By Sally Fahey
The Eagles are desperate for new blood at wide receiver, especially because they haven’t drafted any great ones since 2008 when they took DeSean Jackson and 2009 when they took Jeremy Maclin.
Here are the old, hard facts, courtesy of The Athletic.com:
The Eagles finished 2019 14th in offensive DVOA, 17th in passing and 13th in rushing. They were 12th in the league in points per game, 21st in yards per play and 22nd in yards per pass.
They had 43 touchdown drives in 2019, 11th-most in the league. Those touchdown drives averaged eight plays per drive, which was fifth-most in the league. The Eagles averaged 7.8 yards per play on touchdown drives, 30th in the league.
Expanded to all drives that ended in a touchdown or field goal attempt, only the Raiders averaged more plays per drive than the Eagles’ 8.7. Carson Wentz and company had the fifth-fewest yards per play on those drives (6.7). Even when they were successful, everything was hard for the offense.
The Eagles scored four touchdowns of 30 yards or more. Of the 16 teams who scored six or fewer 30-plus-yard touchdowns, only the Eagles, Patriots and Bills made the playoffs. The Patriots and Bills both had top-six defenses by DVOA, while the Eagles finished 12th.
The Eagles gained 25 yards or more on 3.2 percent of their offensive plays in which they had at least 25 yards to gain, the 23rd-best rate in the league. No team ranked below them made the playoffs, while eight of the top 12 did. The quarterbacks of the teams ranked below the Eagles were Kyler Murray, Matt Ryan, Mason Rudolph, Jacoby Brissett, Case Keenum, Mitchell Trubisky, Ryan Fitzpatrick, Kyle Allen and Sam Darnold.
There’s a thought that the Eagles stumbled upon something down the stretch with Wentz playing alongside a depleted group of young wide receivers. It’s true that 13 of their 34 plays of 25 yards or more on the season (38 percent) came during that four-game winning streak. But only three of those 13 plays came on completions to wide receivers.
According to Sportradar, the Eagles averaged just 6.5 yards per attempt on passes thrown to wide receivers, far and away the worst mark in the league. The distance in yards per attempt between the Eagles and the 31st-ranked team was as much as the difference between 31st and 21st.
The good news is the Eagles were able to mitigate the damage done by their “bogginess” by excelling on third downs (fourth in the league) and in the red zone (third). The bad news is the success is probably unsustainable. Of the 50 teams over the past five seasons who finished in the top 10 in third-down offense, only 18 were in the top 10 the previous year. Only 12 of 50 teams repeated a top-10 red-zone performance.
The odds of repeating that success aren’t any better because the Eagles were good in both situations. The four most recent teams to rank in the top five in both third-down and red-zone offense finished the next season with an average ranking of 14th on third down and 13th in the red zone.
According to OverTheCap, the Eagles currently have the eighth-most cap space allotted to the wide receiver position.
