Eagles stats: From Super Bowl berths to playoff fizzles, what can history tell us about the Birds’ hot start?
The numbers that matter to most Eagles fans right now are 4-0, but other numbers could add up in importance.
Roughly a quarter of the way through the regular season, the Eagles have established themselves as one of the best teams in the NFL.
The team’s 29-21 win over the Jacksonville Jaguars on Sunday further confirmed the notion that this collection of players could be in for a big year.
» READ MORE: What we learned from Eagles-Jaguars: More adversity is coming with multiple injuries
The sample size for advanced metrics is growing and the noise of the first few weeks is starting to even out. Here are five stats that help tell the story of the Eagles through four weeks:
31
Since 2012, there have been 31 other teams that have started the regular season 4-0.
What can we learn from those teams?
Just four of them missed the playoffs, with the most recent example being the 2016 Minnesota Vikings and Denver Broncos. Of the remaining 27 teams, there’s a tantalizingly close split between Super Bowl berths and wild-card losses.
Nine fell in the opening weekend, four lost in the division round, and six lost in the conference round.
Eight of the teams made it to the Super Bowl, with a record of 3-5 once they got there. The 2013 Seattle Seahawks, 2015 Denver Broncos, and 2019 Kansas City Chiefs are the group of champions the Eagles are hoping to join.
The Eagles being the lone undefeated team going into Week 5 is also pretty rare. Since 2012, there have only been two other seasons in which just one team started with four wins: the 2021 Arizona Cardinals and 2017 Chiefs. For what it’s worth, both of them were among the teams that peaked early only to lose in the wild-card round.
12
All this isn’t to say the Eagles are doomed to falter later this season.
FiveThirtyEight, which takes historical context into account but also factors in various other data points, gives the Eagles a 95% chance of making the playoffs and a 12% chance of winning the Super Bowl.
Perhaps 12% seems stingy, but consider how much has to go right for a team to win a championship, from injuries to controversial calls in close games. Winning a title requires some lucky bounces, even for the best of teams.
The Eagles have the third-highest likelihood to reign victorious, according to 538, behind the Buffalo Bills and the Chiefs. The next closest team is the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, who have an 8% chance.
.97
Miles Sanders had a career day against the Jaguars, and the advanced numbers suggested it was well-earned.
According to Next Gen Stats, Sanders averaged just under one yard over expectation on his 27 carries, which is the best average for any runner to surpass 20 rushing attempts in Week 4. The metric suggests that Sanders was consistently generating yards on top of what his offensive line created for him.
The traditional stats are good for Sanders as well. His 356 rushing yards rank third in the NFL.
29
The Eagles’ special teams units have some ground to make up.
While the Eagles rank second in the league in defense-adjusted value over average, Football Outsiders’ efficiency stat, their special teams unit rank 29th. If not for the lackluster special teams, the Eagles could very well lead the league in DVOA.
The return game is the primary drain on the team’s metrics. Football Outsiders ranks the Eagles’ punt-return production lowest in the NFL and their kickoff-return unit is 29th.
99
Landon Dickerson has been one of the best guards in the NFL, according to ESPN’s win rate metric.
Dickerson is leading the league in pass-block win rate, which measures how often a blocker stalemates a defender for longer than 2.5 seconds. He’s successful 99% of the time, according to ESPN. The 2021 second-round pick is also managing the same task on running plays 81% of the time, which ranks third in the NFL.