Will the Eagles Avoid a Super Bowl Hangover?

Based on the talent they still have on their roster, as well as what they added this offseason, the Eagles are well positioned to maintain their spot as the best team in the NFC in 2023.

Their biggest question is about continuity. Teams that reach the Super Bowl tend to lose key coaches. The Eagles are no exception. They lost both their offensive and defensive coordinators to head coaching gigs this offseason.

Offense

Quarterbacks coach Brian Johnson got the promotion to OC, which signals that the Eagles will look very similar on offense. The bigger issue for Philadelphia is that they enter this season as the hunted instead of the hunter.

Much of their offensive success last year came as a result of the pressure their scheme put on defenses (See here and here). This offseason, you can bet that every opponent on their schedule (as well as any potential playoff opponents) spent a healthy chunk of the offseason looking for ways to handle their scheme.

That doesn’t mean they’ll be able to stop the Eagles necessarily. Philly still has a talented quarterback, talented receivers, and arguably the best O-line in football. They also upgraded the running back position by adding D’Andre Swift. That alone will be tough for any defense to handle regardless of scheme. But it’s not a stretch to suggest that things won’t go quite as smoothly with a new OC and that giant target on their backs.

As you can see from the chart at the bottom of this post, there weren’t too many areas where the Eagles struggled offensively last season. But there is one area where they’ll need to improve: They finished 20th in sacks allowed and 24th in sack %.

You’re probably a bit confused right now since I just mentioned that the Eagles had arguably the best O-line in football. It wasn’t a typo, I promise. The Eagles had the best pass-blocking unit in the NFL according to PFF.

That means the sacks allowed were more likely a result of Jalen Hurts holding onto the ball too long. This is also backed up by PFF’s time-to-throw metrics. Hurts’ average time to throw last season was 2.86 seconds, which was the 27th fastest time in the NFL. He also averaged 4.23 seconds to throw on sacks, which was the third highest average time in the NFL.

This is an area that Hurts and the Eagles should focus on in 2023.

Defense

On the other side of the ball, continuity will be a major issue as well. Probably even more so.

The Eagles lost 5 key contributors in defensive tackle Javon Hargrave, linebackers T.J. Edwards and Kyzir White, and safeties Marcus Epps and C.J. Gardner-Johnson. Those players represented 64%, 94%, 76%, 99%, and 65% of the defense’s regular season snaps respectively. That’s a lot of institutional knowledge heading out of the building.

The Eagles were able to replace those players with talented new additions and internal promotions. Defensive tackle Jordan Davis, linebacker Nakobe Dean, and safety Reed Blankenship are expected to effectively fill the voids in 2023. And the Eagles were able to add players like Jalen Carter, Nolan Smith, and Terrell Edmunds via the draft and free agency.

The level of talent should be every bit as good as it was last season, but the communication will be different. And that could be a huge factor in determining whether or not the Eagles will be able to repeat as division champs, let alone conference champs.

The other significant change is the transition from Jonathan Gannon to Sean Desai at defensive coordinator. Desai is a Vic Fangio disciple. Which makes sense for the Eagles since they had Fangio consulting for them in 2022.

In Desai’s one year as defensive coordinator (2021 with the Bears), he showed some of those similar tendencies as Fangio. That year, the Bears played the 2nd-most quarter-quarter-half/half-quarter-quarter coverage in the NFL. Of course, Fangio’s Broncos were #1.

Desai’s Bears also finished in the bottom-10 in blitz frequency, which is in line with what the Eagles have done during the two years since Nick Sirianni took over as head coach (31st in blitz frequency in 2021, 18th in 2022).

I also wonder if the Eagles are shifting towards playing just a little more man coverage under Desai this season. They were near the bottom of the league in 2021 in man-coverage frequency and then a little more towards the middle of the pack last year. It’s a small sample size, but Desai played an even higher frequency of man coverage in 2021 than the Eagles did last year. Perhaps that means something. Perhaps it doesn’t.

The good news for the Eagles is that their pass rush still figures to be absurdly good. So no matter what coverage they lean on, they’ll be in decent shape.

Before we officially move ahead into this season, here’s a look back at the Eagles’ team stats and NFL rankings from 2022: