An in-depth preview of Super Bowl LVII: Breaking down the X's and O's between Chiefs and Eagles

Super Bowl preview: Eagles offense vs. Chiefs defense

Jalen Hurts leads the Eagles' offensive huddle

In 2021, the Eagles became one of the most effective rushing attacks in the league. That, along with what Jalen Hurts could deliver as a scrambler and a lot of the deep crossing and post routes off play-action. The passing game has evolved in a major way this season, thanks in large part to the draft-day trade for A.J. Brown and how the presence affects defenses.

In the 15 games played with Jalen Hurts under center, Philly has turned the ball over multiple times just thrice, and they’ve scored at least 24 points in all but four of those. Once again, just looking at the 15 games with Hurts at QB, the Eagles would be one of only three teams to average just below one giveaway per contest.

While the volume at which they run the ball (due to regularly bleeding out the clock with the lead) “only” has them tied for 12th in yards per rush, they’re tied for third in net yards per dropback (7.1). Altogether, they finished the regular season at number three in offensive DVOA (15.1%).

Offensive coordinator Stane Steichen allows those great players they have all across that unit to feature in a rather simplistic fashion. They utilize clear play-designs that include multiple options, plus some of the little wrinkles they add regularly.

Everything starts up front for this group. Philadelphia has the best and most versatile O-line in the NFL and I’m not sure if it’s particularly close. The physical ability of that group in combination with the tutelage of position Jeff Stoutland, allows Steichen to call up anything from a simple zone to long-developing passing concepts.

As a unit, they finished 2022 at number one in pass-blocking and third in run-blocking, according to Pro Football Focus. The advanced rushing numbers for Philly have been completely absurd in comparison to the rest of the league. They are the only team with a rushing success rate of over 50% and their EPA per rush +0.72 is twice as high as the next-closest team (Ravens at 0.34).

You see them attack the edges of a defense with outside zone, they can create vertical movement on duo, take advantage of angles by pulling bodies and then they match those things beautifully with easy alerts. Having Jalen Hurts as an extra body in the run game, to where you have to account for him pulling the ball at all times certainly helps. In particular, they’ve been pretty much unstoppable in short-yardage situations.

Including the postseason, Philly has converted 31 of 35 QB sneaks into first downs or touchdowns, when they’ve had a yards or less to gain (88.6%). The Eagles as a team have gone for fourth down 80% of times when the analytics would suggest that was the smart decision, according to RBSDM.com

NFC Championship - San Francisco 49ers v Philadelphia Eagles

Philly also ran an NFL-high 185 RPOs during this season (only eight teams reached the hundred-mark). They can put defenders in conflict by having to commit downhill and leave a window to attack with glance routes.

They can afford to leave the backside containing players unblocked, because either he flattens down the line and allows Hurts to pull the ball or he stays home and then often they have the tight-end sifting across the formation and releasing into the flats.

The outside receiver to that side if regularly tasked with picking off anybody trying to redirect against that slip route, plus as a change-up off that, the wideout will release as a threat behind that. That way, they simplify the job for the quarterback by being able to key on one read and then become a play-maker off that.

They can also spread the field and create space by forcing the defense to get into lighter boxes. They love to run draw from out of their 11 personnel sets, especially when they go empty and run it towards the shade nose in an Over/Under four-man front (where the guard to that side can block down and Jason Kelce wraps around, to become the lead-blocker for Hurts).

NFC Championship - San Francisco 49ers v Philadelphia Eagles

For all of that to be as effective, the development of Jalen Hurts as a passer and the threat that he can attack at all levels of the field was imperative. In particular for defenses to respect the perimeter weapons, how he delivers beautiful, high-arcing balls down the sidelines for receivers is a major ingredient.

Compared to 2021, Hurts’ average yards per attempt increased from 7.2 to 8.8 yards. As a team, the Eagles finished top-four in third (45.9%), fourth down (68.8%) and red-zone TD percentage (67.8%) for the regular season.

Hurts has become a much better distributor, while he still doesn’t feel as comfortable working deep into progressions. If there’s a little bit of color in the backfield, the offensive infrastructure combined with his mental progress, allow him to find solutions to most problems defenses throw at him. This was apparent when facing overloaded fronts and some of the cover-zero rain that the Miami Dolphins popularized over the last couple of years.

Chiefs defense takes down Joe Burrow

As far as the Chiefs' defense is concerned, they were dead-average in defensive DVOA (17th), but they finished 12th in dropback and 10th in rushing success rate respectively. So the issue were more so the big plays they’ve given up, in large part due to relying on rookies way more than they’ve done in part years.

On defense alone, first-year players have combined for over 3,000 snaps this year. For comparison’s sake, last year Nick Bolton was the only rookie to log even 50 snaps. With that being said, those young players have grown a lot and the defensive numbers have been a lot better from week 16 on.

Just looking at those five games, their EPA per play of -0.077, which would rank fourth league-wide behind only the 49ers, Cowboys and Patriots. Dissecting who they’ve faced across that stretch, only one of those offenses has ranked outside the top-15 in EPA per play themselves.

AFC Championship - Cincinnati Bengals v Kansas City Chiefs

Kansas City’s run defense has been a weakness in years past, but this season, they have held opponents to under 120 rushing yards in 13 of 19 games. Along with the trade for Frank Clark and Chris Jones ascending to the level of a Defensive Player of the Player candidate, they found guys to play more of the strong-side defensive end role and spent a first-round pick on George Karlaftis.

Meanwhile, rotating through a trio of Derrick Nnadi, Tershawn Waron and Khalen Saunders at shade nose, has been working for them to keep those linebackers clean. And that’s where those guys can shine.

Nick Bolton already was a key player for them as a rookie, but how quickly he triggers and the speed to beat blockers to the spot is very impressive. Willie Gay’s range alongside him is a major asset in both facets of the game. Plus, they frequently shift their D-line just before the snap and blitz the backside backer to cover up an extra man from climbing up a lot of times.

As a unit, they’ve been able to create negative plays on the ground at a higher rate, being tied for sixth with 89 tackles for loss during the regular season. Chris Jones has the short-area agility to back-door against zone schemes and he’s quick to go underneath down-block on the backside before chasing down the puller and get to the ball-carrier.

Opposing linemen better get on their horse, if they want to cut off the angles of those backers on toss/sweep plays, as well peel off combos earlier in time. Going back to the AFC title game, if you take away Joe Burrow’s four scrambles for 30 yards, the Chiefs were able to hold the Bengals to just 13 carries worth 41 yards.

What they do in the passing game is where they’ve seen a major transition. Defensive coordinator Steve Spagnuolo has a reputation for throwing out crazy blitzes and playing physical man-coverage behind.

However, with three rookies starting the secondary for the most part and an offense on the other side less built on quick-scoring drives, they’ve changed their approach. After being ninth and sixth in 2020 and ’21 respectively, the Chiefs ranked just 14th in blitz rate (24.2%) this season. That’s combined with playng split-safety coverages on an NFL-high 57% of coverage snaps.

That doesn’t mean giving receivers easy access at all, as their corners are in press-alignment on 44% (and those young guys can challenge opposing receivers off the line, with help over the top, so to speak). Thanks to having two veteran safeties in Juan Thornhill and Justin Reid, they’re excellent as disguising coverages without compromising themselves in where they can ultimately get to.

That’s how they force quarterbacks to pull down the ball and find solutions post-snap. Kansas City sacked the Bengals’ Joe Burrow five times most recently, where all but one of those I would label as “coverage sacks”.

Despite a much lower blitz rate, they’ve actually finished the regular season fifth in pressure rate per dropback (24.9%) for the second year in a row. Chris Jones easily led all interior D-linemen with a 21% pass-rush win rate this season (next-closest was at 17%), despite being double-teamed at a higher rate than anybody else, at a stupid 68% of dropbacks. That sets the table for guys around him to capitalize on winning one-on-one matchups.

KC has four other D-linemen with at least four sacks and 16+ pressures. Yet, depending on who they use as the primary slot defender (Sneed, Reid or McDuffie) on some key downs, they still excel at creating free rushers by bringing guys from different angles and forcing the O-line to communicate mid-play.

So there’s a lot of variety in the way they can force offenses to process information pre- and post-snap, to create errors, while at the same time being very sound in their coverage distribution.

Eagles offense vs. Chiefs defense

We’ll probably get an idea early on about how much the Eagles offense can dictate terms with their ground game. They have been dominant in the regard for most of the season and it’ll take a great performance on Kansas City’s side to slow that area down.

Philly has consistently been able to wash down the front-side on zone concepts and ride three-techniques into the lap of the backside backer on power. If he can split those combos and/or the second-level defenders scrape over the action quickly enough, it will be an element to track.

Of course it’s also going to be a big game for Derrick Nnadi not getting sealed on the backside and holding his ground when the offense tries to go vertically. He’ll need those other bodies to give him a breather a few times to avoid getting physically tired out and overwhelmed as the game progresses. Maybe we’ll see recently-signed Brandon Williams be a bigger part of the game and see if he can give them 10-15 snaps of what he used to be in Baltimore.

It’s certainly a product of the volume we saw, with 44 rush attempts against the 49ers, but those guys were able to hold Philly to 3.4 yards per carry in the NFC title game (largely thanks to how aggressive they were on the second and third level to fill). Particularly those backside LBs didn’t shuffle along much, but rather decided to shoot their gun and basically run-blitz from behind.

Meanwhile, KC just executed a very effective plan to slow down Cincinnati’s attack, with those last-second shifts and blitzes from the second level (which can create that confusion against gap- or man-schemes, since altered responsibilities can’t be communicated in time).

Even when opponents have gone heavy on 11 personnel, which the Eagles use on well over 70% of plays, and they catch Kansas City in dime personnel, Justin Reid does not shy away from filling the A-gap either.

NFC Championship - San Francisco 49ers v Philadelphia Eagles

Now, as much as the Niners were able to contain Philly’s run game in the NFC Championship game (which by the way San Francisco had the second-best EPA against defensively for the season (-0.174), compared to Kansas City being 16th), that vaunted pass-rush for the Niners could barely get a hand on Hurts. they sacked him once and got two additional hits on.

The O-line of the Birds had no issues picking up twists and game runs by the defense. With that being said, I thought the 49ers back-seven actually did a very good job in designated dropback situations, passing off and falling underneath those deep crossers and post routes.

I would say those ideas of how they structure coverages is in line with the new-found shifts for Kansas City. The challenging part in trying to break down this matchup on this side of the ball, is the fact that Steve Spagnuolo isn’t really as hung up with general schematic tendencies. Rather, he is willing to craft a gameplan specifically designed to attack the weaknesses or challenge teams to win in different ways than they usually do.

We do know that he wants to bring pressure in high-leverage moments, but as I outlined earlier, they bring extra bodies at a much lower rate. While they might sprinkle in it every once in a while, they’ve liked to play quite a bit of two-man versus the better passing attacks in the AFC (that’s a death wish going up against Jalen Hurts and what he presents as a runner, if you have everybody in the back-seven with their backs to him).

I’d expect a lot more quarters, along with some late weak-side rotations, in order to cloud that passing lane they may have with A.J. Brown (as the single receiver running a slant route away from his corner with outside leverage). I wouldn’t be surprised at all to see Justin Reid at big nickel to alleviate some issues in their run fits, with one less defender in the box if Philly spreads them out.

A common misconception about Jalen Hurts is what he provides as an off-schedule creator. He’s been so deadly at making one guy miss in the backfield and breaking the spirit of defense by picking up third downs with legs.

However, in fact he’s completing just 37% of his passes, for 4.2 yards per attempt and a QB rating of around 52, when throwing outside the pocket. And a layer that stands out in terms of pressure is that he’s only 28th in success rate and 29th in EPA per dropback when the defense rushes five or more guys (according to Sports Info Solutions).

I’m sure the Eagles will want to test those young corners on the other side with vertical shots on the perimeter (and I ultimately went with another name, but Jaylen Watson likely starting as one of the outside corners could have easily been an X-factor). Yet, they have not been able to cash in on those nearly as regularly since Hurts sprained his SC joint of his throwing arm.

I think he attempted four of those go balls in the NFC title game and didn’t complete any, with more wobble and those being further off target than we’re used to. It’s obviously a very small sample size, but in those three games Hurts has played with the banged-up shoulder, his EPA + CPOE (completion percentage above expected) composite has taken a nose-dive from 0.155 (second among QBs behind only Mahomes) to just 0.054 (which would rank 23rd for the full season).

The Chiefs will need to create those stops between the twenties, by not giving that guy easy opportunities, because they were the second-worst defense in the red-zone during the regular season, allowing touchdowns on 67.3% of those trips.