Eagles News: Philadelphia has one of the NFL’s best playmaker groups

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Ranking the NFL’s top five playmaker groups; plus, a theory on the trading frenzy and an overlooked coach - NFL.com
3) Credit general manager Howie Roseman for surrounding Jalen Hurts with a dream team on the perimeter. The Eagles’ emerging franchise quarterback has played at an MVP level in 2022 by efficiently distributing the ball to a diverse group of playmakers with complementary games. With A.J. Brown and DeVonta Smith taking turns making plays on the outside, Dallas Goedert controlling the middle of the field and Quez Watkins providing the occasional splash play, the Eagles have the capacity to win with efficiency or explosiveness in the passing game. As Miles Sanders and Hurts continue to torment opponents with an option-based running game that forces defenders to pause at the point of attack, Philadelphia’s offense creates chaos with its creativity, variety and overwhelming talent.

The Day After – Overrated? - Iggles Blitz
One of the things that makes the Eagles offense so tough is that they have a lot of playmakers. Last night there were five different players who had a play of 20 or more yards. Miles Sanders – 25 yard run. AJ Brown – 31 yard catch. DeVonta Smith – 22 yard catch. Quez Watkins – 23 yard catch. Dallas Goedert – 21 yard catch. Jack Stoll was actually wide open for a long TD and Hurts didn’t see him or there could have been another name on this list. And last week we saw Zach Pascal have a 34-yard TD catch. One of the reasons Hurts is playing so well is that he’s got so many weapons.

Spadaro: A tantalizing proposition, the Eagles’ offense still has room to grow - PE.com
You are a defensive coordinator and you’ve got six days to prepare to play the Philadelphia Eagles. You’ll go through the normal situational preparation and you will have your defense understand the personnel challenges ahead. And then you will try to get into the minds of Philadelphia Head Coach Nick Sirianni and Offensive Coordinator Shane Steichen and the coaching staff: What are they thinking this week? How are they planning to attack me? If I have to pick a poison on which to concentrate, what direction do I take? This is the predicament every defense faces when it lines up against an Eagles offense that has potent flexibility that, through eight games, has been remarkably consistent. With the Week 9 games not complete, we’ll go with the pre-Thursday night numbers from a league standpoint, but they aren’t going to change much, if at all: The Eagles ranked third in the NFL in total offense through seven games, sixth in the run game and 10th passing the football. They averaged 28 points heading into the Texans game – they scored 29 that night in the victory – to rank third in the league. You want to load up the box to stop running back Miles Sanders, quarterback Jalen Hurts, and a stable of contributors on the ground? Go ahead. Hurts will read it and look to a passing game that features the potent trio of wide receivers A.J. Brown, DeVonta Smith, and tight end Dallas Goedert, and if you somehow manage to contract that terrific threesome, Hurts will feature wide receivers Quez Watkins or Zach Pascal, or take a peek at tight end Jack Stoll or get the running backs – Sanders, Kenneth Gainwell, and Boston Scott – involved in the catch-and-run game.

Mailbag: Criticizing the criticism - BGN
Only won because a backup who hadn’t turned the ball over in 6 games threw 3 picks. Cooper Rush! There were entire segments of talking head shows dedicated to brewing a QB controversy! They were silly but Rush was playing pretty good all things considered, don’t let people gaslight you into thinking the Cowboys were constantly finding ways to overcome his play during their four game win streak, this isn’t the Jets and Zach Wilson. In 118 attempts he hadn’t turned the ball over, had a respectable 7.1 yards per attempt, a 93.9 passer rating, and he had a good sack rate of 5.6%. Those are top 20 or better rates over the course of this season, which is really efficient play out of a backup. Then he played the Eagles and looked like the 28 year old who cleared waivers to start the season that he is, 18 of 38 with 3 INTs. In retrospect it would have been really funny if the Eagles claimed him instead of Ian Book. Howie Roseman if you’re reading this: if the Cowboys want to open the season with only one QB on their 53 man roster, claim their 2nd string QB. Anyway, yes, Cooper Rush is a backup QB. But the Eagles stuffed him in a locker that night, in five other games this season no one else did. And Rush starting isn’t why Micah Parsons spent most of the game doing nothing.

How concerned is Nick Sirianni with Eagles’ tackling? - NBCSP
“I’m not,” he said Friday. “We’ll make sure we get back to work and fix it just like we did after the Detroit game.” In the opener, the Lions rushed for 181 yards, 6.5 yards per pop and three touchdowns. Things did temporarily get better. The Eagles held the Vikings, Commanders and Jaguars under 90 yards each, although the Vikings did average 5.6 yards per carry. But the last four games have been ugly. The Cards, Cowboys, Steelers and Texans have all averaged at least 4.8 yards per carry vs. the Eagles. This is the first time in 63 years the Eagles have allowed 4.8 yards per carry in four straight games. In 1959, they gave up 7.4, 5.0, 4.8 and 5.0 in games against the Rams, Steelers, Washington and Browns.

Top 15 NFL edge and interior defensive linemen in pass-rushing grade through Week 8 - PFF
10. EDGE Brandon Graham, Philadelphia Eagles86.3 pass-rushing grade. Graham has a top-two pass-rush win rate (25.0%) despite only accumulating 21 total pressures on 124 pass-rushing snaps. He’s beaten his blocker without registering a pressure 12 times and has registered nine quarterback hits. T-11. EDGE Haason Reddick, Philadelphia Eagles. 84.5 pass-rushing grade. Reddick has been the engine of the Eagles’ dominant pass-rush with a team-high 26 total pressures. His 18.3% pass-rush win rate is highlighted by his 16 hurries and 5.5 sacks.

Javon Hargrave’s interior pressure is giving the Eagles another scary dimension - SB Nation
The Philadelphia Eagles are 8-0 for the first time in franchise history. Jalen Hurts and the Eagles’ offense is likely the major story through their first eight games, with Hurts playing himself into the MVP conversation thanks to his start to the season. But the Eagles improved to 8-0 on Thursday night with a win over the Houston Texans, and due in large part to a veteran on their defensive front. Defensive tackle Javon Hargrave. The defensive tackle has put together back-to-back impressive games, first in Philadelphia’s Week 8 win over the Pittsburgh Steelers, and then again on Thursday night in the Eagles’ 29-17 win over the Texans. Against Pittsburgh a week ago, Hargrave posted a pair of sacks, helping Philadelphia frustrate rookie quarterback Kenny Pickett. Those were his first sacks since the Eagles’ Week 3 win over the Washington Commanders. He also posted what was a season-high five tackles. But Thursday’s performance against the Texans was Hargrave’s best game of the year, as he set new season-highs with seven combined tackles, and a pair of sacks.

Eagles at Texans, Pick 3, & Week 9 Preview - The SB Nation NFL Show
Rob “Stats” Guerrera, RJ Ochoa, and Brandon Lee Gowton discuss the Eagles’ Thursday night performance against the Houston Texans. We also have our locks of the week–and preview every Week 9 game across the league.

World Series beats NFL in head-to-head showdown, as expected - PFT
The NFL’s long-term pivot to streaming will have short-term costs. Via Joe Lucia of AwfulAnnouncing.com, the latest example came from Fox getting 12.768 million viewers for the pivotal World Series contest, and Amazon getting only 7.855 million viewers for Eagles-Texans. In Houston, the World Series drew a local rating of 25.5, according to Austin Karp of Sports Business Journal. The NFL game generated a 1.5 on local TV. (People in Houston could also stream the game on Amazon, so others presumably watched it that way. It’s unclear how many, but presumably not as many as watched it on local TV.) Again, it’s not a surprise. The NFL has made the switch to streaming both to adjust to changing viewing habits from TV to streaming, and to accelerate that ongoing shift. (It also helps to get paid roughly $1 billion per year to do it.)

Could the 49ers take down the Eagles? - Niners Nation
The biggest challenge for San Francisco would be slowing down the Eagles’ ground game. Right now, Philadelphia is sixth in the league in rushing yards per game at 148.8, and they lead the NFL in rushing touchdowns with 16. Officially the numbers still have the Niners as the stingiest run defense in the league, but since Arik Armstead went down, they’ve been getting gashed on the ground for more than 100 yards per game. DeMeco Ryans would have to find a way to stop Hurts and company, which is easier said than done. Ultimately any game between these two teams would likely be close. Close games are usually determined by turnovers, which have plagued the 49ers under Kyle Shanahan. The Eagles, meanwhile, have taken care of the ball remarkably well in 2022, with just three total giveaways all season long. Some of that has been luck, however. Despite fumbling the ball seven times this year, they’ve only lost possession once, and that came last night against Houston. It’s not inconceivable to think Philly could see some regression in the ball protection area (which is never a good thing). As Kyle Posey literally pointed out to me as I write this article, it is incredible how much the view of the 49ers changes in a short period of time. Two weeks ago, they’re getting their doors blown off by the Chiefs, and now we’re legitimately asking if they could take down the conference’s undefeated top seed that just won a short week game on the road by double-digits. What can we say? Life comes at you fast.

3 reasons to feel optimistic about the Cowboys heading into the second half - Blogging The Boys
3) A Favorable Second Half Schedule. When you look at the Cowboys schedule past the bye week, there are plenty of winnable games. Other than the two road matchups against the Packers and Vikings in Weeks 10 and 11, Dallas should be favored in every other game on their schedule. Starting with a Thanksgiving Day matchup against the New York Giants, Dallas plays four of five games at home before ending the season on the road facing the Tennessee Titans and Washington Commanders. The Colts, Texans, Jaguars, and Commanders are teams the Cowboys should have no problem beating, giving them a chance to add four relatively easy wins. If they can take care of business against the bad teams and take three of five against the Vikings, Packers, Giants, Eagles, and Titans, that would put them with a 13-4 record at season’s end. Overall, Dallas has gotten the hard part of their schedule out of the way and some favorable second-half matchups are another reason to be optimistic.

Commanders fans overwhelmingly prefer a push for playoffs rather than losses to force change - Hogs Haven
Being fans of the Commanders in 2022 means being fans of the team that is in last place in the NFC East, and having to deal with an undefeated team and a pair of 6-win teams that have each lost only one game outside the division. Having lost to the Eagles and the Cowboys deepens the sting. But if you widen your view to look at the rest of the conference, you’ll see that 4-4 is a comparatively good record. The 49ers are 4-4 and in 2nd place in the NFC West; the 4-4 Falcons lead the NFC South, and are the only team in that division that doesn’t have a losing record. The same is true in the North, where the 3-5 Packers and 3-5 Bears, who have both lost to the Commanders, sit in 2nd & 3rd place in the division. If the playoffs were seeded based on current records, it would come down to tiebreakers to decide between the Commanders and the 49ers for the 7th seed. Incidentally, Washington and San Fransisco play one another on Christmas Eve, which could end up being a game that helps decide the final wildcard spot in the conference. In a conference where there are only 2 non-NFC East teams in wildcard contention that are better than 2 games below .500 (the 4-4 Niners and the 3-5 Rams) even an 8-9 record might be enough to get a team into the playoffs in January.

Big Blue View mailbag: Joe Schoen, Saquon Barkley’s future, more questions - Big Blue View
From the Giants’ perspective — Absolutely, I think I would do this from the Giants’ perspective. BUT, and this is a big BUT, there is no chance this is a fully-guaranteed contract. I would guarantee MAYBE $25 million, and the deal would have to be front-loaded so that all of that guaranteed money is paid in the first two years. Then, I can get out of the deal after 2024 if I want/need to. From Barkley’s perspective — I am not taking that deal. Right now, by Average Annual Salary, the $7.798M I am making on the fifth-year option has me at No. 9 among running backs. If I sign for four years and $45 million, I am STILL No. 9. I have made no progress, and I’m not doing that. Especially if the Giants want to front load all that money and cut me in two years. I can make $12.6 million on the franchise tag next year, so really that number doesn’t get me anywhere. Honestly, I think I’m a better player than Alvin Kamara or Ezekiel Elliott. When I’m healthy, I think I always have been. They make $15 million per year. For me, that’s my starting number.

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