Thoughts on the Eagles / 49ers Game

Before the season, I had the 49ers modeled as a slightly better team than the Eagles based on expected aggregate team value. San Francisco was a bad team in 2020 but like Philly, it is important to look at why and what has changed:

• SF started Nick Mullens and CJ Beathard in 12 games as Garoppolo was injured and the difference was stark. Garoppolo was 14th in composite EPA+CPOE vs. Beathard at 29th and Mullens at 32nd.
• SF also was one of the “unluckiest” teams in the league, underperforming their expected win total by 11% and near the league bottom in turnover margin (although I don’t see turnover margin as big of a regression statistic as most others do – more on that below).
• And while the Eagles had awful injury luck (30th in the league), SF was even worse, ending last in the league with 166 adjusted games lost, double the league median.

The Eagles and 49ers are weirdly similar teams, with strengths (QB and receivers, pass rush) and weaknesses (run defense) generally in the same areas.

This makes this week’s game very different than the opener where the Eagles strengths (DL, receivers) were matched up against the Falcons weaknesses (OL, secondary).

Before the season, I had this as a loss for the Eagles but think they win this one now, especially at home. Here are three quick thoughts on what I think will matter for the game:

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The 49ers injuries matter

The 49ers secondary wasn’t necessarily a strength entering the season, ranked 20th, and they just lost their best CB, Jason Verrett, for the season. They also let go their statistically best corner in 2020, Ahkello Witherspoon. And their next CB on the depth chart, Emmanuel Moseley, is questionable. K’Wuan Williams in the slot is decent but on the outside there’s a lot of youth (5th rounder Deommodore Lenoir who they like and 3rd rounder Ambry Thomas). They just brought back Dre Kirkpatrick who allowed a 116 passer rating against the Eagles last year. The Eagles will need to expose this secondary.

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The “disappearing” Eagles explosive offense

One “yeah but” narrative common after the Eagles win was the lack of explosive plays, or more specifically, lack of downfield throws by Hurts. Last week, Hurts was 35th out of 39 QBs in average depth of target (aDOT) of 3.8 yards.

I pushed against this narrative for two reasons: first, Dean Pees’ defenses prioritize taking away downfield throws which Sirianni also spoke about after the game and second, while aDOT is important, what matter is explosive plays. You are obviously more likely to have an explosive play with a deeper throw, but the Eagles did not suffer from lack of explosive plays.

After week 1, the Eagles offense was 5th in the league in explosive plays generated and 5th best in defensive explosive plays allowed. Both of these are better than SF, whose offense had some big plays but also allowed a much worse Detroit team to generate explosive plays on 8% of plays.

The Eagles had six explosive passes in week 1, four of which had air yards greater than 10 yards, along with 4 explosive runs with two by Hurts himself:

The 49ers had 7 explosive passes, one of which was a 79 yard touchdown to Deebo Samuel that was 26 air yards and 53 YAC. They have young talent at WR with Samuel and Aiyuk, who appears to have been held out of the opener as a message. And of course they have Kittle which is another athletic mismatch for the Eagles and another good test of Gannon.

I expect to see a different Eagles offense against the 49ers with Hurts’ “disappearing” downfield shots returning vs. their banged up secondary.

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The lines and pressure

As mentioned above, last week was a favorable mismatch for the Eagles but this week both lines are more equal. A couple of points to look for:

4-man rushes and will SF actually blitz?
San Francisco, like the Eagles, generally relies on a four man rush but they have historically doubled their blitz rate on 3rd down. Hurts has been very good against the blitz and it will be interesting to see if SF actually avoids the blitz with their secondary and Hurts strength against the blitz.

QBs under pressure
Garoppolo last year was good against pressure with only a 6 point drop in passer rating. In week 1, Hurts was actually better when under pressure with a 135 passer rating. Credit to both his escapability and his good decision-making.

Garoppolo’s two issues
Garoppolo is a good QB but has two issues that pop out to me: he allows way too many sacks and he has an interception problem.

• In 2020, Garoppolo was 40th of 44 QBs in pressure to sack rate at 28.9% and had the highest sack rate in the league when he held the ball for 2.5 seconds or more. Hurts allowed sacks at a much lower rate of 17% despite a much higher pressure rate last year. And for added context, Garoppolo is worse than Wentz, who was awful at this, as Wentz “only” had a 25.3% pressure to sack rate.
• Garoppolo had the 3rd worst interception rate in the league in 2020 at 3.6% of attempts, only behind Mullens and Jake Luton, and was more prone to throw interceptions when he held the ball. 4 of his 5 2020 interceptions came when he held the ball 2.5 seconds or longer. And this is not new as he had 15 interceptions in 2019 with a 3.0% pick rate. Turnovers are my top concern with Hurts as he also had the issue in college, but even his interception rate last year (which I hated) was “only” 2.7%.

So this weekend, look for when Garoppolo is holding on to the ball. The Eagles will need to win the sack / turnover battle this week.

Who do I think wins?

Mostly because of SF’s injuries and this being a home game, I think the Eagles win this game. Our WRs and TEs should have good games and while we did not generate a turnover last week, I expect that to change this week. The 49ers have weapons, a better overall offense than the Falcons, and will pull in Lance (I hate the two-QB usage by the way) although I don’t think that will have a material impact on the game. It is going to be an interesting game where, at least on paper, each team’s units are matched up well.

Fly Eagles fly.