Here's this week's Roob's Eagles Stats: Proceed at your own risk originally appeared on NBC Sports Philadelphia
OK so I do this weekly Eagles stats piece and even when they lose I try to load it up with enough positive stats to keep things fun. Nobody wants to read 10 negative stats.
But this game? The Eagles had no interceptions, no sacks, no big performances on offense, nothing notable at all from a stats perspective.
This was a big fat giant steaming pile of blech.
So we’re stuck with a weekly Roob’s Stats that is really just going to emphasize how bad the Eagles played Monday night. Sorry, but it’s all I got. I can make stats say almost anything. But I can’t make them say the Eagles played well. Not this week.
1. How is it possible to play three entire football games without forcing a turnover? That’s where the Eagles are. This is the first time in franchise history the Eagles have opened a season without a takeaway in their first three games. They’re only the 16th NFL team to ever achieve that dubious distinction. Of the first 15, only two reached the playoffs – the 1979 Broncos and 2004 Rams. There have been four previous seasons where the Eagles only forced one turnover through Week 3 – 1996, 1998, 2020 and 2021. This is also only the fourth time the Eagles haven’t intercepted a pass through Week 3. That also happened in 1998, 2020 and 2021. The Eagles have now gone 13 consecutive games without multiple interceptions, the 6th-longest streak in franchise history and the 4th-longest current streak in the NFL. They haven’t had a three-interception game since 2022, and their streak of 65 consecutive games without more than two INTs is by far the longest in franchise history. The next-longest streak is 34 games over the 2019 through 2021 seasons. The 65-game streak is 13th-longest in NFL history. Last time the Eagles picked off three passes in a game was Week 6 of the 2022 season, when C.J. Gardner-Johnson had two and Slay had one off Cooper Rush in a 26-17 win over the Cowboys at the Linc. The Eagles are 1-27-1 in their last 29 games when they’re minus-three or worse in turnover differential. The Eagles are also only the fifth team with no takeaways and three or fewer sacks through Week 3 since sacks became an official stat in 1982. The four others: The 2002 Bengals, 2013 Steelers, 2019 Broncos and 2023 Giants. None of them made the playoffs.
2. OK, here’s something somewhat positive: With his 2nd-quarter touchdown run, Jalen Hurts increased his career total including postseason to 64 rushing TDs, 3rd-most in NFL history among quarterbacks behind only Josh Allen (85) and Cam Newton (75). He now trails Hall of Famer Steve Van Buren by only five for the all-time Eagles record. Van Buren rushed for 69 TDs from 1944 through 1951.
3. The Eagles have allowed 132, 122 and 128 rushing yards in their three games so far. This is the first time they’ve allowed 120 or more rushing yards in each of their first three games since 1986, when they began the season allowing 159 in Washington, 244 in Chicago and 203 vs. the Broncos in Buddy Ryan’s first three games as an NFL head coach. The Panthers and Cowboys are the only other teams that have allowed 120 rushing yards in each game this year. Overall, the Eagles are 25th in rush defense.
4. Jalen Hurts continued a bizarre trend that’s seen him play some of the worst football of his career on Monday nights. Hurts is now 5-7 in 12 career starts on Monday night with 10 touchdown passes, 16 interceptions and a 77.1 passer rating. Compare that to Hurts on Sundays: 53-22 record with 102 touchdown passes, 28 interceptions and a 97.0 passer rating. So he’s thrown only 12 more interceptions on Sundays than Mondays. His 77.1 MNF passer rating ranks 65th out of 86 quarterbacks who’ve thrown at least 100 passes on Monday nights over the last 25 years. Conversely, his 97.0 Sunday passer rating ranks 13th of 102 QBs who’ve thrown at least 1,000 passes on Sunday over the past 25 years. Among active quarterbacks, Hurts’ MNF rating of 77.1 is 27th of 33 QBs, ahead of only C.J. Stroud, Andy Dalton, Daniel Jones, Kyler Murray, Jordan Love and Sam Darnold.
5. Speaking of Dalton, he became the first Eagles quarterback to throw an interception on his only pass attempt of a game since Vince Young in Washington in 2011. Young entered the game briefly when Michael Vick got hurt. Several Eagles have done that on trick plays over the years, most recently Jake Elliott against the Vikings in 2019. But only six other Eagles QBs have ever done that: Bill Mackrides vs. the Lions in 1951, Bobby Thomason vs. the Browns in 1957, King Hill vs. the Cowboys in 1961, John Reaves in Washington in 1974, Matt Cavanaugh in Denver in 1989 and Koy Detmer in Dallas in 2000. Quite a group right there.
6. At 38 years, 334 days, Dalton also became the oldest player in Eagles history to throw an interception. The previous oldest was Jeff Garcia, who was 36 years, 304 days when he threw his second and final interception of the 2006 season in Dallas. This was the first game in Eagles history where a quarterback 38 or older threw at least one pass for each team.
7. Case Keenum became the 10th quarterback 38 or older all-time to beat the Eagles in a meaningful game and the sixth to do it with a passer rating of at least 110. The only other QBs 38 or older to beat the Eagles and fashion a passer rating of 110 or higher: Jim Hart in 1983, Warren Moon in 1998, Drew Brees in 2018, Ben Roethlisberger in 2020 and Brady in 2022.
8. Even though Makai Lemon is tied for 172nd in the NFL with eight touches, he shares the NFL lead with four plays with negative-three yards or less. Half of Lemon’s four touches have lost at least three yards, at least one in each game. The only other players with four plays of minus-three yards or worse are Bucky Irving and Chase Brown, Sydney’s brother, who have 59 and 53 touches. Lemon is the first Eagle with four plays in any season losing at least three yards since Miles Sanders in 2019.
9. The Eagles somehow have just 47 first downs through three games, their fewest in 27 years. In 1999, in Andy Reid’s first year as a head coach and with Doug Pederson at quarterback, they managed just 33 first downs in their first three games. Their 15 rushing first downs are their fewest since 2015, when they had 14 after three games in Chip Kelly’s ill-fated final season as head coach.
10. The Eagles are one of the worst 2nd-half teams in football. They’ve been outgained by 563-334 in the second half – an average of 188-111 – and outscored 40-20. Only three AFC teams – the Dolphins (14 points), Steelers (13 points) and Patriots (9 points) – have scored fewer points than the Eagles after halftime. This is the first time since 1999 they’ve been outscored by 20 or more points in the second half through Week 3. In 1999, they were outscored 32-0 through three games – 19-0 after halftime by the Cards, 6-0 by the Bucs and 7-0 by the Bills.
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