Eagles stats: Pass rush improves, Saquon Barkley is bottled up, and another razor-thin margin of victory

The Eagles improved to 3-2 with a 20-16 win over the Cleveland Browns on Sunday. The Eagles dominated for most of the game, especially on defense, but their offense, even with top receivers A.J. Brown and DeVonta Smith back, left a little to be desired.

Winning in the NFL is hard, coach Nick Sirianni likes to remind media members when the Eagles don’t win with style points. Sure, but the Browns came dangerously close to tying the score late in the fourth quarter, and it felt at times like it was heading toward a repeat of Week 2: the Eagles throwing away a game they shouldn’t lose.

Nevertheless, wins are wins. Here are four numbers that help explain what happened Sunday and what it means for the Eagles.

» READ MORE: The Eagles win ugly, but show signs of promise late for a Philly sports landscape with a bleak outlook

The Eagles entered Sunday ranked near the bottom of the league in sacks. They had sacked opposing quarterbacks just six times in their first four games. Their most effective pass rusher at times has been 36-year-old Brandon Graham. Their high-priced free-agent signing, Bryce Huff, hasn’t been impactful. Veteran Josh Sweat, meanwhile, has had his moments, and second-year edge rusher Nolan Smith has mostly struggled.

The Browns, who are allowing the most sacks in the NFL, were the perfect antidote for a pass rush that needed a boost.

Seven Eagles were credited with at least a partial sack against Cleveland. The Eagles sacked Deshaun Watson five times, nearly doubling their 2024 output. Cleveland has a banged-up offensive line protecting a quarterback who isn’t playing well, so take the strong showing with that context in mind. Next up is New York’s Daniel Jones, who has been sacked 14 times, in the middle of the pack as far as the NFL’s starting quarterbacks go.

» READ MORE: Brandon Graham, Mr. 200, helps spark an Eagles defense that needed one in a win over the Browns

Sirianni was right about at least one thing during his weird postgame press conference: The Browns have a pretty good defense. They are 1-5 because Watson is playing like the worst starting quarterback in the NFL, not because their defense is particularly porous.

One thing Cleveland wasn’t going to do was let Saquon Barkley cause havoc. The Browns devoted a lot of attention to stopping the run and it showed. According to Next Gen Stats, the Browns held Eagles rushers to minus-13 rushing yards over (in this case, under) expected. The metric calculates the difference between actual rushing yards and the expected yardage on a series of plays.That’s the lowest number for the Eagles so far in 2024.

Barkley was bottled up. He rushed 18 times for just 47 yards. Next Gen Stats said Barkley generated minus-23 rushing yards over expected and minus-0.34 expected points added per carry, both season lows. Barkley has been a welcome weapon since joining the Eagles, and he’ll look to get back on track in Week 7 vs. a Giants team allowing a league-high 5.2 yards per carry.

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Huff, like the rest of the Eagles’ pass rush, had his best game so far. His Pro Football Focus pass-rushing grade of 68.8 was his highest number in five games with the Eagles. Huff was credited with a partial sack Sunday after entering with no sacks and only a few pressures.

Huff also saw his largest snap share Sunday, playing in 54% of the Eagles’ defensive snaps. While his total snap number (31) was lower than it was in a Week 4 loss in Tampa (33), the snap share is perhaps a sign that the Eagles are growing more comfortable having him on the field. Or, perhaps more likely, it was because the Browns can’t protect Watson and were often in obvious passing situations.

Either way, Huff was hopeful the performance was a sign of things to come.

“I feel like we definitely saw a bit of a spark today,” Huff said. “That was just a product of us playing faster in practice this week, and as long as we continue to emphasize playing faster and faster, there’s no reason we shouldn’t continue to improve and continue to get production like we did today.”

» READ MORE: A.J. Brown and DeVonta Smith prop up Eagles’ stodgy offense with timely touchdowns vs. Browns

The Eagles were nearly double-digit favorites Sunday, but they won the game by just four points, and as the game wore on it wasn’t out of the question that they could end up losing.

This number isn’t about a team failing to cover a silly point spread, rather it shows a football team that hasn’t yet shown that it was worthy of being a Super Bowl contender. The Eagles were among a handful of teams with real Super Bowl aspirations this year and last, but Sunday marked the 16th consecutive game they failed to beat a team by more than one possession.

You have to go all the way back to Week 7 last year, Oct. 22, a 31-17 win over Miami, to find the last time the Eagles won a game by two scores.

Sure, winning is hard, as Sirianni says. But how many NFL teams that fancy themselves contenders like the Eagles do go this long without a statement win of sorts?