LANDOVER, Md. — If you ever wondered what this 2024 Eagles offense would look like without Jalen Hurts, you got a glimpse of it in Sunday’s 36-33 loss to the Commanders at Northwest Stadium.
And it wasn’t just the passing offense that took a hit.
After Hurts’ exited the game in the first quarter with a concussion, the Commanders were more willing to sell out against the run and were able to stifle Saquon Barkley in the second half.
“They were kind of loading the box. We get it each week,” Barkley said. “The dynamic of Jalen definitely helps, though. In our situation, a lot of things that we do in our run game is designed with Jalen. So it’s kind of hard to continue to run the same stuff when he’s not in there.
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“We had to adjust. They did a really good job. We just didn’t make the plays that we needed to make.”
Here are some telling notes from NextGen Stats to back up what Barkley said about the Commanders’ defense:
• Barkley had 109 yards and 2 touchdowns on his first 7 carries against the Commanders but had just 41 on his final 22.
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• Of those 109 early yards, 99 came before contact and he wasn’t hit behind the line of scrimmage once on 7 carries. On his last 22 carries, he gained -4 yards before contact and was hit behind the line 13 times (59.1%).
• The Commanders used a single-high safety on 3 of their first 12 plays (25%). But after Hurts left, they were in single-high on 40 of 59 plays (67.8%). Barkley had just 28 yards on 18 carries on those plays. When they had a two-high shell, he had 117 yards on 9 carries.
Basically, without Hurts in the game, the Commanders allocated way more resources to stop Barkley. Not only is a lot of the Eagles’ run game predicated on Hurts’ ability to run, but it also seemed like the Eagles weren’t willing to let Pickett air it out as much after the Commanders began to load the box.
While Barkley’s big 68-yard touchdown run came with Pickett in the game, the Commanders really clamped down after that drive.
A.J. Brown after the game said he didn’t think the Commanders would have been able to limit Barkley as much later in the game had Hurts not gotten injured.
“No, no, no, no, no,” Brown said. “And that’s no shade on Kenny. You know, they’ve got two different games.”
Brown after the loss mentioned that he simply hasn’t gotten a ton of reps with Pickett and has been working closely with Hurts for years. It’s not easy to jump into a game and instantly click.
The Eagles are always aware that they’re one play away from the backup quarterback taking the field but Hurts and Pickett are very different players. This week, the Eagles will monitor Hurts’ progress through the concussion protocol but if Pickett has to play, you’d hope they’d be better prepared after a week of preparation.
Because even though Pickett made some good plays, the Commanders were able to take advantage when he went in the game on Sunday.
“Yeah, hats off to Washington,” head coach Nick Sirianni said. “They had a good plan, did some really good things, made it hard. You know, some muddy runs. We were able to get some good yardage running the football but wasn’t quite consistent enough for our standard. But they got good players, they got good coaches, and you know, give them credit today.”
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