Good Eagles vs. Lions Scouting Report and Notes Here
You follow that “Honest NFL” account on Twitter? Dude says he’s an ex-NFL scout and there might even be an Eagles connection there. He’s anonymous and on his profile it states that he’s “here to help spread knowledge.”
The account always has good in-depth football information, like route concepts, playbook stuff, and team breakdowns. One of the most-recent tweets talks about the Lions’ defense:
Everywhere the Lions are strong, the Eagles are stronger. Specifically up front. The addition of Hutchinson will be good for them overall, but he’ll face the toughest matchup of his life in his very first game and he’ll need a perfect rush plan with some help to be effective.
— Honest NFL (@TheHonestNFL) September 2, 2022
Obviously this comes from last year’s data, when the Lions went 3-13. The Birds blasted them 44 to 6, running for 236 yards in the process and scoring four touchdowns on the ground. Five different Eagles had 20+ yards on the ground.
Honest NFL notes that they played a lot of 2-high safety (cover 2) and don’t rush the quarterback very well. No wonder they stunk. And those 3-man rushes are pretty gross. No NFL team should ever be in any kind of rush 3/drop 8 design unless it’s 3rd and 35 or you’re up by three scores and playing prevent defense with the clock running out.
Notice how he calls Detroit a “base 5-2” as well. I think we’re past the point of calling base defense a 4-3 or 3-4. The trendy NFL defensive word is “multiple,” like you’re going to show multiple fronts in some sort of nickel deployment where you’ve got five defensive backs on the field. So in the Eagles’ case, you’d have T.J. Edwards and Kyzir White out there, then Slay/Bradberry/Gardner-Johnson/Epps/Maddox, and then take your pick of four-linemen in various deployments.
Anyway, give this guy a follow if you aren’t doing so. His stuff is kind of dense for the average NFL fan, like some people simply won’t care about advanced Xs and Os, but if that’s your thing, this is your guy.