Philadelphia Eagles vs. Los Angeles Chargers Preview & Prediction | PFF

Philadelphia Eagles vs. Los Angeles Chargers Preview & Prediction | PFF

The PFF Plus holiday sale is going on right now. Use the promo code holiday30 to get yourself 30% off a PFF Plus subscription. That means that you get everything. The grades, the premium stats, all of the fantasy tools, all the betting tools, all the draft tools. It’s everything a football fan could want year round. Holiday 30. That’s what gets you 30% off that year-long PFF plus subscription at subscribe.pff.com. [Music] And Monday Night Football is the Philadelphia Eagles at the Los Angeles Chargers. Uh talk to me about the Chargers. They’ve been so beat up on the offensive line. Uh the run game’s been a little bit better as of late. Vidal was fantastic. Justin Herbert’s not dealing with that injury to his non-throwing hand. Talk to me about this team on the offensive side and what you expect to see in Monday Night Football. I think maybe the craziest thing that I found this week pouring through the numbers for these games. So, the Chargers are dead last in the league in run blocking grade by a mile. They are by far the worst run blocking team. It comes down to the injuries, Alton Slater, everything we’ve talked about all year. Yeah. And yet they’re second in the league. Part of this is Justin Herbert scrambling more than ever. They’re second in the league in rushing grade. Second in the league in rushing grade. And and when I tell you it is by they are the worst run blocking uh team in the league by eight points, which is just ridiculous. They’re in a tier of their own a lot. A and the one way they’ve been making up for it is their ability to get outside and outflank teams with tight ends and Scott Matlock at fullback and just they’re just bouncing runs outside like crazy. When they get off tackle in the run game, 4.9 yards per carry, that’s a third best in the NFL with the 11th best explosive run rate at 13.3%. Trevor, when they have to run between the tackles, 28th in yards per carry and an explosive run rate, just 4 and a.5% second worst in the league. It’s very simple to me when it comes to run defense here this week for the Eagles. They’re not going to get blasted between the tackles like they did against the Bears last week. All the zone schemes, all that. It’s going to be more about Jaylen Phillips, Nolan Smith, Jay Hunt, all those guys just keeping contain especially on Kamani Vadell in this run game. Not sure yet if Amaran Hampton is going to be ready to go in this one. But either way, the Chargers are running to the outside. They’re trying to outflank you and run power. They’re trying to run duo and bounce outside and get your linebackers to get tight to the line of scrimmage and then bounce outside of them. They’re really good when they’re running off tackle because they really can’t block at all inside. If the Eagles can keep contain, then they can stop the run in this game. It’s different than last week where the Bears were getting so lateral and you had all the complicated schemes from J from Ben Johnson, but you really need to keep Kamani Vadell, especially from bouncing to the outside because that’s where they’re making explosive runs happen right now. Yeah, I mean you can see all this over at premium stats as well. If you have a PFF plus subscription, if you go to premium stats, you can sort things not just by game like we’ve talked about here uh in this show and over the last couple of shows, but you can also filter by team and you can go to team reports there. You can sort it and you can see run blocking grade. And sure enough, you’re right. The Chargers I I did not expect this 42.2 run blocking grade this season. They are that you mentioned at 8 points behind the Cincinnati Bengals who have also been not very good at running the ball this year. Now, if you scroll all the way up and you go to number 12, you’ll also see the Philadelphia Eagles who Philadelphia is sitting there at number 12. We’re not used to seeing Philadelphia at number 12. They’re normally in the top five for run blocking over the last couple of years with how good their offensive line has been. Now, they have had their injuries as well along the offensive line, but Dalton, the the lack of run game is just shocking at this point. I I always felt like they would figure it out. All right. Early season struggles. Okay. Yeah. What? But they were I always believe that they were going to figure it out on the on the ground. They have yet to do that. And when you put more on the passing game, more on Jaylen Herd’s plate as a pure passer, well, we saw last week how how they really struggled to move the ball. 54.3 passing grade on the first nine drives last week. They had 11 drives overall. The first nine drives against the Bears is on Black Friday. Negative0.311 EPA per play on those first nine drives. That is terrible. They were one for eight on third downs total before those final two drives was felt like garbage time drives. It didn’t really matter. And I think the reason why we get those numbers is because they don’t have the run game. It’s not even that they’re not the best run game in the NFL. They’re pretty middling with their run game. And I think that there’s still reason to believe that the best could be yet to come for the Eagles run game this season. But they are running out of time to figure it out. So to me, Philly has to get back to running the ball. I know that they’ve been, you know, there with the AJ Brown frustrations and now he’s getting his due, but they’re not really winning ball games and they’re not having an efficient offense even though he is eating. They’ve got to get back to it. And ultimately, Dalton, with with as much as the Chargers have struggled to run the ball and just offense in general, I actually do think the Eagles are going to win this one. I think they’re going to win 22 to7. A little bit of a weird score here that I’m going with, but I’m going with Philly to bounce back here because I think that they need to. And if they don’t, I’m going to be really worried about this team going into the postseason and maybe that’s what happens overall. But I’m going to have some faith in Philly to figure it out, get it done, be a little bit better on the ground here. I’m going to go Eagles 22, Chargers 17. What do you got? Yeah, this is a tough one. I mean, the Eagles going out west. I think you got two good defenses going at it. two defenses that are very good at preventing explosive plays through the air for sure and I am worried about this Chargers offensive line because I’m always worried about this Chargers offensive line and Justin Herbert’s playing with a broken uh broken bone in his left hand now. But um I’m also very worried about this Eagles offense and just the lack of rhythm to it. You mentioned, you know, the lack of run game, it’s a lack of creativity as well, I think, from the play calling and you mentioned the run blocking. They’re 12th this year, but for each of the last four years before this, they were in the top five. So, even if it’s not, you know, it’s not the worst offensive line in the league by any means, but it’s not what it used to be clearly, and they’re dealing with some injuries up front as well. Um, at the end of the day, you know what? I’m going to take the Chargers 19 to6. I think we get an ugly defensive game. The Chargers don’t give you those one-on-one matchups on the outside to AJ Brown and Dvonte Smith. They run a lot of zone coverage and they don’t let you get over the top. So, even last week when the Eagles had some life, it was because AJ Brown was winning manto man downfield. You don’t get that with the Chargers. I think Justin Herbert finds just enough in the tank to win this game, but I think it’s going to be an ugly defensive game. Uh the overunder on this one’s only 40 and a half, so I think that they agree with us and it being a little bit more lowcoring than you would expect from uh these two teams. is at least what we would have thought going into the

PFF’s Dalton Wasserman and Trevor Sikkema preview the matchup between The Philadelphia Eagles and The Los Angeles Chargers.

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