Eagles vs. Chiefs stats preview

You know the drill by now; it’s another Philadelphia Eagles stats preview. As always, I’m working with my podcast partner Shane Haff who podcasts for BGN and has some great designs that will make this article easier to follow. All stats are from Sports Info Solution, FTN Fantasy, and ESPN. This is a big game... I’m excited but also very nervous!

Eagles Tendencies

I wondered why 21 personnel wasn’t showing up on this list so I asked Shane to check. The Eagles have only used 21 personnel 11 times this year! That seems incredibly low, and I am hopeful the Eagles use it a lot more this week with the absence of Dallas Goedert. The Eagles’ offense might need to change without Goedert. I’ve spoken about a lot of this in my midseason review so I won’t repeat myself here but surely the Eagles need to improve their gap scheme success rate.

Similarly, I spoke a lot about areas of improvement I would like to see in my defense midseason review. When you look at a lot of those ranks together, it doesn’t look pretty for the defense. We need to see some big improvements over the second half of the season.

Chiefs Tendencies

The Chiefs’ offense is not what it was last year, but it’s still very good. Just like last year, they excel in heavy personnel packages (12 and 13) and it will be interesting to see how the Eagles match these packages. This is another offense that loves motion and the Eagles will have to be prepared for that, as well as a lot of RPOs. This won’t shock you either, but the Chiefs are outstanding when they run screens too and they run them over 10% of the time. The good news is that the running game is awful, so they have to be one-dimensional.

The Chiefs’ defense has had a really good year. They play a good mix of man and zone, and like to mix it up with one-high and two-high shells. However, they really excel from a two-high look and they are also excellent at blitzing. This could be a game where the Eagles need to have some excellent answers to the blit and also run the ball against the Chiefs' two-high looks.

Matchups

This is going to be a great game. The Chiefs’ offense has faced some criticism this year, but they still rank 6th in DVOA. Their passing game may lack weapons, but as long as they have Andy Reid, Patrick Mahomes, and Travis Kelce, they are going to be really hard to stop. The good news is that the running game is really poor, as you will continue to see from a lot of numbers.

The EPA numbers paint a very similar story to the DVOA numbers. The Eagles’ offense is good at everything, whereas the Chiefs are a very pass-heavy team that can’t run the ball.

These numbers are really interesting. The Chiefs have the best pass-protecting offensive line in the NFL. That is not good. The Eagles’ defense relies on getting pressure, and it will not be easy to win this week by just rushing 4. The Eagles are going to need their stars on the defensive line to win in order for them to get pressure because Patrick Mahomes is not somebody you want to blitz very often. The Eagles’ offense hasn’t run the ball very well of late, but they still are ranked as the number 1 run blocking offensive line in the NFL.

The Chiefs’ defense is really good on late downs, so the Eagles do not want to get into many 3rd and long situations. The Chiefs’ offense isn’t as good on 3rd down as you might expect, and I imagine that is partly due to their lack of weapons on the outside.

The Eagles’ offense has got a lot better in the redzone but the defense has remained a huge problem. If the Chiefs get to the redzone consistently. I expect them to score a lot of points in this one.

I’ve got a feeling this is going to be a hell of a game. I really want revenge for the Super Bowl... and I hope the Eagles feel the same way. I’m looking forward to breaking it down next week!