The Eagles early season red zone woes are all but forgotten, but just a month ago, the inability to score – or even look like a competent NFL franchise – in the red zone was one of the biggest worries about this team and new coordinator Brian Johnson. This week, Nick Sirianni admitted that the offense with new personnel had some growing pains:
Your [red zone] identity isn’t always the same each year, and so the identity of what we did last year is just a little bit different than what we did this year. And it was taking a lit bit of time —It took us a little bit more time to figure out that identity, and since we have, we’ve done a really nice job, and our players are executing at a high level.”
Bleeding Green Nation “Nick Sirianni admits it took the Eagles offense some time to find their red zone identity”
The Miami game was the turning point
After the Miami game, I wrote about the Eagles bottom-of-the-league red zone offense and the issues – its predictability, too many low-success rate rushes, and frankly, some bad execution that was due to improve.
And turn a corner it did.
Entering the Miami game, the Eagles were 20th in the league in red zone success rate, scoring only 61% of total possible red zone points, with 8 field goals and 4 drives failing to score out of 22 red zone trips.
But from week 7 against the Dolphins on, the Eagles have been the best red zone team in the league:
- 1st in the league, scoring 83% of possible red zone points
- 2nd in the league scoring 122 total points in the red zone, second to only Baltimore with 137 points
- Scored a touchdown on 17 of 22 red zone trips
- Have an active streak of 11 straight touchdowns in the red zone
Below shows the Eagles red zone scoring rate over the course of the season (green line) vs. the league average (dashed line). Since week 7, the offense has been on a tear.
This resurgence came at the perfect time as the Eagles hit the toughest part of their schedule. And they are going to need it to continue this week as they take on the 49ers.
What changed?
3rd-and-not-so-longs
We all saw the puzzling 3rd-and-long calls but one way to fix that is to just not get into 3rd-and-long.
In the first 6 games, the Eagles put themselves into 3rd-and-long on half (11 of 22) of their red zone drives. And nothing worked.
From week 7 on, the Eagles have only had one 3rd-and-long, when Hurts scored a touchdown against the Chiefs in the 3rd quarter on 3rd-and-10.
More Swift
What everybody was screaming for happened, whether intentional or not. We’ve seen much more D’Andre Swift in the red zone.
Here’s their red zone rushing usage before and after the Miami game with D’Andre clearly now the go-to-guy:
| Swift | Gainwell | Hurts | Scott | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Weeks 1-6 | 14 (30%) | 14 (30%) | 17 (37%) | 1 (2%) |
| Weeks 7-12 | 14 (48%) | 6 (21%) | 9 (31%) | – |
There has been too much hate for Kenny and I think the early season red zone issues were more play design than Gainwell’s ability. But Swift is just a better back.
Swift just creates more – he has double the success rate as Gainwell, almost 10% fewer rushes that go for 2 yards or less, he generates more yardage after contact, and generates almost twice the number of missed tackles as Gainwell. Both are good options, but Swift is better. And he gave us the Brotherly Sweep.
Hurts and the passing game
Prior to the Miami game, Hurts went 11 for 23 and the passing game looked as out-of-sorts as the run game. The Eagles threw often behind the line of scrimmage (7 of 23 attempts) which were generally not blocked well. As frustrating as that was, these were the only passes they were completing – the average depth of target for red zone completions was 0.6 yards and not a single pass over 6 yards was completed.
Since the Miami game, Hurts is 9-for-10 with 7 TDs and taking shots from further out including A.J. Brown‘s one-handed catch against Washington.
Sirianni’s words above about finding their identity are important – every year teams change. The Eagles had a new offensive coordinator, new running back, and new starter at RG. Questioning Brian Johnson was premature. And most importantly, this Eagles team is just too talented to remain that bad in the red zone.
This week it’s on to the 49ers who are an extremely good team and also one of the top red zone offenses. Don’t let last year’s NFC Championship make you overconfident… like the past two weeks, this is going to be a heavyweight battle.
And we have seen against Dallas, Kansas City, and Buffalo that the Eagles righting their red zone offense, where they have been near automatic in these games, has been the difference.
Fly Eagles fly!
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