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The Eagles are Really Bad on 1st Down and Really Good on 3rd Down – What’s Going On There?
By Matt Schultz
Published:
Shawn Syed of Sumer Sports shared this stat, and it’s a pretty interesting one:
That’s a big discrepancy between early and late downs, and it sounds right to me. Going off eye test alone, it does feel like the Eagles have been particularly bad on first downs, but keep finding ways to extend drives on third down. I did a deep dive on the stats, and found that the numbers back this up in a ton of ways.
What the Numbers Say About 1st Downs vs. 3rd Downs
According to Sportradar’s data, the Birds have an early-down (1st & 2nd down) offensive success rate of 37% (34 of 92 plays), which ranks 32nd (last) in the NFL. In contrast, on 3rd down, the Eagles have a 53.1% offensive success rate (17 of 32 plays), which ranks 5th. That makes for a -16.2% differential between early downs and 3rd downs, the 2nd-largest negative differential in the league.
Seeing these numbers, the knee-jerk reaction is to want to know why this is the trend. What’s happening here? What are they doing on early downs that just isn’t working? And how are they fixing the offense on 3rd down?
Going off the eye test once again, I’d say the answers seem simple enough: the Eagles are running the ball a ton on 1st downs and getting stuffed. They’re also running the worst screens I’ve ever seen in my life on early downs. Then, on 3rd downs, they’re depending on Jalen Hurts to throw the ball deep-ish or scramble for a first down.
According to the stats, that’s pretty much the gist of it.
What Doesn’t Work on Early Downs (1st & 2nd Down)
The Eagles’ league-worst 37% early-down offensive success rate stems from a combination of a bad ground attack and stagnant passing. The Birds run the ball on 54.3% of early-down snaps, and it’s been pretty terrible so far, producing just 137 yards on 50 carries (2.74 YPC) and a 38% success rate with Saquon Barkley (2.78 YPC), Tank Bigsby (2.57 YPC), and Will Shipley (2.88 YPC).
It’s also been predictable. The Eagles have run the ball on 62.5% of their 1st-down plays (30 rushes on 48 plays), which ranks 6th-highest in the NFL. When you combine those two problems — predictable and ineffective — the results aren’t going to be good.
And the passing hasn’t been much better. On early downs, the Birds aren’t getting any meaningful chunk yardage, averaging only 5.19 net yards per dropback with a 35.7% success rate (15 of 42). Early down throws are also generating zero or negative yards 50% (!!!) of the time. That’s so damn bad.
The Eagles’ awful screen game is a huge part of this. So far this season, Philadelphia has called 11 total screen/quick perimeter pass designs, and 10 of the 11 have been called on early downs. Of those 10:
- 6 were blown up for no gain.
- 5 went for negative yardage.
- 1 was an incompletion.
In total, 8 of the 10 early-down screens were unsuccessful plays, netting just 13 total yards on 10 plays (1.3 yards per attempt).
To summarize… not good! The Eagles have been bad at running the ball and bad at throwing the ball. That is, until they get to 3rd down.
What Works on Late Downs (3rd Down)
On 3rd down, the Eagles somehow transform into one of the league’s most effective offenses (53.1% success rate, ranking 5th in the NFL) by generating high-impact chunk plays both on the ground and through the air.
3rd-down rushing attempts have been exceptionally good (71.4% success rate, 12.57 YPC), fueled by Hurts scrambling for conversions (5 carries, 41 yards) and Barkley breaking free.
And when dropping back on 3rd down, Jalen and the passing game average 8.44 net yards per play with a 48% success rate, consistently converting long-yardage situations with intermediate strikes to DeVonta Smith (4 catches, 71 yards), Dontayvion Wicks (4 catches, 69 yards), and Dallas Goedert (3 catches, 72 yards).
A big part of the air game’s success is design, too. It’s worth noting that the Eagles don’t run screens on 3rd down (0 of their 32 third-down plays have been WR/bubble screens). They save that dog shit for 1st and 2nd down only.
The Bottom Line
In conclusion, our eyes and the stats are telling us all the same thing: the Eagles run game is ass on early downs and the pass game isn’t much better, but time and time again, Hurts has been able to bail out the offense with big plays in the air or by scrambling on third downs.
So what’s the takeaway? How do the Eagles get better on 1st down, and depend less on clutch 3rd down conversations?
My three suggestions are as follows: 1) stop running the ball so much on 1st down, 2) look to take a shot downfield more on early downs, and 3) never run a bubble screen ever again. It’s just not working. I say let that go. You can trust me, Eagles. I just looked through a million stats on all this stuff.
Matt Schultz is a comedy and sports writer from Philadelphia. He’s written extensively for ClickHole, The Onion, and Conan O’Brien’s Team Coco. His work has been featured in Vulture, Deadspin, The A.V. Club, Paste Magazine, and other publications. Much of his sports journalism can be found on college basketball websites that don’t exist anymore (PhilaHoops Heads rise up…) email: M.Schultz@sportradar.com