PHILADELPHIA — The focus this week has been on A.J. Brown and his cryptic social media message following the Eagles’ 31-25 victory over the Tampa Bay Buccaneers Sunday at Raymond James Stadium.
After managing just two catches for seven yards on nine targets, Brown, as he had done before, declined to speak to the media, creating a three-alarm fire. It spread to five alarms shortly after the visiting locker room cleared and word got out that Brown had posted some Biblical scripture on X.
Suddenly everybody wanted to know what the Eagles’ star receiver meant by these words from Mark 6:11: If you’re not welcomed, not listened to, quietly withdraw. Don’t make a scene. Shrug your shoulders and be on your way.
Who was he talking about? What was talking about? Why was he talking about this?
Brown finally did speak Wednesday and blamed frustration for his silence and subsequent social media post.
That’s nice and it was also necessary because the last thing a 4-0 team wants heading into the second month of the season is drama and controversy.
“I‘m very optimistic,” Brown said. “Man, I trust my coaches. I trust Jalen (Hurts) to get this thing figured out. We’re working towards it. We see it at times, it’s just that the inconsistent is starting to be consistent. That’s where the frustration comes in because as of last year, you would look back and see that Saquon (Barkley) was on a historic pace. We ran the ball, but we weren’t passing the ball too well.
“Now this year, we’re struggling a little bit running the ball, and we’re still struggling passing the ball. So it’s like, let’s get this thing fixed before we run into a serious team, and now, we’re learning from losing instead of learning from winning. That’s the message.”
Brown’s analysis isn’t off base, but it has less to do with Hurts, Barkley and himself than he might realize.
The biggest culprit for the Eagles’ offensive issues right now can be directly linked to the five guys up front.
If it seems like forever since the Eagles have had to worry about their offensive line that’s because it has been.
The Eagles, according to Pro Football Focus rankings, have had the best offensive line in each of the last three seasons and six times since 2013, the yearJeff Stoutland arrived as the offensive line coach. They’ve been in the top five nine times during Stoutland’s 13 seasons here.
In other words, you almost never have to worry about how they are performing because Stoutland will make sure they are good. We have learned to take them for granted.
“That’s (the life) of the O line,” center Cam Jurgens said. “When they suck, hate on them. When they’re good, they should be good.”
That said, Jurgens admitted that the unit that has been so good for the Eagles for so long is a bit of a work in progress right now.
“Yeah, I think we’re working to get better,” Jurgens said. “I mean, there’s a lot of things we can improve on.”
Jurgens has his reasons for not being a big fan of PFF, but there’s really no other web site that ranks offensive lines and offensive linemen like them. After the win against the Rams, PFF still had the Eagles’ offensive line ranked as the best in the league, but they slipped to No. 3 after Saquon Barkley averaged just 2.3 yards per carry and Jalen Hurts threw for just 130 yards while being sacked twice.
Denver, the team the Eagles face Sunday at Lincoln Financial Field, moved into the top spot.
PFF’s comment on the Eagles: Philadelphia’s front-five has surrendered 40 pressures — including four sacks — on 130 pass plays. The resulting 82.3 PFF pass-blocking efficiency rating ties for 24th in the league.
According to Next Gen Stats, Hurts was pressured in under 2.5 seconds 13 times against the Buccaneers defense, tying a career high.The Buccaneers generated 10 unblocked pressures, tied for the most in a game by any defense this season.
According to PFF, the performance of all the Eagles’ offensive linemen is down significantly this season from a year ago.
Landon Dickerson, a three-time Pro Bowler, has slipped from eighth last season to 45th this season and the 13 pressures he has allowed are second among the league’s guards. It must be noted that he had knee surgery two weeks before the start of the season and has dealt with back pain since then.
Jurgens, who made the Pro Bowl in his first season as a starting center, is graded by PFF as the league’s No. 24 center right now. They have him at No. 14 last season. He is eight months removed from back surgery after playing through back pain in the NFC Championship and Super Bowl.
Lane Johnson, a six-time Pro Bowler and future Hall of Famer, is ranked 15th among offensive tackles this season after finishing at No. 5 last season. Most concerning with him is the fact that he has left the last two games with a shoulder injury that is causing recurring stingers.
Tyler Steen is the Eagles’ fourth new left guard in as many seasons and PFF has him graded at tied for 38th among guards through four games. Mekhi Becton, who is now with the Chargers, finished 20th at the position last season.
Left tackle Jordan Mailata remains the best of the Eagles’ offensive linemen, although he has slipped from the top of PFF’s tackle rankings at the end of last season to the No. 3 spot.
There’s no reason to be worried about Mailata and Mailata has insisted that whatever issues the offensive line is having can be fixed.
“We’re being very critical of how we can just stay in our box,” Mailata said. “We can’t control the scheme and we can’t call the plays, but we can execute our calls and our technique with detail.”
Mailata believes the best way for the offensive line to improve going forward is by getting to the line of scrimmage faster so the linemen can survey the defense and communicate their assignments.
“If we have more time on the front end, we can execute on the back end,” he said. “You can see it on tape. Me and Lane are like, ‘we gotta go,’ because the (play clock) is at like two seconds. I think we have to have an urgency to get aligned.”
If it’s a simple fix, that would be great for the Eagles. But right now the unit that has been the best for so long for this team isn’t playing at its best.
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