Jalen Hurts has thrown 49 passes in two games. The Eagles have run the ball 88 times.
The path to the Super Bowl has been a unique one for the Eagles, who – including sacks as pass plays – have run the football on nearly two-thirds of their offensive snaps so far this postseason.
The league average is 62 percent pass, 38 percent run.
The Eagles are at 37 percent pass, 63 percent run.
Part of this has been by necessity. Hurts doesn't appear to be 100 percent healthy, and the Eagles are doing everything they can to keep him from getting hit.
When he’s standing in the pocket or taking off running, he’s at risk. When he’s handing off, he’s not.
But a bigger part of it is simply that it’s working.
The Eagles believe with their world-class offensive line they can run effectively against anybody, and their 150 yards (before kneel downs) and four touchdowns against the 49ers’ top-ranked rush defense sure supports that notion.
The Eagles have run for 416 yards in their two postseason wins, and that’s the 11th-most in NFL history by a team in two games leading up to the Super Bowl – the 4th-most in the last 25 years.
Hammering the ball on the ground means gobbling up clock. Which means keeping the other team’s offense off the field. Which means wearing down the defense. Which means building a big lead. Which means back-to-back lop-sided wins.
The Eagles have held the ball for 35:43 and 37:26 in their two playoff wins, and that’s the 7th-highest combined time of possession in a conference semifinal and conference title game by a team reaching the Super Bowl.
They’ve run the ball 44 times in each game, the first time anybody has done that in the postseason in 33 years.
They’ve won both games by at least 24 points, also the first time that's happened in 33 years and only the fifth all-time.
And they did it with their two 1,000-yard receivers combining for just 147 yards and two catches longer than 12 yards, their Pro Bowl quarterback passing for just 275 yards and backup running back Kenny Gainwell netting more scrimmage yards alone than A.J. Brown and DeVonta Smith combined.
You’re not supposed to win in the postseason with a run-heavy attack, not in this modern era of high-flying passing attacks. But that’s exactly what the Eagles have done.
Shane Steichen is a big believer in going with the hot hand, and if that means throwing it 20 times in a row, he’ll throw 20 times in a row.
This postseason, it’s meant throwing it a fair amount early and then just letting Miles Sanders, Gainwell and Boston Scott – and at times Hurts – run behind those five beasts on the o-line.
In the first quarter of their two postseason wins, the Eagles have 14 completed passes for 162 yards and 13 rushing attempts for 57 yards.
After the first quarter, they have 15 completed passes for 116 yards and 61 rushing attempts for 383 yards.
Read that again for emphasis. It's insane.
They've completed a total of 15 passes in two games after the first quarter.
And nearly 90 percent of their rushing yards have come in the last three quarters.
This doesn’t happen. It shouldn’t happen. It can’t happen.
It’s happened.
Now, we all understand the Eagles haven’t faced a team like the Chiefs. They got to the Super Bowl by beating a Giants team that won two of its last eight regular-season games and a 49ers team that didn’t have a healthy quarterback.
The Chiefs put so much pressure on their opponent's offense because they score so many points.
They don’t have a great run defense, but nobody really tries to run that much against them because they’re usually behind by a lot. Opponents only ran 24 times per game against the Chiefs this year, the 29th-lowest figure in the league. But those teams did average 4.4, which is middle of the pack. And in the postseason that number jumps to 6.0, worst among all playoff teams this year and highest ever by a team reaching the Super Bowl.
Maybe Hurts will throw 50 times in the Super Bowl and the Eagles will only run a few times. You really never know how these things are going to play out.
But if Jason Kelce, Lane Johnson and Company keep forging these enormous running lanes, and Sanders, Gainwell and Scott keep piling up the yards and getting in the end zone, there’s no reason to change.
The running game has gotten the Eagles this far. Why stop now?
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January 30, 2023 at 03:00PM
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Can Eagles keep winning with such a run-heavy offense? - NBC Sports
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