The 2022 Philadelphia Eagles are the NFL’s best team. They have a 13-1 record, with their only loss as an odd misstep against the Washington Commanders in Week 10. The offense is explosive, diverse, and just about impossible to stop. The offensive line is the NFL’s best, and it isn’t particularly close. The defense has come around in 2022, especially the pass rush and coverage. And third-year quarterback Jalen Hurts has gone from a big maybe in 2021, to unquestioned franchise quarterback in 2022.
This team hasn’t faced a lot of adversity this season, but they’re about to get a dose of it. Hurts suffered a sprained throwing shoulder in Philly’s 25-20 win over the Chicago Bears last Sunday, and he won’t play in this Saturday’s crucial matchup against the Dallas Cowboys. So, it’ll be Gardner Minshew at the helm. In 2021, his first season with the Eagles, Minshew completed 41 of 60 passes for 469 yards, four touchdowns, one interception, and a passer rating of 104.8. He might have starter potential on a team with a less-defined quarterback situation, and he’s one of the NFL’s best backups, so that’s nice.
Minshew had run the scout team in practice throughout the season, which didn’t give him reps with the number-one guys, but it did allow him the opportunity to deal with the Eagles’ first-string defense — a defense that currently ranks seventh in DVOA, and second in the NFL against the pass, behind only the Denver Broncos.
“We’re all doing our jobs getting ready to play this game and we have full confidence in each other,” tight end Dallas Goedert said this week. “Gardner will do his job. He’s the man. We all love him. The best way we can support him is to play our best and that’s what we’re preparing to do. Nothing changes.”
Well, some things will change. But how can the Eagles maintain their offense — or most of it — without the quarterback who has become the defining player on that side of the ball? We’ve already hopefully debunked the canard that Hurts is a “system quarterback” who’s easily replaced, so now, it’s on to the other side of the argument: How should head coach Nick Sirianni and offensive coordinator Shane Steichen arm Minshew with the best chance to take this team to 14-1 on the season?
The Eagles clinch the NFC East, the NFC’s one-seed, and home field advantage through the playoffs with a win, so it’s a fairly important question.
Play-action is key.
Minshew has always been a plus-level quarterback with the benefit of play-action, and that bore out in the 2021 season. With play-action, he completed 11 of 16 passes for 172 yards, two touchdowns, and a passer rating of 143.8. Some of Minshew’s play-action passes were on quick screens, which elevated his completion percentage, but there was also this 36-yard touchdown pass to tight end Dallas Goedert against the New York Jets in Week 13. The Jets — who had a much worse pass defense in 2021 than they do now — were in Cover-3, and when Minshew faked the handoff to running back Miles Sanders, the Jets stayed with their coverage plan instead of biting on it. Problem was, linebacker C.J. Mosley couldn’t keep up with Goedert on the deep over, and Minshew got the ball in there.
Minshew is already fully up on the Eagles’ RPO game, as he showed on this 12-yard completion to Jalen Reagor against the Cowboys in Week 18. It’s an important construct. This season, the Eagles are tied with the Green Bay Packers for the most dropbacks out of RPOs with 61, and Hurts completed 48 of 59 passes for 382 yards, 78 air yards, four touchdowns, no interceptions, and a passer rating of 116.5. So, you could see a lot of this in the rematch.
Get the man-beaters ready.
Injuries in Dallas’ secondary have really shown up on the field — the Cowboys dropped from second in pass defense DVOA in Weeks 1-9 to 16th in Weeks 10-15. That DVOA hasn’t changed their schematic DNA, though — the Cowboys are still one of the NFL’s most prominent purveyors of man coverage — it’s just that they’re not as good at it as they used to be. Since Week 10 in man coverage, the Cowboys have allowed 53 completions on 68 passes for 528 yards, four touchdowns, two interceptions, and an opponent passer rating of 92.0.
Hurts has blown the doors off of man coverage this season, and while that’s in part because of his threat as a runner… as a passer, he’s completed 89 of 150 passes for 1,372 yards, 850 air yards, 10 touchdowns, two interceptions, and a league-high passer rating of 106.3. Minshew can benefit from some of the man-beaters that Sirianni and Steichen dial up.
The Eagles love to run intermediate slants between the linebackers and safeties, and they’re quite good at it. On this 38-yard completion to DeVonta Smith against the Bears last Sunday, you can see how receiver placement allowed Hurts to make the timed throw in rhythm.
Sirianni and Steichen will also like to run mirrored — or near-mirrored — two-man route concepts to both sides of the field to throw man coverage into a tizzy.
Here, against the Cowboys in Week 6, Philly had Smith and A.J. Brown running in-cuts to either side from outside the formation, and Quez Watkins and Dallas Goedert running more vertical outside routes from the slot. In this case, the outside-breaking route run by Goedert to the right side left Brown open underneath, because linebacker Leighton Vander Esch took Goedert up top, and cornerback Anthony Brown (who is now on injured reserve) was unable to come down and get leverage on Brown before he caught the ball.
And once you get the ball in A.J. Brown’s hands, yards after the catch are likely to occur.
By the way, if Minshew starts in Week 17 against the New Orleans Saints, he’ll be facing another defense that loves to play man coverage despite the fact that they’re great at it. The Saints have played man on a league-high 191 passing attempts this season, allowing 100 catches on 147 targets for 1,165 yards, six touchdowns, one interception, and an opponent passer rating of 79.4.
Trust the new (and better) targets.
When Minshew started against the Cowboys at the end of the 2021 regular season, his receivers were Greg Ward, Kenneth Gainwell, Jaelen Reagor, Quez Watkins, Tyree Jackson, Richard Rodgers, and the rookie version of DeVonta Smith. Not ideal. Now, Minshew has A.J. Brown, the fully developed version of DeVonta Smith, Watkins, Gainwell and Miles Sanders as the tunning backs catching passes out of the backfield, and Dallas Goedert, who the team activated from injured reserve after a shoulder injury.
That’s a significant improvement, especially up top. Smith is a much better receiver than he was in his rookie year, and the trade that brought Brown from Tennessee to Philadelphia has been a franchise-altering one.
Minshew will have the benefit of all that against a Dallas defense that is not what it was in the first half of the season. Minshew doesn’t have a howitzer for an arm, but he proved able to make deep throws last season, such as this 28-yard deep over to Watkins against the Jets.
One thing Minshew didn’t have last season was Brown’s ability to nuke cornerbacks on go routes, either with his raw speed, or with his contested catch ability. Against the Bears last Sunday, Jaylon Johnson was singled up on Brown with late safety help. 68 yards later, you can guess how that went.
Smith’s improvement is equally encouraging. He’s turned into a devastating receiver on seam routes, and when it comes time to make dangerous catches in traffic? Well, the 6-foot-0, 170 pound “Slim Reaper” isn’t afraid of the smoke at all. This 44-yard catch against Washington in Week 3 proved the point.
Run out of passing personnel.
While Minshew is a decent scrambler, he’s not equipped to replicate the Eagles’ quarterback run game with Hurts this season, which has been majestic. Hurts has run 156 times this season for 747 yards and 13 touchdowns. As we’ve detailed before, a large percentage of those runs have come out of 11 personnel (one tight end, one running back, three receivers), and that’s allowed Sirianni and Steichen to keep their offense static before the snap, and amorphous once the play is underway. Hurts has run 94 times out of 11 personnel for 529 yards and eight touchdowns out of 11.
So, that’s out the window here, but the most productive runner in the NFL out of 11 personnel is still on the Eagles’ roster, and that’s Miles Sanders, who has run 132 times for 760 yards and three touchdowns out of 11.
This 28-yard run against the Green Bay Packers in Week 12 was a power run out of 11, with right tackle Lane Johnson pulling to block linebacker Quay Walker, and center Jason Kelce hitting the second level to deal with linebacker Kris Barnes. The Packers were in nickel to deal with the possible passing threat out of that personnel, but the thing about the Eagles’ offense as it’s constructed is that they can run with any concept out of any personnel grouping. It works better with Hurts, but Minshew can read a defense’s intentions and take it from there.
This 25-yard run against the Houston Texans in Week 9 was a trap play in which defensive tackle Roy Lopez was allowed into the backfield, only to be cut down by Dallas Goedert. That gave Sanders the lane he needed to get upfield for yet another big gain.
The Eagles are great with Hurts, but good enough to win without him.
It’s bean an interesting week for Minshew. As he discovered that he might be the starter this week, he was delivering a eulogy for Mike Leach, his head coach at Washington State in 2018. Now, it’s time to ramp up the preparation.
“With Zoom and the way you can video things, I mean, installs were videotaped,” Sirianni said Thursday. “Zoom was available to him when he was available. Obviously, we can FaceTime him and talk through with clips and everything.
“So, there a was ton of communication back and forth while still giving Gardner time to be able to do what he needed to do to honor his coach that obviously he was very close with. We wanted to respect that obviously as well, and he needed to be there.”
Now that he’s back with the team, Minshew seems ready to roll.
“Every time you take reps in practice, it’s a good thing,” he said. “It’s a different feel, a different group of guys you throw to out there. Getting the communication down with everybody, working on the timing with everybody, and knowing where they’re going to be, that’s the benefit. There are some really good guys out there. I’m here to do my part to help the team win.”
As the Eagles are set up now, Minshew shouldn’t need to do much more than that.
