Eagles Offense All-22 Film Review: Takeaways from the Giants game

We are watching a special offense. The film is just so much fun. Enjoy!

Eagles Offense

We will start with the EPA data as always. Once again, the numbers are off the charts. The running numbers in particular are bordering on absurd. Having a 66% rushing success rate is incredibly effective. The best rushing team (in terms of success rate) is the Eagles who have a 52% rushing success rate this season (5% better than the next best) so that puts into context just how good the rushing attack was in this one.

This is my favorite screenshot ever. Do you think the Eagles' run game was good this week?

Here’s another even more incredible statistic, courtesy of @GregHartPA.

Passing Game

What do you even say about the first drive? Hurts looked like a 10-year veteran who was reading the defense with ease. This wasn’t an RPO-heavy offense or a lot of short screen passes. This was a proper dropback passing game, where Hurts had to sit in the pocket and read the play and throw with timing and anticipation. And he made it look easy!

I said this on the BGN Instant Reaction show, but this felt like the ‘empty’ game early on. The Giants wanted to keep 5 in the box which meant they had to play single-high man coverage and the Eagles continued to take advantage of it. Hurts loves throwing to DeVonta Smith on these quick outs and this is the best one of the year. Smith doesn’t get a lot of separation for once but throws it with fantastic timing and anticipation which allows him to squeeze it into a tight window. This is a big-time throw.

The second drive began with this ridiculous throw to Miles Sanders which fell incomplete. The Eagles are in empty again with Sanders out wide. This is just a flat-out playmaker making an elite play. Hurts accuracy and ball placement is so good right now.

I don’t even really know what to say about Hurts without sounding like a broken record but he was absolutely phenomenal in this game. This is a fantastic throw. The Giants run a really nice blitz from a 5-man front where they drop both edge defenders and bring 2 blitzers up the middle. The Eagles don’t leave anyone to help with the protection which results in a free rusher coming straight up the middle at Hurts but he doesn’t care in the slightest. He just stands in the pocket and delivers an absolute beauty.

The touchdown is a perfectly fine decision by Hurts but he makes a mistake with his execution. The slot fade is a fantastic throw to make against single-high man coverage because the cornerback will usually line up with inside leverage. Smith wins at the line of scrimmage and Hurts makes the correct read. The only issue is, that Hurts doesn’t hold the safety with his eyes which means he can get across

The offense may look ‘simple’ but the way they use formations and personnel, such as lining DeVonta Smith and AJ Brown next to each other here, create so many problems for a defense and help Hurts make good decisions presnap.

The next drive didn’t take long. The Eagles just killed man coverage in this game. The Giants play a lot of single-high man coverage and you need to have absolutely outstanding cornerbacks to be able to do that against this offense. Again, it’s only a simple thing, but moving around AJ Brown and lining him up in different splits and positions just makes it really tough to gameplan against the Eagles.

Sadly, Hurts’ best throw of the day didn’t result in a touchdown due to a rare mistake by DeVonta Smith. This is just a dime. Hurts is not phased by the rush at all and DeVonta Smith runs an outstanding route of course. There were times when Hurts would throw to his right a lot but he completed outstanding passes to all areas of the field in this game, as he has all season. He’s just having an unbelievable season.

The Giants went 2-high and the Eagles ran. The Giants went single-high man coverage and the Eagles killed them with deep shots. So, the Giants thought they would go off-coverage with single-high to stop the run and prevent the big play. So what do the Eagles do? Bring out the old RPO offense. The Eagles can do EVERYTHING well!

I said before the season that I didn’t see Hurts being a top 5 type of quarterback. I’m eating my words right now. He’s playing at an elite level and I am absolutely loving it. MVP.

Running Game

As I’ve already mentioned at the top, the running game was outstanding in this game, despite the fact they came out with the intention of throwing early. Every single game the Eagles do something different in the run game which I love. They gameplan for each opponent and will do something unique every week. This week, we saw some QB counter trey from a pony package (2 backs) that we don’t see the Eagles run that often!

Of course, it’s easy to do a lot of stuff in the running game when you have an elite running quarterback and an elite offensive line. The offensive line and the two tight ends were exceptional in this game.

In recent weeks, the Eagles have spread the defense out and run really well from 11 personnel. This game was different. The Eagles had a lot of success running gap scheme concepts from 12 personnel and the tight ends Jack Stoll and Grant Calcaterra were a reason why, Calcaterra was not a great run blocker in the college and the fact he is playing this well highlights how good the Eagles coaches are. The Giants started playing more 2-high coverages after the Eagles killed them through the air and then the Eagles just started running it. This offense can beat you in so many ways it’s nearly impossible to stop it consistently.

And of course, you cannot ignore the role that Hurts has on this running game. I say it every week but it makes you +1 in the box at all times and that is so important. I loved watching the run game this week and the different ways the Eagles ran similar concepts.

This has to be one of the funniest plays you will ever see. The Giants’ defense is so scared of the QB sneak that they basically completely ignore the edge, even though the Eagles are in a tackle-over formation with Mailata next to Lane Johnson. Every future Eagles opponent will watch this and be worried about over-committing to the QB sneak in the future. The Eagles are an elite offense at building off their staple concepts every week to keep defenses guessing.

This is my favorite play of the season. If you listened to the BGN Instant Reaction Show then you heard me speak about this play a lot! (If you did listen, let me know your thoughts as I’ll be back on the next 2 weeks). It’s just simply amazing. The Giants have to match the Eagles' 4x1 set with defenders and they obviously have to cover DeVonta Smith. So let’s do the math. The Giants have 5 defenders covering the 5 receivers, which means they have 6 left in the box. The Giants have all the remaining 6 defenders in the box so they cannot play the run any more aggressively than they can here. If the Eagles want to throw, they will get one-on-one man coverage across the board because the Giants are aggressively leaving 6 in the box.

So, the Giants are doing all they can to stop the run. They can do no more from a numbers perspective. Despite this, the Eagles still run. They totally leave the edge unblocked (a high 1st round pick) and Hurts just outruns him. All the offensive line win their blocks, except Mailata who doesn’t have to do anything because Hurts beats him to the hole, and #54 has no idea what on earth is going on once again so he’s just out of the play. What becomes a 6on5 advantage for the Giants, quickly becomes a 5v4 advantage for the Eagles because Hurts' mobility just completely takes out an edge defender.

I have gone about this play enough, but I just love it. You can’t do anymore as the Giants DC to stop the run. And the Eagles still run.

The game was pretty much over by now, but let’s end on this huge Sanders run which probably mattered more to fantasy than it did to this game!

What a game. What an offense.