In their Wild Card Round win over the Green Bay Packers, the Philadelphia Eagles played 60 snaps on offense and 66 on defense. Let’s just get right to the snap counts, and some notes.
Quarterback
• 60 snaps: Jalen Hurts
Notes: Hurts did not play well on Sunday. He was hesitant to let it rip, he missed some throws (most notably the deep ball to A.J. Brown on the Brotherly Shove trick play), and the offense had a long stretch in the second quarter during which the offense produced nine yards on four drives.
That said, he never came close to putting the ball in harm’s way, he made a nice check at the line on the Dallas Goedert touchdown, and he ran the ball as if he hadn’t just been concussed.
I think we’re going to see a lot of bad analysis of Hurts over the next week. There will be people who go too far in their criticisms of him, and some who make excuses for him. The latter can be seen in this video from Dan Orlovsky, who tries to make the point that Hurts had no open receivers.
At the 0:44 mark, Orlovsky points to Saquon Barkley running a wheel route and says “covered.” He is most certainly not “covered.” That is a throw every NFL quarterback should be excited to make. If you want to argue that Barkley’s route here is wasted because Hurts’ progressions begin at the top of the screen and he doesn’t reasonably have a chance to get to Barkley, and you can show your work on that, OK, fine. But don’t tell your followers that Barkley is covered when he is very much open for a TD.
The Eagles won on Sunday because the defense was awesome. That’s fine for now, and maybe in the Divisional Round, too. But at some point when their competition gets stiffer, Hurts is going to have to be a reason the team wins and not just allow the rest of his teammates to do the heavy lifting.
Running back
• 50 snaps: Saquon Barkley
• 10 snaps: Kenny Gainwell
• 2 snaps (FB): Khari Blasingame
Notes: Barkley finished with 25 carries for 119 yards. He would have had 178 yards and a TD if he hadn’t slid on the second-to-last play of the game.
Gainwell chipped in three for 14.
Wide receiver
• 56 snaps: A.J. Brown
• 54 snaps: DeVonta Smith
• 34 snaps: Jahan Dotson
• 6 snaps: Johnny Wilson
Notes: I did not foresee Brown and Smith getting seven combined targets in a reasonably close playoff game in which the opposing team’s CB1 was out.
Tight end
• 55 snaps: Dallas Goedert
• 32 snaps: Grant Calcaterra
• 1 snaps: E.J. Jenkins
Notes: This would have been less embarrassing for Carrington Valentine if he had just fallen over when Goedert initially ran into him at the 20 yard line:
Goedert could be something of an X-factor in these playoffs.
Offensive line
• 60 snaps each: Jordan Mailata, Landon Dickerson, Cam Jurgens, Mekhi Becton, Lane Johnson
Notes: The Packers got some pressure when they sent heavy blitzes, but were otherwise shut down by the Eagles’ O-line. Hurts’ TD throw to Jahan Dotson was pass protection excellence. Focus on Jordan Mailata below, who has Rashan Gary in pass rush hell, before tossing him to the ground as Hurts delivers.
The Eagles have the best offensive line in the NFL, and it isn’t close.
Edge defenders
• 58 snaps: Nolan Smith
• 51 snaps: Josh Sweat
• 21 snaps: Jalyx Hunt
• 1 snap: Bryce Huff
Notes: As noted in our postgame “10 awards” post, Smith took on a run block from Elgton Jenkins, and made a statement that the Eagles were going to be the more physical team on Sunday. He has really come a long way this season. We’ll have more on Smith’s performance later today, but he gets our game ball.
The Eagles have limited Sweat’s snaps to around 65 percent in competitive games this season. It appears as though the Eagles are going to step on the gas a bit with his usage in the playoffs.
There have been clues that Vic Fangio doesn’t love Huff’s game for months, but damn.
Interior defensive line
• 62 snaps: Jalen Carter
• 43 snaps: Milton Williams
• 23 snaps: Moro Ojomo
• 13 snaps: Jordan Davis
Notes: Once Jenkins left with a stinger, the Eagles interior guys dominated his replacements. With the exception of one outstanding run by Josh Jacobs, the Eagles were able to slow down the Packers’ run game all night, and play soft zones on the back end, limiting the Packers’ big play potential.
Linebacker
• 66 snaps: Zack Baun
• 36 snaps: Oren Burks
• 23 snaps: Nakobe Dean
Notes: It was clear in the locker room after the game that Dean’s injury was serious, and long-term. Further confirmation of that came this morning.
Spoiler: Opposing offenses are going to test Burks.
That said, Burks made a statement hit on special teams to start the game, forcing a Keisean Nixon fumble, which was recovered in a pile by Jeremiah Trotter. I didn’t realize until this morning that Packers fans (and even the telecast?) were whining that Nixon recovered this ball, and was “down by contact?” Lol, what? This ball is moving, but, sure, if you pause the video or if God were to stop time for 10 seconds it appears that Nixon possessed it.
Packers fumble. It looks like Nixon has control of the ball while on the ground and then the ball was taken from him. Refs reviewed and said Eagles got the ball pic.twitter.com/hRxJpnhz8U
— Rate the Refs App (@Rate_the_Refs) January 12, 2025
If you fumble, you better be able to hand it to the official.
Cornerback and safety
• 66 snaps: Quinyon Mitchell
• 65 snaps: Reed Blankenship
• 64 snaps: C.J. Gardner-Johnson
• 60 snaps: Cooper DeJean
• 56 snaps: Darius Slay
• 16 snaps: Isaiah Rodgers
• 2 snaps: Avonte Maddox
Notes: In the Week 1 matchup, the Packers were clearly trying to go after Maddox, and they did so successfully. That was not the gameplan against DeJean, who has solidified the slot corner spot (Maddox did play two snaps, and had a tackle and a PBU.)
Blankenship had a big (clean) hit on Jayden Reed that knocked Reed out of the game.
Gardner-Johnson also had a couple big hits.
And, obviously, Slay had an outstanding INT, while Mitchell had an easy one to close out the game.
Three stars 🤩
I’ve always liked the hockey tradition of awarding “stars” to each of the three best players in a game, so let’s apply that to Eagles games.⭐⭐⭐: EDGE Nolan Smith🌟🌟: CB Darius Slay
✨: TE Dallas Goedert
Eagles game ball 🏈
🏈: EDGE Nolan Smith: He’s kind of a dawg. Again, more on him later.
Season game balls
- Week 1, vs. Packers: Saquon Barkley
- Week 2, at Falcons: Nobody
- Week 3, at Saints: Vic Fangio
- Week 4, at Buccaneers: Saquon Barkley
- Week 5: BYE
- Week 6, vs. Browns: Brandon Graham
- Week 7, at Giants: Saquon Barkley
- Week 8, at Bengals: Fred Johnson
- Week 9, vs. Jaguars: Nakobe Dean
- Week 10, at Cowboys: Nick Sirianni
- Week 11, vs. Commanders: Jalen Carter
- Week 12, at Rams: Brandon Graham
- Week 13, at Ravens: Vic Fangio
- Week 14, vs. Panthers: Chauncey Gardner-Johnson
- Week 15, vs. Steelers: Nick Sirianni
- Week 16, at Commanders: A.J. Brown
- Week 17, vs. Cowboys: Saquon Barkley and the Eagles’ offensive line
- Week 18, vs. Giants: Jeffrey Lurie
- Wild Card Round, vs. Packers: Nolan Smith
MORE: 10 awards from Eagles-Packers
Follow Jimmy & PhillyVoice on Twitter: @JimmyKempski | thePhillyVoice
Like us on Facebook: PhillyVoice Sports
Add Jimmy’s RSS feed to your feed reader
