How lackluster has the Eagles’ passing offense been through two games?
We thought we’d take a crack at quantifying the Eagles’ lack of firepower in the passing game so far this year. And it’s not good.
With a tip of the cap to Stathead, here are 10 ways the Eagles’ passing offense has struggled through two games.
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Now, the Eagles are 2-0 going into Tampa for a Week 3 Monday night game, so they’ve found ways to win games despite their lackluster passing game. But I think we all understand that if the Eagles don’t get Jalen Hurts and the aerial attack fired up, they’re not going to be a Super Bowl contender.
For the sake of consistency, all these rankings and stats are through Week 2 and don’t include anything that happened so far in Week 3. But the Eagles’ rankings in general wouldn’t change much if at all even including Week 3 games.
√ On first down, the Eagles are averaging 4.2 yards per play, which is 25th-best in the league. They’ve recorded first downs on just 11.1 percent of their first downs. Only the Buccaneers – who the Eagles face Monday night in Tampa – are worse, with 4-for-56.
√ The Eagles have thrown the ball 12 times on third down, converting just two of those into first downs for an NFL-worst 16.6 percent. The Chargers (22.2 percent) were the only other team under 25 percent going into Week 3.
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√ Through two games, the Eagles had an NFL-low nine pass plays of 10 yards or more. The league average was 18.4, so they had less than half the NFL average. Last year the Eagles averaged 10.5 pass plays per game of at least 10 yards.
√ Nearly half of the Eagles’ total pass completions have gone for fewer than 10 yards (21 of 43, 48.8 percent). That was the lowest in the league through two weeks.
√ DeVonta Smith has 178 yards this year and A.J. Brown 108, but nobody else on the team has more than 22 yards. This is the first time in 66 years that the Eagles haven’t had at least three players with 25 receiving yards after two weeks. In 1957, Bill Stribling had 44 yards after two games but Ken Keller had the next-most yards with 24.
√ The Eagles are averaging just 8.1 yards per pass completion, which was 28th-best in the league after two weeks. The lowest the Eagles have ever had over a full season is 8.2 back in 1976.
√ Their 12 total passing third downs is fewest in the league. The Jets (13) and Steelers (15) have the next fewest. The last time the Eagles had 12 passing first downs through two games was 1999, when their quarterback was Doug Pederson. They had 25 after two games last year.
√ The Eagles’ 162.5 passing yards per game ranked 29th in the league. This is first time since 2003 the Eagles have netted fewer than 175 passing yards in each of their first two games and only the fifth time since 1980.
√ Jalen Hurts has been sacked seven times on just 63 drop-backs (11.1 percent), which was the 27th-highest sack ratio among starting quarterbacks through two weeks and highest by an Eagles QB since Michael Vick was sacked eight times on 66 drop-backs the first two weeks of 2010 (12.1 percent).
√ The Eagles ranked dead last in the NFL in yards after the catch per completion at 2.4 going into this weekend's games. That’s 96 yards after the catch on 40 completions.