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Tim McManus, ESPN Staff WriterDec 13, 2024, 06:00 AM ET
- Tim McManus covers the Philadelphia Eagles for ESPN. He joined ESPN in 2016 after covering the Eagles for Philadelphia Magazine’s Birds 24/7, a site he helped create, since 2010. You can follow him on Twitter @Tim_McManus.
PHILADELPHIA — Philadelphia Eagles receiver A.J. Brown couldn’t have predicted all the drama that would stem from his terse postgame comments about the passing game last week, but his decision to show his frustrations in front of the media was intentional by his account.
In short, he says wanted to put everyone’s attention on the aerial attack so the issue can be remedied before it comes back to bite them.
“I said that for a reason, honestly. Because we went to the Super Bowl [during the 2022 season] and lost. We tried again the next year. It was a [10-1] record [in 2023] and there was a landslide,” Brown said, referring to the Eagles losing five of their last six regular-season games before bowing out in the wild-card round. “And here we go again. It’s something that we can correct right now while we have the opportunity.”
That has been the focus this week, now that questions about Brown’s relationship with quarterback Jalen Hurts have quieted down.
The sentiment expressed by the key members of the passing game — namely Hurts, Brown and fellow receiver DeVonta Smith — is that the operation lacks rhythm and congruity. That can be expected to a degree given the amount of time on task relative to the rest of the league.
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The Eagles have leaned into Saquon Barkley and the ground game. They lead the league in rushing attempts (473) and yards (190.5 per game). The flip side is they’re last in passing attempts (328) and 31st in passing yards (180.6 per game).
The offensive approach shifted dramatically during their Week 5 bye. Over the first four weeks of the season, Hurts dropped back 39 times per game on average. In the nine games since, that’s dropped sharply to 27 dropbacks per game.
It’s hard to argue with the results. Hurts ranked second in turnovers with seven over the first four weeks as Philadelphia started off 2-2. He has just two turnovers since (dropping all the way down to 21st in turnovers) as the Eagles have rattled off nine wins in a row.
Hurts is playing a much more efficient brand of ball. He has 12 touchdowns to one interception during that nine-game streak and has been sacked 23 times (2.5 per game) compared to four touchdowns, four interceptions and 13 sacks (3.25 per game) before they went ground-heavy.
“I’ve submitted myself to whatever it takes to win,” Hurts said. “I don’t care how it looks. That’s kind of my game and that’s something that people have to accept, that it’s going to look how Jalen Hurts wants it to look, but he’s going to win.”
But the Eagles are going against the grain when it comes to championship style. They are averaging 25.2 pass attempts per game this season, fewest of any team in the league. Since 2000, there has only been one team to make it to the Super Bowl who averaged fewer than 26 pass attempts per game during the regular season, per ESPN Research: the 2005 Steelers, who won the Super Bowl that season.
Since 2015, there have been four teams to reach the Super Bowl who averaged at least 30 rushing attempts during the regular season: the 2015 Panthers, 2022 Eagles, 2019 49ers and 2016 Patriots. The ’16 Patriots were the only one of those teams to win the Super Bowl.
It’s almost certain there will be a time in the postseason where the running game is slowed and it will fall to Hurts and the pass attack to carry the day. The talent is certainly there to get it done but the consistency has not been for much of the season.
Of late, Hurts has veered sharply towards the conservative. He’s thrown for under 180 yards in each of the last three games and ranks 31st in air yards per attempt (5.7), with just two of his 62 pass attempts traveling 20-plus yards downfield over that stretch. And yet he ranks 32nd over that span in average time before throw (3.24 seconds), speaking to the sometimes clunky, arrhythmic nature of the pass game recently.
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Brown has felt the effects: he’s received just one downfield target of 20-plus yards in Hurts’ last 90 pass attempts. The sequence that helped spark the frustration last week was the Eagles’ second offensive play of the game, where Hurts opted to check it down instead of letting it rip to a wide open Brown along the right side — an example of how Hurts has been turning down throws. Brown didn’t have the ball come his way until the waning moments of the second quarter.
Brown is averaging 6.6 targets per game, down from nine targets per game over his first two seasons in Philly. He boasted a 29.4% target share over the last two years, which trailed only Davante Adams and Tyreek Hill; that’s dropped to 19th in the league with a rate of 22.2%.
After the Carolina game, Brown said “passing” was the area that needed to get fixed on offense and called it “incredibly tough” to get into a rhythm as a receiver when the opportunities are limited.
“Ultimately, he’s a guy that’s a competitor, he wants to win, he damn sure wants the ball and he wants to make an impact in the game, and I respect that,” Hurts said of Brown. “That’s just like all of us.”
Even amid the decline in opportunities, Brown still ranks No. 1 in the league in yards per target (12.5).
“I’m going to focus more on trying to find different ways of increasing the likelihood of the ball going to him,” said offensive coordinator Kellen Moore. “For us, we’re always going to evaluate how we can get it to him sooner and create those opportunities.”
Brown slammed his helmet on the sideline following a three-and out against Carolina and finished with four catches on as many targets for 43 yards. A similar scene unfolded last year during a Week 2 win over the Minnesota Vikings when Brown, who had four catches for 29 yards in the game, fumed on the sideline and had an animated exchange with Hurts.
The next week against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, Brown was targeted 14 times and had nine catches for 131 yards, the start of a record-setting six straight games where he posted 125-plus receiving yards.
Perhaps that’s foreshadowing for what will unfold Sunday as the Eagles look to get their passing game on track against a stalwart Pittsburgh Steelers defense (4:25 p.m., FOX).
“I’m not saying the sky is falling with our passing game,” Brown said, “but it’s something to bring awareness to it, to focus on it, to get better in the moment that we have.”
