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The Eagles Have Thrown Seven Screen Passes This Season for -15 Yards
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We did a story last week titled “The Eagles Might Be the Worst Bubble Screen Team in All of Football (College and Pro).” That was after they tried three screens in the season opener for a grand total of -11 yards. Two targets went to Makai Lemon and the third was to Saquon Barkley.
Let’s update that story now, because the Eagles ran four more screens in Nashville on Sunday and they went for -4 yards with a 50% completion rate:
- 12:57 in the 1st: Jalen Hurts to Tank Bigsby for -2 yards
- 6:15 in the 1st: Jalen Hurts incomplete (thrown at the linemen’s feet, play was blown up)
- 3:20 in the 2nd: Jalen Hurts short right to Will Shipley for -2 yards
- 8:23 in the 3rd: Jalen Hurts incomplete to Saquon Barkley
For context, the 4th quarter play for Makai Lemon was actually logged in the box score as a run. It was a swing pass thrown laterally as Makai was coming out of orbit motion, so it doesn’t technically count as a screen, even though it had the hallmarks of a typical Eagles screen. It was blown up for a five-yard loss because one of the receivers missed a block. I used a picture of this for the featured image anyway, though, because we didn’t have anything better.
With that caveat, the Eagles have now run seven screen this year for a total of -15 yards. They’ve completed 5 of these 7 passes and the other two were blown up by defensive linemen. They’re averaging -2.1 yards per screen attempt.
I asked the Sportradar AI to go through our database and give me a list of screens and yards for every NFL team this season, and here are some bullet takeaways:
- all 32 teams have attempted at least one screen
- the Chiefs are #1 with 15 total attempts
- the Falcons are #1 with 114 total yards (Bijan Robinson + Cooper Rush effect)
- the Ravens are #1 with 15.3 yards per attempt, but just four attempts
- the Eagles, Saints, and Giants are the only teams with negative yardage on screens
- the Saints have only run 4 screens and the Giants 1, which went for a 7-yard loss
In conclusion – yes. The Eagles are horrific in the screen game. Abhorrent and ghastly. The numbers confirm what you have witnessed with your own eyeballs.
Kevin has been writing about Philadelphia sports since 2009. He spent seven years in the CBS 3 sports department and started with the Union during the team's 2010 inaugural season. He went to the academic powerhouses of Boyertown High School and West Virginia University. email - k.kinkead@sportradar.com