Eagles stats: Defense fails to get off the field on third down; offense stumbles in the red zone

After suffering a resounding 42-19 defeat to the San Francisco 49ers on Sunday night, the Eagles have plenty to work on before their prime-time road matchup against the 9-3 Dallas Cowboys. The Eagles still possess the best record in the NFL at 10-2.

Here are five stats that matter from the Week 13 loss:

The high-powered 49ers offense converted 72.7% of its third-down attempts (8-for-11), marking the Eagles defense’s worst third-down performance by percentage of the season. Two of those conversions were touchdowns, both of which were passes. Outside of their first two drives, the 49ers seldom found themselves in third-and-long situations thanks to their success on first and second down.

Now, the Eagles defense has allowed the worst third-down conversion percentage in the league at 47.3%. In the team’s last three games, opponents have gone 29-for-50 (58%) on third down. It won’t get any easier Sunday night — the Cowboys offense has the second-best third-down conversion percentage in the league at 48.5%.

According to NFL Next Gen Stats, 49ers receiver Deebo Samuel had a 0.1% chance of scoring when he hauled in a pass from quarterback Brock Purdy on his 48-yard touchdown in the third quarter for a 28-13 lead. Samuel broke inside linebacker Nicholas Morrow’s poor attempt at a tackle and blazed his way to the end zone with cornerback Darius Slay in pursuit. Next Gen Stats’ model estimated that he would have gained 2 yards after the catch, but he ultimately racked up 43 yards.

Samuel finished the game with 138 all-purpose yards and three touchdowns on seven touches. According to Next Gen Stats, he had a career-high 88 yards after the catch over expected.

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“Just getting in space and open field and breaking tackles,” Samuel said. “That’s what I’m really good at, and [coach] Kyle [Shanahan] put me in real good positions to make that happen. Did a good job at the end of the day.”

Quarterback Jalen Hurts had an average of 3.72 seconds to throw on Sunday, according to Next Gen Stats, which was the most in Week 13 among all quarterbacks and way more time than usual. Hurts has had 3.07 seconds on average to throw this season, which ranks third in the league. The next closest this week was Washington Commanders quarterback Sam Howell with 3.22 seconds on average.

But ample time didn’t lead to ample completions, regardless of who was at fault. It’s worth noting that the Eagles’ receivers appeared to have a hard time getting open throughout the night. According to Next Gen Stats, while the league average in receiver separation from the nearest defender at the time of the catch or incompletion is 2.95 yards, receiver DeVonta Smith led the Eagles with 2.73 average yards of separation. By comparison, tight end George Kittle registered a game-high 4.33 yards of separation on average.

Hurts finished the night with 26 completions on 45 attempts (57.8%) for 298 yards and one passing touchdown, earning a 85.2 passer rating. He also took three sacks.

“It’s about how we respond, how we are approaching it, and how bad we want to grow,” Hurts said. “How bad do we want to better ourselves? So that’s the mentality moving forward, and, obviously, that has to be done together as a unit.”

After three straight weeks of scoring on 100% of its red-zone trips, the Eagles offense scored on just 50% of its opportunities inside the 20 (2-for-4) against the 49ers. The Eagles stalled twice in the red zone in the first quarter, settling for field goals on both occasions to go up 6-0. Later on, they ironed out their red-zone issues and scored on a Tush Push in the third quarter and on a 2-yard reception by Smith in the fourth.

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But a lack of execution on offense coupled with a porous, tackling-inept defense spelled disaster for the Eagles. The offense now ranks ninth in the league in red-zone conversion (61.7%).

“I’ll have to watch the tape and see what happened there exactly, but that was tough on us to start the game fast and only be up 6-0,” coach Nick Sirianni said. “Hats off to them. They did a good job in the red zone, and, again, we didn’t coach it well enough or execute it well enough.”

The Eagles offense had its worst day in the running game since 2018, putting up a total of 46 rushing yards on 18 carries. Their running backs accounted for 20 of those yards on nine carries. The 49ers took a 7-6 lead in the second quarter, forcing the host Eagles to play catch-up and place an emphasis on the passing game instead.

But even when the Eagles did run the ball, they weren’t doing so efficiently and rushed for 2.6 yards per carry. D’Andre Swift, the Eagles’ top running back, had just 2.2 yards per carry (13 yards on six carries), his second-lowest rate of the season aside from his 1.8-yards-per-carry performance in the Week 6 loss to the New York Jets.

“I think it was an up-and-down day. I’d have to go back and watch the tape to really iron out exactly why that was,” center Jason Kelce said. “I wasn’t good enough in the run game. I think that as a team, we just weren’t consistent enough offensively to get it done.”