For The Win
Jalen Hurts has a chance to do something only Nick Foles has ever done before: quarterback the Philadelphia Eagles to a Super Bowl victory.
Standing in the way, just like in 2017, is an AFC dynasty. Foles and company toppled Tom Brady and the New England Patriots that winter. Now, a Super Bowl 57 rematch from 2023 against Patrick Mahomes and the Kansas City Chiefs looms.
Despite being a 1.5-point underdog in New Orleans, Philadelphia has all the tools to bring a second Vince Lombardi Trophy back to Pennsylvania. What does Nick Sirianni have to do to claim glory and crown his Eagles world champions?
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Hurts threw less than ever before in his career as a full-time NFL starter. He set career highs in efficiency stats from passer rating (103.7) to yards per pass attempt (8.0) to yards per scramble (9.4).
This is the benefit of Saquon Barkley. It’s also a product of one of the league’s most potent 1-2 wideout punches.
Barkley’s ability to draw safeties downhill helps create one-on-one matchups for A.J. Brown and DeVonta Smith. In turn, they were one of only two teammate duos to rank in the top 10 when it came to receiving expected points added (EPA) per game (the other was Tee Higgins and Ja’Marr Chase, who ranked just behind Brown and Smith’s 8.5 EPA/game). Importantly, they did this:
a) in a run-first offense
b) even though none of the Eagles’ top-3 wideout/tight end targets ranked in the top half of all qualified players when it came to separation yards per target.
What’s that tell us? That Hurts isn’t shy about throwing to his best players in tight coverage, and this strategy has paid off.
Both Brown and Smith have catch rates over expected (CROE) of 10-plus points, each ranking in the top eight among all NFL targets. Hurts’s 79.1 percent on-target throw rate is a top-seven mark among starting QBs. Simply put, give his wideouts a chance and Hurts will get them the ball.
The Chiefs will counter by attempting to generate pressure. Hurts does a solid job exploiting gaps before his pocket collapses, but he’s reduced to fairly average when defenders force him to either leave the pocket or speed up his decision making. His -0.39 EPA/dropback under pressure was closer to Mac Jones (-0.40) than Patrick Mahomes (-0.29) in the regular season.
Philadelphia could create extra space by turning to an underutilized asset in its playbook. Despite the league’s leading rusher, Nick Siranni’s offense only leaned on play-action 23.9 percent of its dropbacks, a league-average number. But no matter what, the Eagles’ passing game success will hinge on keeping Hurts patient in the pocket long enough to find the one-on-one opportunities that make the Eagles offense so difficult to stop.
The Eagles’ reloaded...
