A lot of Eagles fans have looked ahead at the Titans game as a concern, especially because of the run game on both sides of the ball. But I am way more bullish on this game than most.
First, Derrick Henry is being Derrick Henry:
- 1,048 yards and 10 TDs after 10 games
- 4th in the league with 45 missed/broken tackles
- 4th in yards after contact average at 3.67 yards
- 1st among RBs in yards per route run at 2.03
His receptions, like most RBs, are effectively runs with an aDOT of 0.1 yards but his 2.03 yards per route run are twice his career average and better than any Eagles except A.J. Brown.
The Eagles run defense issues are well known, but (small sample size caveat) they have particularly struggled against the bigger, yards-after-contact backs like Dameon Pierce and AJ Dillon, both who had their best weeks of the year against the Eagles. Zeke also had his best week of the season. Even D’Andre Swift who isn’t the biggest back but is one of the better yards-after contact RBs, had his best week of the year against the Eagles.
Doesn’t sound like a good day for the Eagles defense at all. But I am much more optimistic than most.
Good pass defenses have made it hard for Derrick Henry
But Henry has been contained by the Bills, Broncos, Packers, and Bengals. Each of these games his yards per attempt, yards after contact, and explosive plays were season lows. The Bills are obviously a very good run defense (4th in run defense DVOA), but Denver and Cincy are both middle of the league run defenses and as we just saw, Green Bay is awful.
These are the only games where Henry was held to 3.0 yards per rush or less. A few things stand out with each of these games:
Good pass defenses: The only top 10 pass defenses the Titans faced were these defenses – Denver is 4th in DVOA, Buffalo 7th, Cincy 10th, and Green Bay was just outside the top ten at 11.
Stacked boxes: Trusting the pass defense allowed these teams to load the box and sell out for the run without being hurt by Tannehill. Here are the counts of extra corners or safeties aligned in the box for each game:
- Bills – 52 extra secondary snaps on 51 defensive snaps and only 3 missed tackles
- Packers – an absurd 95 extra defenders on 65 snaps, averaging 8 defenders in the box all game
- Bengals – 44 extra defenders on 65 snaps and only 2 missed tackles all game
- Broncos – Denver is the odd one as they didn’t particularly load the box (41 extra defenders on 62 snaps) and held Henry to 2.8 YPA. The Titans OL did grade out particularly poorly that week at
It’s not a new story that teams load the box against the Titans – Tannehill has famously benefited more than any other QB in the league in amount of dropbacks facing a heavy box which has inflated his passing stats. And Henry is very used to facing loaded boxes.
The difference is when Tennessee faces a good pass defense, defenses don’t have to back off against Tannehill. The Eagles pass defense is 3rd in the league, the best pass defense the Titans have seen so far.
Philosophically Gannon has wanted to use fewer up front to commit to coverage and it will be interesting to see if he switches this. They have the secondary to do it against the Titans and will need to.
The Eagles will need to tackle though. I think their tackling has been better recently than most give it credit for, but this is the biggest “if” in this game.
The Eagles pass defense gives them the opportunity to neutralize Derrick Henry if they tackle well
Tennessee’s OL isn’t great
The Titans’ OL is 11th in run block win rate (RBWR) and 27th in pass block win rate (PBWR). Henry is such a yards after contact monster but he has to be – he is 2nd in the league in percent of yards that come after contact with 83% of his yards after contact, behind only Cam Akers. On average, a defender is hitting Henry after only 0.73 yards.
When pass blocking, the Titans give up the 4th highest amount of pressure in the league behind the Giants, Chargers, Texans, and Vikings. Below shows each team’s pressure rate allowed vs. their QB’s average time to throw with TEN and PHI highlighted.
Comparatively Tannehill isn’t a bad QB against pressure, 4th in the league in passer rating vs. pressure. But pressure makes every QB worse as it does Tannehill – his passer rating drops 23 points when pressured.
And again, the Eagles (2nd in the league in pass rush win rate) will be the best pass rush the Titans have faced this year. The closest defenses the Titans have faced this year are Buffalo, Washington, and Denver and he had his two worst games against Buffalo (-0.524 EPA/play) and Washington (-0.019). Only against Denver did Tannehill have a good game where they were killed by Nick Westbrook-Ikhine.
The Eagles pass rush will get to Tannehill and the run defense comes down to tackling
The Titans run defense is good but they struggle against mobile QBs
The other side of the concern from a lot of Eagles fans is the Titans run defense. And it is very good:
- 1st in rush defense DVOA
- 8th in EPA/rush
- 3rd in yards per attempt allowed and total rushing yards allowed
But they have really struggled vs. mobile QBs when they scramble. They have given up the 5th most rushing yards to QBs, almost 20% of rushing yards they allowed are against QBs which is 2nd highest in the league.
And they haven’t really faced a QB like Jalen Hurts. But against the more mobile QBs they have faced – Mahomes, Daniel Jones, Russell Wilson, and Josh Allen – they have given up 8.5 yards per run and over an EPA/rush of nearly 1.00.
To put this in context, the worst run defense in the league is Cleveland who allows a a 0.164 EPA/rush, one-sixth the rushing value Tennessee allows vs. mobile QBs.
Expect Hurts to have another fantastic game
And talking of Hurts, the Eagles should be able to attack deep
The Titans are middle of the league against the pass (16th in DVOA allowed), but one area they have been bad is in intermediate and deep passing. They are 23rd in EPA/pass against intermediate passing (11-20 yards) and 29th against deep passing (20+).
And the Eagles happen to be good at deep passing:
- 2nd in the league in explosive pass plays (with 33) that are targeted more than 10 yards downfield, 6th in the league over 20 yards downfield (with 11)
- Hurts has a phenomenal 14.38 CPOE on deep passing, 7th out of 38 QBs that have thrown at least 10 deep passes
Pick who you want, whether it’s AJ or DeVonta or Quez, but it should be a good week to attack deep.
Fly Eagles fly!
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