The Eagles’ pass rush isn’t recording sacks, but Matt Patricia says it’s still making an impact

For Matt Patricia, there’s more than one way to measure a pass rush.

After recording just one sack against the New York Giants on Monday, the Eagles’ pass rush dropped even further toward the middle of the pack when it comes to sack production. The Eagles have recorded 40 sacks this year, which is tied for 14th in the NFL, and they haven’t recorded more than three sacks in a game since Week 9.

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Considering the level of investment the team has put into the defensive tackle and edge rusher positions, this recent stretch of games poses some concern for the Eagles going into the final weeks of the regular season and beyond. The Eagles defense is built around a deep group of pass rushers capable of dominating games, but those players struggled to finish off pressures against a Giants team that ranks dead last in sacks allowed (77) by a wide margin.

Despite the lack of production, Patricia, the team’s de facto defensive coordinator, said Wednesday that the defensive front is still impacting the game.

“Those guys are affecting the quarterback,” Patricia said. “Maybe not in the sacks, we’re working to get there, but certainly the pass rush. ... I would say the rate at which [opposing quarterbacks] are trying to get out of the pocket or escape or whether it’s deep or up and through is a high rate, too. That means they are feeling the rush from that standpoint.”

To Patricia’s point, there are some advanced metrics that are more favorable to the Eagles’ pass rush. Their 150 pressures rank fourth in the NFL and they’re sixth in pass-rush win rate, which measures how often a team has a player get past a blocker within 2.5 seconds.

Last season, when the Eagles finished with 70 sacks, the third-highest sack total in NFL history, they graded out similarly in pressures. They finished with 168 in 17 games, although they led the league in pass-rush win rate, unlike this season.

“I think in the end you’re always trying to look at what affects the play,” Patricia said. “What is the result of the play, and that’s the biggest thing for us. We try to look at all those metrics and we try to apply them and improve them.”

Consistency during the last month of the season has been a problem for the pass rush. Josh Sweat has 63 pressures this season, according to Pro Football Focus, trailing only Haason Reddick on the team, but has tailed off in recent weeks. He has been held to three or fewer pressures in each game since the Eagles’ Week 11 win over the Kansas City Chiefs.

The same can be said about defensive tackle Jalen Carter, who has logged three or fewer pressures in each of the last four games after a dominant start to his rookie season.

Carter saw a notable decline in playing time against the Giants, something Patricia and Eagles coach Nick Sirianni said was more about featuring veteran Brandon Graham as an interior rusher rather than a reflection of Carter.

“Especially when we are trying to affect the pocket in a certain way,” Patricia said. “We just thought that matchup would be a good change-up.”

According to PFF, the Eagles pressured Tyrod Taylor and Tommy DeVito on 15 of their 35 dropbacks. Patricia said the Giants’ insistence on getting the ball out quickly affected the Eagles’ ability to generate meaningful pressure on Monday. It’s worth noting that the Giants’ 77 sacks conceded this season are still 16 more than any other team in the NFL.

“[Giants coach Brian] Daboll did a great job with his staff of trying to get the ball out quick,” Patricia said. “Certainly you could see it early in the game, especially in the first half. ... We changed up a couple things there to try to slow that down a little bit, and the ball was coming out very, very effectively fast.”

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While the Giants did place an obvious emphasis on getting the ball out fast during the early portion of the Eagles’ 33-25 win, their two quarterbacks’ time-to-throw numbers still suggest there were opportunities for the pass rush to get home.

DeVito’s average time to throw was a sluggish 3.42 seconds, according to Next Gen Stats, even though his average depth of target was the lowest of any quarterback in the league at 1.5 yards.

Taylor took over for DeVito to start the second half, and his time to throw was predictably lengthy as well. The veteran quarterback averaged 3.34 seconds to throw with a bigger emphasis on taking shots down the field. According to PFF, Taylor’s average depth of target was 16.1, the second-farthest in the NFL.

Patricia said getting teams into longer third downs for obvious passing situations would help bolster the pass rush along with a more aggressive approach from the secondary to take away short completions. He also alluded to the cumulative effect of pressure that can sometimes go beyond the tracking numbers, which might help explain the longer time to throw by the Giants even without meaningful sack numbers.

“In the end, we are trying to see what happened on the play and did we affect the play or not affect the play,” Patricia said. “And sometimes you don’t necessarily affect that play, but you may affect it two or three down the road.”