10 takeaways from NFL Week 11

On the Eagles’ Week 12 opponent, NFC playoff picture thoughts, the New York Giants lacking class, and much more.

The Philadelphia Eagles had a chance to enjoy a relaxing weekend of watching football after beating the Washington Commanders on Thursday night. Here are some Eagles-focused takeaways from the non-Eagles NFL Week 11 games.

1 – The Eagles’ defense against the Rams’ offense should be a good matchup.

Vic Fangio’s defense has been pretty awesome since the Eagles’ Week 5 bye; his unit has allowed just 11.3 points per game and 190 total yards per game since then.

That defense will be tested by a Los Angeles Rams offense that’s averaging 24.8 points per game and 370.3 yards per game since Puka Nacua returned to the starting lineup in Week 8.

Granted, it was against the New England Patriots, but Matthew Stafford is coming off his best game of the season. The 36-year-old completed 66.7% of his passes for 295 yards (10.9 average), 4 TD, 0 INT, and a 142.7 passer rating.

Stafford’s only taken four sacks (all in Week 10) over the past four weeks. He has the third-fastest average time to throw this season at 2.62 seconds. We saw the Eagles struggle with quick releases when they faced the Tampa Bay Buccaneers back in Week 4.

Stafford will be looking to force feed volume targets Nacua and Cooper Kupp. Their Week 11 numbers:

Nacua — 9 targets, 123 yards (17.6 average), 1 TD
Kupp — 10 targets, 106 yards (17.7 average), 2 TD

The Eagles’ sticky secondary will be challenged. But Quinyon Mitchell, Cooper DeJean (who will see plenty of his fellow Cooper), and Darius Slay will be up for the task.

As will Fangio, who is the Sean McVay stopper:

In an interview with ESPN prior to the 2019 season, Sean McVay, Kyle Shanahan and Matt LaFleur were all asked which coach’s defense is the most difficult to read and attack. All three highly successful play callers answered: Vic Fangio, the defensive coordinator of the Bears from 2015-18, and first-year coach with the Broncos in 2019.

In the season before that interview, Fangio earned McVay’s endorsement by introducing the league to the blueprint to stopping McVay’s offense, which looked unstoppable before that matchup. Fangio used a 6-1 tilt front with soft zone coverage to counter the Rams’ outside-zone runs, boots and play-action shot plays. After that Week 14 matchup, the Rams offense rarely looked as explosive as it was before, but it was still effective enough to reach the Super Bowl against the New England Patriots. Inspired by Fangio’s tactics, New England used its own version of the tilt front almost exclusively on early downs and held the Rams to three points.

2 – The Lions are pretty imposing.

It’s a weird world we’re living in when the Detroit Lions are by far and away the most imposing team in the NFL. But here we are with the Lions casually beating a team by a final score of 52 to 6.

The Lions are averaging 33.6 points with game with 336 total. The next closest teams in points scored?

The Baltimore Ravens with 334, the Buffalo Bills with 320, the Washington Commanders with 308, and the Cincinnati Bengals with 296.

They’ve all played one more game than Detroit has!

Only three teams have allowed fewer points than the Lions, leading to the league’s best point differential at +159. The Bills are second at +106 and the Eagles are third at +80.

The difference between first and second is the same distance between second and ninth. The distance between first and third is the same distance between third and 17th.

The Lions have one loss this year; a four-point home defeat to the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. In that game, the Lions outgained the Bucs by 247 yards. They had an abnormally bad day in the red zone with just one touchdown in seven total visits there. So, kind of a fluky loss.

You might not be scared of Jared Goff, who threw five interceptions (in a win!) last week. While I get that, he’s had some crazy efficient performances. He just had a game with one fewer touchdown pass than incompletions for the second time this season. Goff had another game with as many touchdown passes as incompletions. And he also had one with MORE touchdown passes than incompletions where he went 18/18. Those are four of his 10 starts this year. That’s wild.

I don’t know if the Eagles will be able to catch the Lions for the No. 1 seed in the NFC playoff picture. It’s certainly possible … but not necessarily likely. The Lions currently have a 86.9% chance for a first-round bye, according to FTN’s DVOA projections. The Eagles are down at 7.2%.

I think the Eagles will be able to put up a good effort against the Lions in the playoffs. But Detroit might be such a juggernaut that they’re not going to be denied a trip to the Super Bowl.

3 – Jake Elliott is hardly the only kicker struggling at the moment.

If you watched any of Sunday’s action, you probably saw a bunch of missed field goals.

Justin Tucker, arguably the best kicker ever, had misses from 47 and 50 in a two-point loss to the Pittsburgh Steelers.

Cairo Santos’ game-winning field goal attempt from 46 yards out was too low and thus got blocked to prevent the Chicago Bears from upsetting the Green Bay Packers.

Evan McPherson missed a 51-yarder at SoFi Stadium that would’ve given the Cincinnati Bengals a three-point lead over the Los Angeles Chargers with just under two minutes to play.

Heck, Brandon Aubrey, who’s been awesome for the Dallas Cowboys, had a kick bounce off the upright on Monday night.

One who’s into conspiracies might suggest the NFL did something to the kicker balls to make kicks less automatic? Who knows.

Other kickers missing doesn’t mean Elliott’s misses aren’t an issue. It’s going to be a problem if he truly has the yips. But it’s worth noting he’s not the only kicker going through some struggles.

I tend to think he’ll be OK.

4 – Don’t sleep on the Steelers.

The Steelers haven’t beaten the Eagles in Philadelphia since 1965.

Might this 60-year streak be in jeopardy when the Eagles host the Stillers in Week 15?

Yes. Mike Tomlin’s team is not to be taken lightly.

The Steelers often don’t make it look pretty but they fight. They’re 8-2 overall and 4-0 with Russell Wilson under center.

In case you forgot, the Eagles have never beaten Wilson. He’s 5-0 against them with 10 total touchdowns to just one interception.

The Steelers finally winning in Philly or the Eagles finally beating Wilson. Barring a tie, something’s gotta give.

(Side note: Did you know that the Eagles and Steelers were once the same team? Long live The NFC East Mixtape.)

5 – It’s too early to bury one of the Eagles’ biggest threats.

Todd Bowles’ Bucs have ended the Eagles’ season in two out of the last three years. I’m going to venture that the Eagles would prefer not to see the Bucs in the playoffs again this season (though maybe it’s time for them to slay that proverbial dragon).

At face value, the Bucs don’t seem so scary at the moment. They’ve lost four in a row to drop to 4-6. Chris Godwin is out for the season.

But I’d be wary about writing them off.

For starters, Mike Evans is poised to return. That’s a big deal. Further, the Bucs have the NFL’s second-easiest remaining strength of schedule. A look at their final seven games coming out of their Week 11 bye:

Week 12 — at New York Giants
Week 13 — at Carolina Panthers
Week 14 — vs. Las Vegas Raiders
Week 15 — at Los Angeles Chargers
Week 16 — at Dallas Cowboys
Week 16 — vs. Carolina Panthers
Week 18 — vs. New Orleans Saints

Winning out is on the table. If not that, 6-1 or 5-2 seems pretty feasible.

That might be good enough to overtake the Atlanta Falcons for the NFC South lead. The Falcons are looking like frauds (pretty annoying that the Eagles lost to them!) with two straight losses to drop to a -30 point differential. Atlanta entered Week 11 ranked 17th in DVOA and will only drop after getting blown out by the Denver Broncos. Here’s the Falcons’ remaining schedule:

Week 12 — Bye
Week 13 — vs. Los Angeles Chargers
Week 14 — at Minnesota Vikings
Week 15 — at Las Vegas Raiders
Week 16 — vs. New York Giants
Week 17 — at Washington Commanders
Week 18 — vs. Carolina Panthers

Let’s say they win their easier games and lose their harder ones to go 3-3. That puts them at 9-8. If the Bucs go 5-2, they’ll also be 9-8.

The Falcons would win the division in that scenario since they hold a valuable head-to-head tiebreaker after beating Tampa twice. So, that’s one thing the Eagles can take comfort in.

But you can’t merely count on Kirk Cousins not blowing it down the stretch. The Bucs might end up winning the NFC South.

6 – I would’ve liked to see Doug Pederson paired with a better GM for his second chance.

I wrote the following back in February 2022:

The concern I have about Pederson isn’t really about Pederson. I suppose it’s possible he runs into a wall where his assistants aren’t good enough and he shows inability to innovate and he over-relies on bad veteran players. But my biggest worry for Pederson is the presence of Shad Khan and Trent Baalke. I don’t need to tell Jags fans that they haven’t been very successful under this ownership. And I probably don’t need to remind them that Baalke played a big part in ousting Jim Harbaugh in San Francisco. I’m worried that those two will undercut Pederson and not trust him enough to do what he needs to do. I’m worried that they won’t be able to get him the right talent to work with. I’m worried that he’ll eventually be scapegoated.

Let’s be clear: Pederson deserves his share of blame for the Jags’ struggles. His commitment to Press Taylor is bizarre.

But if I’m going to be a Pederson stan, which I am since he played a major role in the Eagles’ first-ever and only Super Bowl win, I’m going to point out that the Jags have been a bit unlucky this year with a 1-6 record in one-score games.

I’m also going to point out that Baalke isn’t helping. And reiterate that he was the downfall of the guy who has the best winning percentage of any active NFL head coach.

The Jags firing Pederson now would be understandable, though a bit cruel. Jacksonville actually has THE easiest remaining strength of schedule this year. They’ll also presumably be getting Trevor Lawrence back after their bye. The Jags obviously can’t make the playoffs at this point but Pederson could be given a chance to show that he can stabilize things and have more success with a better general manager.

Of course, I’m probably just wish-casting here. Pederson is going to be gone sooner than later and that’s probably going to be it for him as a head coach. He’ll get some nice paid vacation time before … ultimately ending up back with Andy Reid’s Kansas City Chiefs?

7 – The Giants are hypocrites!

Hey, remember when the Giants and their fans got mad at the Eagles for tanking in the 2020 regular season finale? You know, what prompted Joe Judge to say this?

I get that Judge is no longer with the organization and hasn’t been 2021 (he’s currently a senior analyst at Ole Miss, by the way, if you were also wondering what he’s doing these days). But I doubt Judge was on an island with that sentiment.

The classy New York Giants would never tank!

… except, that’s exactly what they’re doing by benching Daniel Jones to avoid picking up his injury guarantee for 2025. And not only doing that, but replacing him with obvious third-string option Tommy DeVito instead of Drew Lock, who’s clearly been their QB2.

Honestly, this is the smartest move the Giants have made in some time. They should absolutely bottom out and aim for the highest pick possible in the 2025 NFL Draft.

But let’s call a spade a spade. The Giants are tanking. But it’s totally cool now that it serves their best interests.

8 – Moment of gratitude: just a reminder that it’s great to no longer be dealing with the Super Bowl loser curse.

After watching the 2023 Eagles deal with the Super Bowl loser curse, it’s been enjoyable to see them rebound while another team — and an especially unlikable one at that — now has to deal with those issues.

2024 has been a very frustrating season for the San Francisco 49ers and their fans. With a loss to the Seattle Seahawks, the Niners are now 5-5 overall and 1-3 in their division.

Among other injury issues, Brock Purdy is now day-to-day with right shoulder soreness and Nick Bosa might be in jeopardy of missing time.

More bad news: the 49ers have the fourth-toughest remaining strength of schedule.

Week 12 — at Green Bay Packers
Week 13 — at Buffalo Bills
Week 14 — vs. Chicago Bears
Week 15 — vs. Los Angeles Rams
Week 16 — at Miami Dolphins
Week 17 — vs. Detroit Lions
Week 18 — at Arizona Cardinals

The Niners could still win the NFC West if all of their rivals fail to seize the division but their chances aren’t looking awesome at the moment.

That’s a shame.

9 – The Chiefs’ demise has been greatly exaggerated.

I’ve seen people excited to twist the knife and that makes sense since 1) they’re not often the butt of the joke as a team that rarely loses and 2) what the Bills did to the Chiefs was not common:

The Bills deserve big props for doing what teams SHOULD be aiming to do more often against Patrick Mahomes by being aggressive and going for the kill shot. Mahomes is NFL Michael Myers; he’s just not easy to vanquish. But the Bills put him away by going for it on 4th-and-2 instead of settling for a field goal. They were rewarded with an awesome Josh Allen touchdown run to go up two scores and effectively seal the game. The Football Gods shined on Buffalo whereas they did not reward the Bucs’ cowardice when Bowles kicked an extra point to play for overtime as opposed to trying to go for the win in Tampa’s loss to KC earlier this season.

So, yes, props to the Bills. Massive win for them that gives them a real shot at the No. 1 seed in the AFC playoff picture.

But, like, do we not recall the Bills previously beating the Chiefs in the regular season? Josh Allen’s 4-1 against them there. And he’s 0-3 against them in the playoffs.

I’m still very much of the belief the Chiefs are winning it all for the threepeat.

10 – The Eagles’ defensive performance against the Cowboys aged well.

The Eagles allowed the Cowboys to score six points (two field goals coming on two short fields) and 146 yards. But it was only Cooper Rush, so, not that impressive, right?

Well, sure, Rush isn’t good. But the Cowboys’ offense looked much more functional against the Houston Texans on Monday night.

Dallas scored ten points (and would’ve had 13 if not for a rare Brandon Aubrey missed field goal from 40 yards out) and produced 388 yards.

So, pretty good by comparison.

Not that anyone is really doubting the Eagles’ defense right now but here’s some extra love for them anyway.