Simple chart raises major red flag for Eagles' Super Bowl hopes
After losing 42-19 to the San Francisco 49ers, the Philadelphia Eagles' defense is finally being exposed for how bad they really are. According to an updated chart on each teams' "Defensive Series Results," the Eagles rank 31st. The chart shows that Eagles give up a touchdown or a first down 74 percent of the time […]
After losing 42-19 to the San Francisco 49ers, the Philadelphia Eagles' defense is finally being exposed for how bad they really are.
According to an updated chart on each teams' "Defensive Series Results," the Eagles rank 31st.
The chart shows that Eagles give up a touchdown or a first down 74 percent of the time that their defense is out there.
It also shows that the Birds are forcing a punt or turnover on only 21 percent of their defensive drives.
That's not a good look for a team that is sitting at 10-2 and has hopes of a Super Bowl repeat appearance.
To break down the Eagles' defense furthermore, they rank 29th in the league on pass defense and 3rd in run defense. Their scoring defense sits at 20th overall while they rank 29th in red zone defense.
There's an obvious weak spot there and the 49ers took advantage of that on Sunday when Brock Purdy completed 19 of 27 pass attempts for 314 yards and four touchdowns to lead his team to victory.
After the loss, Eagles' head coach Nick Sirianni remained a little too naive at how bad his pass defense was (and has been all season) against San Francisco.
"It was a little uncharacteristic… the missed tackles," Sirianni said, "but [Niners WR] Deebo [Samuel] and [Niners RB Christian] McCaffrey and [Niners TE George] Kittle, those guys do a good job and [Niners WR Brandon] Aiyuk, they do a good job of breaking tackles as well."
If the Eagles plan on securing the No. 1 seed in the NFC East and making their way to another Super Bowl run, they're going to need to fix things on defense as soon as Week 14's matchup against the Dallas Cowboys.
