Eagles

Eagles Offense: One Key Stat that Makes Me Want to Jump Off the Walt Whitman Bridge

By Kevin Kinkead

Published: Nov 17th, 2025 · 10:34 AM EST

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Did the bye week help the Eagles offense?

No. It did not.

In two games coming out of the break, Kevin Patullo’s unit mustered 10 points in Green Bay and 16 at home against Detroit. They won both because Vic Fangio’s defense played like a combination of the Legion of Boom and Steel Curtain.

There are a lot of directions in which to go with this. Jalen Hurts and A.J. Brown weren’t in sync on Sunday night. A.J. was targeted a season-high 11 times but only logged 49 yards on seven receptions. Saquon Barkley ran for 86 yards but at a 3.2 YPC clip. Lane Johnson had to leave the game injured, again, the offensive line hasn’t played well this year while dealing with incessant injuries.

Focusing, though, on one singular thing, this is the stat it boils down to:

On third downs, the Eagles have to go 7.96 yards on average for a first down. That is dead last in the NFL

Naturally, there’s a lot of cause and effect that goes into this.

Cause

This Eagles offense has 34 negative rushing attempts, which is tied with Seattle for most in the league. They’ve lost a league-high 125 yards on failed run attempts this season. That’s one of the primary reasons why their first down success rate is 20th overall and their 2nd down success rate is 29th, which means only the Raiders, Browns, and Titans are picking up fewer yards towards the marker before getting to third down.

Effect

The failure to gain yards on 1st and 2nd down puts the Eagles into the league’s longest third down distance, which has resulted in a 33.9% conversion rate. That’s tied with the 3-7 Falcons for fourth-worst. Naturally, because they have to go almost eight full yards to move the sticks, they have the NFL’s worst 3 and out percentage, at 30.8%. Shane Steichen’s Colts, for comparison, have the lowest rate in the NFL at 13.1%. On 32 drives this season, the Eagles have run three plays and then punted.

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The main caveat here is that the Eagles have covered up some of these blemishes with their 64.7% fourth down conversion rate, which is 8th best in the league. And it’s not a low attempt number either. They are 11 for 17 on 4th down, which is a top-10 rate on the 14th-most attempts.

According to the brilliant and useful Tush Push tracker, the Eagles have run the shove eight times this season on 4th and 1 and are 6 for 8 on those attempts. It does include the fugazi non-fumble against the Giants, which the refs blew dead early. Ironic, however, is that the two failures came against the Lions on Sunday night, which contributed to the fourth quarter gong show and extended the game unnecessarily.

Summing it up, the Eagles just aren’t doing enough on 1st and 2nd down. They are constantly behind the sticks and it’s creating this problem where they have to go a long way on 3rd down, leading to the league’s worst 3 and out rate.