Rams are kings of explosive plays on both sides of the ball

The Los Angeles Rams have the highest explosive pass percentage on offense and the number one ranked explosive runs allowed on defense. They will take those numbers, and a bunch of other favorable stats, into a Week 3 matchup against the Philadelphia Eagles, the team ranked dead last in the NFL in explosive pass percentage.

If this game is decided by explosive plays, the Rams will blow out the Eagles on Sunday.

The following chart comes from Sam Hoppen on his Hoppen to Conclusions Substack and it shows how both the Rams and Eagles rank through two games in various analytics categories. The Rams have an explosive pass percentage of 13.4%, whereas the Eagles are at 1.7%. That puts these two teams on opposite sides of the spectrum:

Elsewhere, you can see that the Rams have the fourth-best explosive run offense percentage in the NFL at 3.6% and the number one explosive rush defense at 0%, meaning that Chris Shula’s defense has not allowed an explosive run yet.

Hoppen defines an “explosive play” at 15 or more yards.

You can see that through two games, and only two games, the Rams actually out rank the Eagles in a lot of categories. L.A. has faced two of the worst teams in the NFL at the early stage of the season, but nonetheless have kind of dominated the Texans and Titans in most phases of the game.

The Eagles being at 32 in explosive plays is not surprising given Jalen Hurts’ passing numbers. AJ Brown and DeVonta Smith are practically forgotten pieces of the puzzle in Philadelphia’s first two games. Neither of them have hit 70 receiving yards on the season yet. Hurts has eaten for himself only, scoring three rushing touchdowns with zero passing touchdowns.

Another interesting number is that Shula likes to run a light box so far (7 or fewer defenders in the box) and that could mean big numbers for Saquon Barkley again. But the Rams defense has been amazing so far despite a light box. (Talk more about Saquon Barkley in this post.)

Which numbers on this chart stand out to you and do you think that the Rams will win the explosives against the Eagles on Sunday? That’s plays of 15 or more yards. Is it going to be another big day for Puka Nacua? Who has the most explosive plays this week?