The Eagles Still Aren't Great, But That's OK

Before the season started, I set my expectations for 2013 at a reasonable level: an improvement from last year's disaster squad and a foundation built for future growth. As I said then, most teams as bad as the Eagles improved, on DVOA terms, by an average of about 12%. I anticipated something along those lines, with a slight record improvement but certainly no mention of playoffs.

Obviously, I was wrong. Before Sunday's loss, the Eagles had improved by nearly 33% in DVOA, one of the best turnarounds ever. That will cool slightly this week, but the team still has the inside track on a playoff spot, something most people (including Jeffrey Lurie) never expected to happen so soon.

But Sunday's game reminded us that this squad -- or at least half of it -- is still a work in progress. Chip Kelly's offense is gangbusters, even if it can sputter out for stretches. On a "bad day," Nick Foles threw for 428 yards on 30 for 48 attempts, 3 TDs and 1 INT. Plus he ran the ball 5 times for 41 yards to boot. LeSean McCoy only got 8 carries, but still finished with over 100 yards from scrimmage. DeSean Jackson had nearly 200 receiving yards plus an end-around touchdown called back due to penalty. Oh, and rookie tight end Zach Ertz ended the day with 57 yards on 6 receptions, including a one-handed TD grab. No big problems here.

The defense is still messy, though. As I've said before, you don't have to be an elite quarterback to find the holes in Billy Davis' scheme (Hint: look for the safeties). A smart, patient, accurate player will pick this secondary apart. That's what happened when the Eagles D was skinned alive during the three-game stretch against Philip Rivers, Alex Smith, and Peyton Manning. Since then, during the team's 7-2 run, opponents never scored more than 21 points. 

The great nine-game run leading up to Sunday seemed to be the defense gelling, but most of it was the horrendous, mistake-prone quarterbacks the Eagles faced. Only two of the QBs the Eagles faced in that span have positive DVOA on the year, and they played one of those in a blizzard. Matt Cassel could easily have been another one of those lightweights, but he did his best 2008 impression, throwing for the 4th-most yards of his career. That came despite the Eagles front seven holding the Adrian Peterson-less Vikings to just 2.4 yards per carry.

Worth noting: Football Outsiders never bought into the Eagles defensive turnaround. While they were bend-but-not-breaking their way to sub-22 point totals, the defense allowed over 350 yards in all but two of the last 9 games. Coming into Sunday, the team ranked 22nd in defensive efficiency, versus 3rd on offense. Even with Denver and Kansas City as past opponents, the Eagles faced the 27th-weakest schedule and registered the highest level of inconsistency in the league prior to this week. Including week 15, the Eagles have the lowest point differential of any division leader.

So again, the Eagles aren't great. If their schedule weren't so easy, including six games against the criminally ugly NFC East, I imagine the team would have finished closer to my "return to 1999" prediction than their current possible outcome of 8-10 wins. If the Eagles win the division, which I now expect them to do either against Chicago with the Cowboys losing again, or in Dallas the week after, they will have vastly overperformed -- despite being only a mediocre overall team.

But that's OK. Even if the Eagles get rolled over by a better wild card team like San Francisco, Carolina, or New Orleans, the season will have been a smashing success, and one to build on in 2014. Kelly's offense still has room to grow next year, and the defensive reconstruction will continue. Until then, enjoy this #housemoney season.

A Second Level Look at the Eagles Defense

10th in points allowed, 8th in yards allowed.

Those numbers are seductive. Maybe this Eagles defense wasn’t as bad as we thought. Maybe, counter to conventional wisdom, Juan Castillo doesn’t have to be fired. Maybe he’s already figured things out.

If you feel those sentiments catching up to you, it’s time for an intervention. Total points allowed, total yards allowed are flawed statistics at best. Imparting any meaning to them requires understanding them in the context of a host of other statistical factors.

When we take the whole picture into account, the picture of the Eagles defense doesn’t look so rosy after all.

Opponents

Here’s a list of the Eagles opponents, ranked by offensive efficiency (Football Outsiders DVOA):

• NWE #3
• NYG #7
• DAL #11
• ATL #12
• BUF #16
• SF #18
• WAS #19
• MIA #20
• NYJ #21
• SEA #22
• ARI #28
• CHI #30
• STL #32

The Eagles played one elite offense this season: the Patriots. They only faced one other offense in the top ten, and Juan Castillo could pull a gameplan off the shelf for that one. Same with the Cowboys, who the Eagles faced once with Tony Romo and once without.

Next you have the Falcons, the juggernaut that couldn’t manage a single offensive point against the Giants this weekend, along with the Bills and 49ers, offenses that represent the height of mediocrity. Every other opponent the Eagles faced was as bad — or worse (!) — than the Rex Grossman-led Redskins.

Consistency

If you want to win week in and week out in the NFL, you can’t have wildly variable performances week by week, let alone quarter by quarter.

The Eagles defense had good moments, for sure, especially against the worst NFC East in years. But they could never sustain that success. We lived that roller-coaster ride throughout the season. So it’s unsurprising to note that the defense had the second-worst variance rate of any team in the NFL.

But even more telling is the volatility throughout a single game. The Eagles were 11th in the NFL in points allowed through the first three quarters. But in the fourth, that dropped to 25th.

That wasn’t an anomaly. Castillo’s defense was consistently out-schemed and out-played late in games. The Cardinals, for example, engineered a comeback largely by exploiting coverages that they knew were coming. That will lose you games even when you look alright on the stat sheet.

Situational

Carrying along from inconsistency, it’s worth noting that the Eagles defense wasn’t bad at everything. Much like the Jim Johnson defenses of old, which relied on a bend-but-don’t-break approach, Castillo’s unit had its own pluses and minuses.

Unfortunately, the 2011 Eagles had more of the break-but-don’t-bend qualities.

For example, the defense ranked 8th in the NFL in first downs per drive. That means they stalled out a large number of opponent drives — a positive indicator. That led to the Eagles allowing the 9th-fewest points per drive.

However, these numbers come with large caveats. For starters, the Eagles allowed the second-fewest number of field goal attempts in the league, and opponents converted a league-low 66 percent of those attempts. Some of that is indicative of good defense, some just of luck.

More importantly, despite fewer first downs, the Eagles were below average (19th) in touchdowns allowed per drive. Why? Two reasons. For the second straight season, the Eagles had an atrocious red zone defense (60 percent TDs allowed). The defense also allowed far too many big plays. They were 4th-worst in the NFL in 40-yard plays given up per drive.

Again, some things were great. Jim Washburn’s defense line posted the most sacks in the league. But at the same time, the Eagles were 24th in first downs allowed by penalties (unsurprising), and 22nd in turnovers (surprising). Not enough positives to outweigh the negatives.

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In short, that’s how you can end up with seemingly solid overall points and yards allowed, without actually having a defense good enough to win more than eight games. And it’s also why Juan Castillo needs to go… or at the very least be demoted post-haste.

Photo from Getty.

The Mirage of Late-Season Success

The central question of the moment is simple: what to make of the Eagles final month? They won four games in a row, allowed only 11.5 points per game — seemingly the make up of a long-anticipated turnaround.

Was it really?

You can make that case if you’re so inclined, citing defensive statistics like yards allowed, changed tactics, and the words of almost every player in the Eagles locker room. But I think you would be wrong.

The oft-cited Occam’s razor is typically used to defend the simplest answer, and to some minds the idea that Juan Castillo and his defense just improved over the final weeks could seem like the obvious solution. But what Occam’s razor actually recommends is the answer which makes the fewest new assumptions. A new assumption like, “Castillo is now a good coordinator.”

Instead, after the first twelve weeks of complete ineptitude, culminating in a humiliating loss on Thursday night to the Seattle Seahawks, we should give the benefit of the doubt to explanations which do not make such a radical assumption.

Explanations such as:

• Facing the vaunted quarterback lineup of Matt Moore, Mark Sanchez, Stephen McGee, and Rex Grossman.
• Playing only one game against an opponent with playoff ramifications on the line.
• Lining up against two NFC East teams that the Eagles had already shown the ability to shut down.

I could go on, keep talking about these poor offenses and, more generally, poor teams, but you know all of that. We could predict this possibility of “improved defense” weeks ago, and we did. To come back now and suggest that the Eagles are set going forward would be a mistake.

This team finished 8-8, buoyed by a 5-1 record in the putrid NFC East. In any other year, given their performance, the Eagles could count on both a worse record and a worse finish in the division. Instead, just enough optimism remains to excuse a season of failure.

What we saw over the last month was a mirage, an illusion of success encouraged by our need to see progress and find hope. It would be wise for us to accept this reality as we set expectations for the offseason, lest we remain in the desert, convinced that Castillo can lead the team to an oasis just over the next ridge.

Photo from Getty.

You've Been Mostly-Dead All Day

From Monty Python to The Princess Bride, Mike Tanier explains the Eagles’ current situation:

Like 20-something underachievers who realized their girlfriends would leave them unless they stopped jamming at open mike nights and got a real job, the Eagles combed their hair and abandoned slacker chic in the last two weeks. They are now brilliantly flawed, which is a step up from their brilliantly self-destructive state of earlier this season.

Worst NFC East Ever?

It’s tough to watch this year’s NFC East. Eagles fans have long prided themselves on the fact that their team plays in one of the toughest divisions in the league. This year, that just isn’t true.

I charted the Football Outsiders overall team efficiency DVOA for each NFC East team since 2000. The results are below:

So it turns out, on a purely average DVOA basis, that this is not the worst NFC East in the last decade. In fact, this year’s group is barely below the 2010 average.

Perhaps the real reason this year’s group seems so awful has more to do with the lack of even one good team. To this point, among all “best teams in the NFC East,” this year’s Giants are by far the worst. In every year other than 2000, at least one team has posted a DVOA score of at least 20 percent, and the 2011 Giants would be no better than third in the division in any other year since 2005.

The way they’ve played this year, the Eagles should not have even the 3 percent chance they have of winning the division. Widespread mediocrity will do that for you.

A Thin Veneer of Success

I know I’m the Negative Nancy of the Eagles blogosphere, unable to enjoy a close win against a division rival. Yes, the 18-play drive was neat and the defensive line played well against a bad Giants offensive line. But without a heroic strip-sack by Jason Babin with a minute left after the Giants had already driven 70 yards, we might be talking about yet another fourth quarter collapse.

Frankly, this win only covered up many of the same problems we’ve seen in every loss. Turnovers, red zone issues, missed tackles, dropped passes, blown coverages, stupid penalties — it was all still there. We even saw new problems emerge: the offense couldn’t get LeSean McCoy going until his final run of the night.

There are far more people than I expected who are re-checking playoff scenarios based on the thought, “If only they could keep playing at the same level.” Let me tell you, that level is at best .500 the rest of the way.

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In other news, here’s Pro Football Focus’s charting of the Eagles pass coverage from Sunday night. We’ve talked about Nnamdi Asomugha’s problems, but if you saw Rob Gronkowski’s two touchdown game on Monday night, the linebackers should worry you much more.

Photo from Getty.

Must Win on Monday Night

“If the Bears prevail, nobody is going to write that the Eagles’ season is over,” says Les Bowen.

Not so sure about that. I might.

Lets take a look at the Eagles’ playoff chances. Football Outsiders’ odds prior to this weekend gave them a 34 percent chance of making the postseason. The team was slightly more likely to win the division than the wild card, a result of a rather weak division.

But the Giants’ win over the Patriots last night put them a few lengths ahead of the rest of NFC East field. The Cowboys also won, meaning the Eagles — if they lost tonight — would be behind the leader by three games and the second-place team by a game. That scenario is not pretty.

And a loss to the Bears puts the Eagles further behind in the wild card standings as well. The Lions are way ahead at 6-2. The Eagles, at 3-5, would be two games down to both Chicago and Atlanta, both of whom would also have head-to-head victories against Philadelphia. They’d also be a game back of Tampa Bay and the Cowboys.

To make the playoffs with 8 games left, the Eagles would have to go 7-1 the rest of the way and still get lucky, hoping that five out of the six teams ahead of them flop. Sure, there would be a token chance. But at that point, you’re really just playing for pride and Andy Reid’s future.

Demolishing the Cowboys last week was a necessary step, and it showed that there’s still a chance the Eagles could close out the season with a big winning streak. But the margin for error is razor-thin, especially against another team in the wild card hunt.

Photo from Getty.

The Optimist's Guide to the 2011 Eagles

With the pessimist fan’s guide already done, it’s time to turn to the dreamers, the optimistic few in this City of Brotherly Despair. These precious souls are always looking for the best, expecting another Super Bowl run. There’s no reason to jump off that bandwagon now. Eventually you’ll be right, and here’s why that could come this season:

• Last year’s Eagles team had a tremendous number of problems. There was a quarterback controversy, a miserable right side of the offensive line, not enough pass rush, weak linebackers, and a giant hole at right cornerback that sucked in any unsuspecting player who tried to fill it. And yet, the Eagles still managed to go 10-6 and win the NFC East. And they could have easily been 11-5 if they played their starters in the season finale. This wasn’t a bad team in 2010.

• Remember all those problems I just laid out? The Eagles addressed all of them in the offseason. Some of the spots went from areas of weakness to immediate strengths. Cornerback is now the deepest unit in the league. The defensive line has been upgraded with two big free agents. Offensive line and linebacker may not yet inspire confidence, but there’s no doubt that change has come to both positions and improvement wouldn’t be that difficult.

• If you watched Thursday night’s NFL season opener, you saw the blueprint for a great team: a transcendent quarterback, spread offensive weapons, a relentless pass rush, and shutdown cornerbacks. That describes the Super Bowl champ Packers perfectly, and now the Eagles too. Forget the preseason. This Andy Reid-coached, Michael Vick-led passing attack will set franchise records. The defense, in turn, is built to feast on opponents who struggle to keep up.

• If there was ever a schedule made for winning a playoff bye week, this is it. The NFC East looks like it’s in a down cycle. The Cowboys got back Romo but had lots of other turnover. The Giants lost a number of starters to injuries and free agency just in the last month. And the Redskins are starting Rex Grossman. Meanwhile, the Eagles take on the NFC West, another four wins. Then they play Atlanta instead of New Orleans and Chicago instead of Green Bay. Looking at the schedule, there’s no reason the Eagles can’t go 12-4 or 13-3.

Many contrarian commentators want to play down the Eagles’ chances because it’s always fun to hate. But this team has as good a chance as any in the Andy Reid era of finally breaking through and bringing home that elusive Lombardi Trophy.

Photo from Getty.