Quick Slant: Teams That Ended on Divergent Trajectories Meet in Brazil
Packers @ Eagles, Friday @ 8:15 PM EST
Sao Palo, Brazil, hosts their first NFL game as the Packers and Eagles get set to tangle in South America. The Eagles had the best winning percentage in the NFC at 10-1 in late November last year, then collapsed to lose five of their next six, succumbing to the Bucs in a humiliating playoff loss. The Packers, by contrast, finished as one of the hottest teams in the NFL, climbing from 2-5 to 9-8 and snatching the last playoff spot, which they used to embarrass the Dallas Cowboys before narrowly losing to the Super Bowl-bound 49ers a week later.
Packers' Implied Team Total: 23.5
The Packers enter 2024 as playoff contenders with a 9.5 over/under. They are led by one of the primary disciples of the Shanahan tree, Matt LaFleur, who brings an incredible .675 win percentage, second among current NFL head coaches, and two appearances in the NFC Championship game in five seasons. The Packers started slowly in 2023, partly due to a transitional period as they moved on from future Hall of Famer Aaron Rodgers and broke in controversial 2020 first-round pick Jordan Love.
Love demonstrated the volatility attributed to him during the prelude to his NFL Draft selection, as he hit some early haymakers and stuffed the stat sheet in the first two weeks. However, underlying stats like completion percentage above expected (CPOE) indicated it was fool's gold.
For a period, the naysayers who had prophesied imminent decline were afforded a few weeks to dance on Love's grave. However, Love suddenly sprung forth with new life and rewrote the narrative beginning in Week 11. His efficiency instantly stabilized, and his volatility all but disappeared.
This year, there is far more confidence in Love, especially with a stable of several young, incredible pass-catchers, including Jayden Reed, Christian Watson, Romeo Doubs, Dontayvion Wicks, Bo Melton, Tucker Kraft, and Luke Musgrave.
All seven are between the ages of 23 and 25; only Doubs and Watson have played multiple seasons. Reed, Watson, and Wicks have posted a single-season reFPOE in excess of 25, which is good efficiency. Although each Green Bay pass catcher demonstrates specific positive indicators, the issue for all seven is market share; the highest target share any has seen in a single season is 17%, which is not enough to hit the positional apex. Doubs led the team in routes a year ago, but the best bets to untangle from the crowd and find league-winning upside are probably Reed, Watson, or Wicks.
Reed earned 2.05 YPRR and Wicks 2.04 YPRR in 2023 (according to PFF route-run data), drawing near to established WR producers like DeAndre Hopkins, Christian Kirk, DK Metcalf, and Michael Pittman. YPRR between 2.0 and 2.5 is good, not elite; still, that each was able to hit this mark as a rookie is highly encouraging.
According to Blair Andrews, early high double-digit FPOE is one of the best predictors of an impending breakout; Reed had 35.0, and Wicks had 26.2. Breakouts often come from WRs who are 22-23 years old. Wicks will be in this age range this season, whereas Reed will be 24. However, Reed has also technically already broken out by scoring 215.2 PPR last season. Reed now profiles as an excellent secondary-breakout bet, as laid out by Blair in a separate piece:
“The standouts among the rookies, at least in terms of having both the clear opportunity and the price for some upside, are Zay Flowers and Jayden Reed. Flowers is a late third-round pick and Reed is a late fifth-round pick. Yet both finished with strong efficiency. Reed in particular looks like a strong bet, not only because he is cheaper, but also because his routes were only in the 70th percentile for rookie seasons. He has a lot of room for his opportunity to grow.”
What's better than 2.05 YPRR? How about 2.26? That is what Watson produced as a rookie in 2022, putting him within range of famously great rookie seasons like those of Puka Nacua (2.56), Chris Olave (2.40), Ja'Marr Chase (2.51), and Justin Jefferson (2.66). Watson also finished 2022 with a 30.3 FPOE, and he, himself, would have been a good candidate for a 2023 breakout had his season not been wrecked by injury. If we offer Watson grace for bad injury luck, it is natural to hope he picks up where he left off before his season went off the rails.
And then there's Melton, who has the best YPRR of all, but it is on a tiny sample size of just 24 targets. As good as that may be, imagining him surpassing this quartet isn't easy.
It bears mention that players in San Francisco, Miami, Green Bay, and Los Angeles have experienced heightened efficiency under their play-callers, the four pillars of the modern Shanahan offense; to a lesser extent, play-callers in Minnesota, Cleveland, and Houston have, too. We can expect WRs in Matt LaFleur's offenses to maintain slightly better efficiency, on average. Seven play-callers adhere strictly to all of the tenets of modern Shanahan schemes (omitting related play-callers like Ben Johnson or Zac Taylor, who use several principles but are not based in a wide-zone rushing scheme). Fourteen of 33 players with 30 or more FPOE across all positions emanated from these seven offenses. Of those 14, nine played in San Francisco, Los Angeles, Green Bay, and Miami.
At RB, all signs pointed to a committee (another familiar hallmark of modern Shanahan play-callers when they don't have a mega-star at RB) pretty much all summer. However, A.J. Dillon's season is already over, leaving Josh Jacobs backed up by rookies MarShawn Lloyd and Emmanuel Wilson. Both are questionable to play in Week 1, but Lloyd seems like a bit of a long shot to play.
This puts Jacobs in a tremendous position to dominate carries against a defense that was vulnerable to the run in 2023. In 2023, the Eagles finished 29th in rush EPA/play.
Health may help the Eagles generate more consistency, especially regarding MLB Nakobe Dean, who missed almost the entire year in 2023. In five healthy games, Dean was second on the Eagles in PFF rush defense grade; in the preseason, he was first. He is expected to play in base and nickel packages. This should be a slight upgrade over the departing Nicholas Morrow. Dean will be joined by incoming free agents Devin White, once a darling of the IDP world, and Zack Baun, beefing up the entire linebacking corps.
More than anything, the Eagles will hope for improvement under longtime defensive legend Vic Fangio, who returns home to the team he grew up with. This should represent a meaningful upgrade over outgoing Sean Desai, who seemed in over his head as a DC. One of the strengths of Fangio's defense is rushing prominence; he coordinated defenses that allowed the fewest rushing yards in San Francisco and Chicago, and his 2006 Ravens were second.
But there is more bad news for Eagles: they were also among the worst teams in defensive EPA/Dropback.
