The road starts to get narrow this time of year for the NFL and the Super Bowl hopefuls. There are plenty of teams jockeying for playoff seeding, and the Pittsburgh Steelers and Philadelphia Eagles each have a shot at the first-round bye if enough things break their way over the next month.
According to Jeremy Fowler, the Eagles, who’ve had highly public struggles passing the ball lately, plan on changing some things up starting this week against the Steelers.
“The Eagles’ pre-playoff plan for quarterback Jalen Hurts is on. Teams know you cannot win big unless you can pass the ball in December and January,” Fowler said via ESPN’s SportsCenter. “There’s a feeling at least with the Eagles and around the league that Hurts can and will play better. So expect, and the Steelers are expecting, Hurts to get some easy, quick throws early in the game. Whether it’s some crossing routes or some slant things to get him going, especially with A.J. Brown.
“But at the same time, the Steelers are not gonna be fooled because they know that they have the best rushing offense in the league. It’s gonna be a lot of Saquon Barkley, they’re not gonna go away from that.”
If you get to 11-2 with four weeks to go in the season, it seems abnormal to change things up. Don’t fix what isn’t broken.
It probably doesn’t help that Brown was clearly frustrated with the passing offense. That also then bled over into some drama with Hurts, which was one of the big media talking points of the week.
Will the Eagles be forcing themselves out of the winning formula against the Steelers in hopes of kick starting a better and more complete offense for the playoffs? They have the personnel to do so, but that is risky business against one of the best defenses in the league. If they lose, it is going to be very difficult to capture the NFC’s 1-seed.
The Eagles have the most rushing attempts in the league with the Steelers in second behind them. Meanwhile, the Eagles have the fewest passing attempts in the league. The Eagles run just shy of 60 percent of the time. The Steelers will be looking to minimize Barkley as much as possible, so it would be great if the Eagles did some of their job for them by giving him the ball less than normal.
Perhaps the turmoil with the Eagles will play right into the Steelers’ hand this week as they work out the kinks with their new plan of attack.
