Tons of wild sack stats, some pretty cool receiving numbers, a crazy record Brandon Graham missed by a matter of days and even a rare Jake Elliot stat makes an appearance in this week’s edition of Roob’s Eagles Stats.
1. We have to start with the Eagles’ incredible sack production. Last week, the Eagles had six sacks against the Cowboys, becoming the first team in NFL history with six or more sacks in four straight games. They extended that streak to five straight games with seven sacks against the Saints. Th Eagles now have more sacks in their last five games (32) than they had in 17 games all last year (29). Those 32 sacks match the most ever by any team in any five-game stretch (not including the 1987 strike replacement games). The Cowboys had 32 Week 11 through Week 15 in 1984 and the Bears had 32 Week 6 through Week 10, also in 1984.
2. With 68 sacks, the Eagles are tied for the 4th-most in history through 16 games of a season (since sacks became an official stat in 1982). Thanks to the 17-game schedule, they’ll have a chance to move up on that list and possibly challenge the NFL record. They trail only Buddy Ryan’s 1984 Bears (72), the 1989 Vikings (1971) and the 1987 Bears (70).
3. The Eagles finished second-to-last in sacks last year with 29, ahead of only the Falcons’ 18 and tied for the fewest in franchise history. The 2005 team also had just 29. The Eagles’ 39-sack improvement so far – from 29 to 68 – is already the largest in NFL history. The previous largest improvement belonged to those 1989 Vikings, who improved from 37 in 1988 to 71 in 1989. They are the only teams with more than a 27-sack improvement from one year to the next.
4. Brandon Graham’s 10th sack didn’t just set a career high and put the Eagles at a franchise-record 63, it made the Eagles the first team in NFL history with four players with 10 or more sacks: Haason Reddick (16), Josh Sweat (11), Javon Hargrave (11) and Graham (11). The crazy thing is in the previous 10 years, the Eagles only had two players with 10 sacks – Connor Barwin had 14 ½ in 2014 and Fletcher Cox 10 ½ in 2018. With Graham and Sweat, this is the first time the Eagles have had two draft picks in double figures the same year since Jerome Brown and Clyde Simmons in 1989 (or Simmons and Reggie White in 1992 if you want to include supplemental picks). Over the last five weeks, Reddick has the most sacks in the NFL (8.0) and Graham and Sweat are tied for second (6 ½).
4A. I thought B.G. might be the oldest player ever to record his first 10-sack season, but he just missed that distinction – by five days. Graham was 34 years, 273 days, when he recorded No. 10 on Sunday. Ed “Too Tall” Jones of the Cowboys had his first 10-sack season in 1985, picking up his 10th sack against the Cards when he was 34 years, 278 days old.
5. And let’s not forget Fletcher Cox. He recorded his seventh sack Sunday, his most since he had 10 1/2 in his all-pro season in 2018. The Eagles aren’t just the first team in history with four players with 10 sacks, they’re the fourth with five players with seven sacks and the first since the 1997 Falcons (Lester Archambeau, Cornelius Bennett, Travis Hall, Dan Owens, Chuck Smith). The others were the 1985 Raiders and 1986 Bears.
NFL
6. OK, let’s move on to wide receiver: Before this year, only two Eagles had 84 catches, 1,100 yards, 12.5 yards per catch and seven touchdowns in a season – Irving Fryar in 1996 and Jeremy Maclin in 2014. This year, both DeVonta Smith and A.J. Brown have surpassed those benchmarks. Smith’s 88 catches are tied with Fryar’s 88 in 1996 for most ever by an Eagles receiver, and Brown’s 84 are 6th-most. Since Week 11, Brown has 616 receiving yards and Smith has 570. Only Justin Jefferson (678) has more during that span.
7. The Eagles go into the final week of the season at 46.6 on 3rd-down conversions, the highest in franchise history. The highest to date was 45.7 percent last year. The NFL has been tracking 3rd-down conversions since 1972. The highest conversion rate before Nick Sirianni took over was 45.4 percent in 2019. Since the start of last year, the Eagles are at 46.2, which trails only the Chiefs (50.4 percent) and Bills (47.9 percent going into last night’s game).
8. The Eagles have six offensive touchdowns of 75 yards or more over the last 12 years, and three have come against the Saints – Michael Vick’s 77-yard touchdown to DeSean Jackson at the SuperDome in 2012, Miles Sanders’ 82-yard TD run in 2020 and Gardner Minshew’s 78-yard TD pass to A.J. Brown Sunday. That was the Eagles’ longest TD since Jalen Hurts’ 81-yarder to Jackson in Dallas in 2020, and the Eagles’ longest TD pass play at the Linc since Nick Foles’ 83-yarder to Nelson Agholor against the Texans in 2018. The Eagles’ last five offensive touchdowns of 75 or more yards have all come in Week 13 or later.
9. A.J. Brown has 1,401 receiving yards, Smith has 1,129 and Miles Sanders has 1,236 rushing yards. If Smith picks up 71 receiving yards Sunday and reaches 1,200, the Eagles will become the eighth team in NFL history with two 1,200-yard receivers and a 1,200-yard rusher. Oddly, four of the previous seven came the same year. Here’s a look at those seven (with the RB listed first):
2018 Rams: Todd Gurley 1,251, Robert Woods 1,219, Brandin Cooks 1,204
2002 Bills: Travis Henry 1,438, Eric Moulds 1,292, Peerless Price 1,252
2000 Rams: Marshall Faulk 1,359, Torry Holt 1,635, Isaac Bruce 1,471
2000 Vikings: Robert Smith 1,521, Randy Moss 1,437, Cris Carter 1,274
2000 Broncos: Mike Anderson 1,487, Rod Smith 1,602, Ed McCaffrey 1,317
2000 Jaguars: Fred Taylor 1,399, Jimmy Smith 1,213, Keenan McCardell 1,207
1995 Lions: Barry Sanders 1,500, Herman Moore 1,686, Brett Perriman 1,488
10. Jake Elliott’s 56-yard field goal against the Saints was his fourth of 56 yards or longer in five career attempts. His 80 percent accuracy from 56 yards and out is 3rd-highest in NFL history among kickers who’ve attempted at least three field goals of 56 yards or more. Chandler Catanzaro is 4-for-4 and Harrison Butker is 5-for-6 (83 percent). Elliott is now responsible for four of the six-longest field goals in Eagles history, with that 61-yard game-winner against the Giants in 2017, a 56-yarder against the Cowboys in 2018, a 58-yarder in Carolina in 2021 and the 56-yarder against the Saints. His only miss from 56 and out was a 57-yarder in Pittsburgh in 2020. The only other field goals from 56 yards or longer in Eagles history are Tony Franklin’s 59-yarder in Dallas in 1979 and a 57-yarder by David Akers against the Patriots in 2003. In franchise history, Elliott is 4-for-5 from 56 yards and out and every other kicker is 2-for-25.