Three Eagles Numbers That Matter

From the pass rush to a surprising Nick Foles stat to the run game, here are three Eagles numbers that matter.

29.6 – The percentage of pass plays last year in which the Eagles’ defense generated pressure. That number ranked first in the NFL, according to Football Outsiders. It’s a pretty remarkable stat for a couple different reasons. The Eagles play a two-gap 3-4 in which they focus on stopping the run on early downs. And I don’t think they have a player who would be considered a premiere edge rusher.

Connor Barwin led the team with 14.5 sacks and 21 hurries (coaches’ stats) last year. Those are great numbers, but in many cases, he’s not blowing by (or running over) offensive tackles. He’s savvy and does a great job of anticipating where the quarterback is going to end up. To his credit, Barwin knows how to finish also.

Vinny Curry had nine sacks and did a tremendous job of winning one-on-one matchups when he came on the field in sub packages. Fletcher Cox was a beast inside, even if the numbers didn’t show it (four sacks). Trent Cole and Brandon Graham combined for 11 sacks. Graham won his individual matchup as consistently as anyone on the team, but didn’t play a high number of snaps.

What I like about Football Outsiders’ stat is that they define pressure. It’s sacks, hurries and forced scrambles. Billy Davis talks all the time about moving the quarterback off his spot, and the guys up front for the Eagles did a really good job of that last year.

This offseason, the Eagles let Cole go, but Graham is probably a superior pass rusher at this point anyway. They didn’t make any other significant changes to the pass rush.

While the Eagles ranked first in pressure percentage, they ranked just 19th in performance (DVOA) on those plays. In other words, getting to the QB didn’t always translate to positive results. Those numbers make sense in relation to the offseason decisions – don’t mess too much with the guys up front, but overhaul the secondary.

6 – Where Nick Foles ranked in terms of DVOA on plays where he was pressured last year, according to Football Outsiders. This stat was a stunner to me. Foles was pressured 29.1 percent of the time, which was ninth-most among the 37 quarterback who were on the field for at least 200 pass plays. But among that group, only Ben Roethlisberger, Drew Stanton (!), Russell Wilson, Philip Rivers and Matt Ryan were better under pressure.

The narrative with Foles (and one we admittedly agreed with at times last year) was that he crumbled under pressure, and the leaky offensive line was what hampered him in 2014. But the numbers suggest otherwise. He actually did pretty well when pressured.

Foles ranked 26th, however, on plays where he didn’t face pressure. As friend of the blog Brian Solomon pointed out, perhaps that backs up the notion that Foles’ struggles were mostly due to him sensing pressure which was non-existent.

I know some of you get ornery when we spend time on players who are no longer on the roster, so let’s move it forward. Obviously, there’s no data for Sam Bradford from last year because he didn’t play. But in 2013, he ranked 20th in DVOA when pressured and 29th when he faced no pressure.

Based on film, I thought one of Bradford’s biggest issues was dealing with pressure. He had very little escapability before the most recent ACL injury and looked flat-out clumsy at times. We’ll see if coaching, scheme and better weapons can help with this issue in Philadelphia. Either way, the offensive line needs to do a better job in protection than it did a year ago.

2.9 – The Eagles’ average yards before contact per rushing attempt, according to ESPN.com. In other words, Eagles running backs averaged 2.9 yards before a defender touched them. That ranked seventh in the NFL.

There’s been a lot of talk about LeSean McCoy dancing and the banged-up offensive line, but Chip Kelly was still able to scheme up some things in the run game. As a point of comparison, the Cowboys averaged 2.8 yards before contact in 2014, which ranked 10th.

Obviously, this number isn’t the be all, end all. The Eagles’ run game was mediocre last year. The offensive line had injury issues; McCoy wasn’t elusive as he was in 2013; and scheme familiarity played a role with opposing defenses.

We’ve spent time this offseason criticizing Kelly when warranted. But I still think the one area where he deserves the benefit of the doubt is the run game. I’m sure the lack of consistency there drove him nuts last year.

In the offsason, Kelly decided to make dramatic changes to the backfield and part ways with Todd Herremans and Evan Mathis. Still without a running threat at QB, it’ll be interesting to see what he comes up with for the run game in 2015.