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Week 11: Eagles vs. Browns Statistical Breakdown

23 November 2020 Philadelphia Eagles


The Eagles lost to the Cleveland Browns on Sunday 22-17 and move to 3-6-1 on the 2020 season.

vs. CLE

Offense

Carson Wentz threw his 13th and 14th INTs of the season with one of them being returned for a Touchdown. Wentz has now tied 2016 with his career high for INTs in a season. Wentz now has a TD/INT ratio of 1.0, meaning for every TD Carson throws he throws an INT.

Miles Sanders carried the ball 16 times and rushed for 66 yards with a long of 11 yards. 37 of Sanders’ 66 yards (56.1%) came on the first drive where the Eagles ran the ball nine plays out of ten (90%) and marched down the field. The drive came to an abrupt halt when Sanders coughed up the football for the second time this season and third time in his career.

The Eagles may well be the worst opening drive offense in the NFL. Through ten games the Eagles have scored a combined 17 total points on their opening drives. They have also turned it over on four of their ten opening drives (40%). That is one way to feed an opponent momentum in the early stages of a game.

The Eagles Wideouts struggled all day. I get it, the weather wasn’t ideal but neither was the play from the likes of Travis Fulgham, Jalen Reagor, Greg Ward Jr., and Alshon Jeffery. The WRs combined for eight receptions for 69 yards on 18 targets, yielding a 50% completion percentage for Carson to his WRs. Meanwhile the Tight Ends, Dallas Goedert and Richard Rodgers carried the receiving game. The duo combined for seven receptions, 125 yards and two TDs. It seems as if the Eagles cannot successfully have the WRs and TEs play well at the same time, which is a recipe for disaster.

Following Wentz’s pick-six, the Eagles next four drives lasted a combined 18 plays and they gained just a mere 71 yards with all four drives resulting in a punt. Following a Browns fumble, the Eagles finally got on the board with a one play drive that resulted in a 19 yard TD pass from Wentz to Richard Rodgers. This was Rodgers’ first TD reception of the year, and oddly enough Rodgers is the Eagles second leading receiver behind Travis Fulgham with 292 yards.

After killing momentum on the first drive, the Eagles offense struggled all day. Four of the Eagles 13 drives (30.7%) resulted in an turnover, while six of the drives (46.2%) resulted in a punt. This means that three drives were successful and resulted in points (23.1%), and teams simply do not win games like this. The Eagles offense gave up nine of the Browns 22 points (40.9%), so this game simply was not the Defense’s fault.

Carson Wentz threw the ball 35 times. On these 35 pass attempts he was hurried on 23 (65.7%) attempts while hit on 16 (45.7%) of them. This is undeniably the leading factor in Carson Wentz’s struggle in 2020. He has been sacked an NFL leading 40 times, and its not because he holds on to the football too long. The offensive line was simply mauled, and the Browns were missing their best pass rusher.

Enough of this pitiful Offense, let’s talk about a brighter spot, the Defense.


Defense

If there were any positives to take away from yesterday’s game it was the defensive effort and play, with Alex Singleton at the forefront. The Browns rushing attack is arguably the most talented and versatile in the NFL. In Week 10, Nick Chubb and Kareem Hunt both rushed for 100+ yards. The duo has a legitimate chance at each surpassing the 1,000 yard rushing mark. They would be the first pair of RBs to do so since Jonathan Stewart and DeAngelo Williams did so back in 2009 with Carolina.

Just a week after Chubb and Hunt combined for 230 rushing yards, the Eagles defense held the pair to a combined 125 yards on 33 carries. That still doesn’t give the Eagles front seven enough credit as they were bottling up Chubb all day until he broke out for a 54 yard run early in the 4th quarter.

This was a great effort by the Eagles run defense and it was Alex Singleton who had led the defensive charge. Singleton turned in his second performance in a row with double digit tackles. He was credited with 12 total tackles: eight solo and four assisted, one sack, two tackles for loss, and a fumble recovery in which the Eagles offense turned into six points on the next play. Singleton is proving to be far and away the best LB on the Eagles roster. He also leads the defense in takeaways.

On the Browns 12 drives the Eagles defense forced a three and out on three of them (25%), a punt on five drives (41.7%), and a turnover on one drive (8.3%). This means the Browns had quality drives ending in 13 points on just three drives (25%). The defense caused as many three and out drives as they allowed scoring drives, this one falls completely on the Offense.

Defensively, the Eagles generated 3.0 sacks while pressuring Baker Mayfield for a good portion of the evening. Mayfield went 12-22 for 204 yards. The secondary played well for the most part, but did let up some big plays that ultimately put the Browns in dangerous spots on the field.


Overall

The Eagles are now 3-6-1 but still are atop the NFC East. This is their worst record through ten games since 2012 where they were 3-7. They finished the season 4-12 as they went 1-5 in their six remaining games. Unfortunately there is a great chance at this happening once again as the Eagles’ upcoming opponents have a combined record of 34-26 with four of the six opponents (75%) currently holding a playoff position. The only remaining opponents of the Eagles that do not have a winning record and aren’t sitting in a playoff position are divisional rivals, Dallas and Washington.

The Eagles are 26th in Team Offense, 28th in Passing Offense, 11th in Rushing Offense, and 23rd in Scoring Offense. The Offense ranks 24th in overall efficiency.

The Eagles are 11th in Team Defense, 6th in Passing Defense, 25th in Rushing Defense, and 15th in Scoring Defense. The Defense ranks 7th in overall efficiency.

They are 30th in giveaways with 20, 23rd in takeaways with 11, which results in the NFL’s 30th best turnover margin of -9.

According to ESPN’S FPI rankings, the Eagles now have a 44.3% chance to make the playoffs, a 44.2% chance to win the NFC East, a 16.7% chance to make the Divisional Round, a 4.3% chance to make the Conference Championship, a 1.2% chance to make the Super Bowl, and a 0.4% chance to win the city’s second Lombardi Trophy.


Twitter: @luke_stans


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