Bleeding Green Nation
On the Eagles’ Week 12 opponent, NFC playoff picture thoughts, the New York Giants lacking class, and much more.
The Philadelphia Eagles had a chance to enjoy a relaxing weekend of watching football after beating the Washington Commanders on Thursday night. Here are some Eagles-focused takeaways from the non-Eagles NFL Week 11 games.
Vic Fangio’s defense has been pretty awesome since the Eagles’ Week 5 bye; his unit has allowed just 11.3 points per game and 190 total yards per game since then.
That defense will be tested by a Los Angeles Rams offense that’s averaging 24.8 points per game and 370.3 yards per game since Puka Nacua returned to the starting lineup in Week 8.
Granted, it was against the New England Patriots, but Matthew Stafford is coming off his best game of the season. The 36-year-old completed 66.7% of his passes for 295 yards (10.9 average), 4 TD, 0 INT, and a 142.7 passer rating.
Stafford’s only taken four sacks (all in Week 10) over the past four weeks. He has the third-fastest average time to throw this season at 2.62 seconds. We saw the Eagles struggle with quick releases when they faced the Tampa Bay Buccaneers back in Week 4.
Stafford will be looking to force feed volume targets Nacua and Cooper Kupp. Their Week 11 numbers:
Nacua — 9 targets, 123 yards (17.6 average), 1 TD
Kupp — 10 targets, 106 yards (17.7 average), 2 TD
The Eagles’ sticky secondary will be challenged. But Quinyon Mitchell, Cooper DeJean (who will see plenty of his fellow Cooper), and Darius Slay will be up for the task.
As will Fangio, who is the Sean McVay stopper:
In an interview with ESPN prior to the 2019 season, Sean McVay, Kyle Shanahan and Matt LaFleur were all asked which coach’s defense is the most difficult to read and attack. All three highly successful play callers answered: Vic Fangio, the defensive coordinator of the Bears from 2015-18, and first-year coach with the Broncos in 2019.
In the season before that interview, Fangio earned McVay’s endorsement by introducing the league to the blueprint to stopping McVay’s offense, which looked unstoppable before that matchup. Fangio used a 6-1 tilt front with soft zone coverage to counter the Rams’ outside-zone runs, boots and play-action shot plays. After that Week 14 matchup, the Rams offense rarely looked as explosive as it was before, but it was still effective enough to reach the Super Bowl against the New England Patriots. Inspired by Fangio’s tactics, New England used its own version of the tilt front almost exclusively on early downs and held the Rams to three points.
It’s a weird world we’re living in when the Detroit Lions are by far and away the most imposing team in the NFL. But here we are with the Lions casually beating a team...
