Fortunately for those fans, the Cowboys recaptured the offensive spark we’ve seen when they’re at their peak. Now, Dallas needs to capture that magic and bring it to Week 16 as they face the division-rival Philadelphia Eagles in a game that should decide the division race.
When I write these articles, I hope to identify some attributes of a team that set them apart. It may be something they do particularly well, or it could be an area where they stink. Bottom line, it’s fun to identify the extremities that constitute the unique nature of a team.
But in the case of the Philadelphia Eagles, those attributes are harder to identify. I’ve put together a list of various metrics gathered from different sources, and Philadelphia’s ranking according to said metric.
Think of all of the various ways one can make a loaf of bread; the possibilities are almost endless. When considering the myriad of options one has available to excite their pallet, settling for white bread seems like such a waste. The Eagles are that uninspired option.
I’m honestly not sure if I should be impressed that a team could be this average, or if I should be bored by it.
When I step back and picture some of the personnel for the Eagles, I lean more towards the former. The supporting cast in Philadelphia hasn’t been great, but they’ve scraped by enough to stay alive for a division-deciding showdown.
When the Eagles won the Super Bowl in 2017, they were praised for forward-thinking and their usage of analytics for key decisions. In some ways, they were the less-extreme predecessor to the Baltimore Ravens, paving the path to a new way of approaching the game.
When conventional wisdom leaned toward punting the football, Philly adopted a more aggressive approach, and opted to utilize fourth-down as another offensive opportunity more frequently. It was simple, small edges can make all the difference.
The point of this side-bar is that Philadelphia may be taking another counter-intuitive approach. Conventional wisdom would tell us that teams that are trailing should throw more to make up the difference. This naturally becomes more extreme as the game gets more out of reach. But the Eagles have taken the opposite approach thus far.
When Philadelphia is trailing, they actually run the ball at a higher-rate relative to league average. But when they’re favored, they actually throw the ball more relative to league average. At first, I thought this might be a risk-aversion situation. Perhaps when slightly trailing, the Eagles “shelled up” and went with what felt safer: running the football. But when ahead, they’re more willing to go all-in and press their advantage.
However, I think it’s more likely that they’re trying to utilize some deception. When the defense is in a favorable situation, they may be expecting the Eagles offense to throw the ball more. Naturally, they’d prefer to have more defensive-backs on the field in such a situation. Thus, Philly may be attempting to create more advantageous rushing situations.
Over 70% of the Eagles’ rushing attempts have come when at least five defensive backs are on the field. I’m always going to pound the table for the efficiency of passing over rushing, but there’s something to be said for deception and keeping a defense off balance.
Philadelphia appears to be attempting to do exactly that.
While I poked fun at the mediocrity of Philadelphia’s statistical profile earlier, there is at least one area in which they stand out, though not in a good way. Eagles cornerbacks have struggled mightily this season, especially the tandem of Ronald Darby and Jalen Mills.
Awhile back, I mentioned a metric from Sports Info Solutions called “Points Saved.” The idea here is to measure the Expected Points Added on a given play, and to allocate what portion each defensive player is responsible for. The obvious goal here is for individual player evaluation.
When looking at individual game performances by cornerbacks according to Points Saved, Mills and Darby account for three of the eight worst performances on the season. One of those games just so happened to be Mills’ performance against Dallas back in Week 7. And in aggregate, no player has a lower Points Saved rating than Ronald Darby.
On average, both Mills and Darby are being targeted approximately 15 yards downfield, and neither has fared well. Philadelphia tries to cover this with a top-10 pressure rate, but this will likely be the matchup Dallas attempts to exploit.
Currently, Dak Prescott ranks fifth overall with an average-depth-of-target of 9.2 yards. If afforded time to throw, he should have the opportunity to attack Darby and Mills as other teams have to this point.
The importance of this game certainly can’t be overstated. While Week 17 will still play a factor in determining the division winner, this week’s winner will control their own fate entering their final game of the regular season. On paper, this is a matchup in favor of the Cowboys, but they’ve been a difficult team to predict this season. Hopefully, a Pro-Bowl snub has Prescott angry and focused, as the 2019 season may very well hang in the balance.
[vertical-gallery id=636718][vertical-gallery id=636168][lawrence-newsletter]