Eagles-Saints player matchups to watch in Week 3

Eagles-Saints player matchups to watch in Week 3 originally appeared on NBC Sports Philadelphia

The Eagles (1-1) will travel to New Orleans to face the red-hot Saints (2-0) on Sunday afternoon.

While the Eagles are coming off a disastrous collapse in a loss to the Falcons in Week 2, the Saints cruised to a 44-19 win over the Cowboys and have scored 91 points in the first two weeks of the season.

Let’s get to the matchups:

Eagles’ Swiss cheese run defense vs. Alvin Kamara

The Eagles’ run defense has been atrocious so far this season. Nick Sirianni after Monday night’s game talked about how sometimes the defensive line has to earn the right to pass rush. The way you earn that is by stopping the run and the Eagles haven’t been able to do that so far.

Through two games, the Eagles have allowed 315 yards on the ground and have given up 6.4 yards per carry, which ranks dead last in the NFL. The Eagles have given up 4.37 yards after contact per attempt, which is the most in the NFL. They have given up more yards after contact per attempt than 13 teams have given up per attempt, period. It has been very bad.

And here come the Saints. Alvin Kamara through two games has 35 rushing attempts for 198 yards and 4 touchdowns. The Saints’ bigger, change-of-pace back, Jamaal Williams, has 19 carries for 77 yards and another score. Kamara is also a big-play threat. He’s tied for the league lead with 7 carries of 10+ yards and has hit 15 mph on 11 of his runs. So if he hits the hole hard and the Eagles’ DL gets out of their gaps and can’t take him down, it could mean disaster.

Eagles secondary vs. Rashid Shaheed

The Eagles have started Darius Slay, Quinyon Mitchell and Avonte Maddox for the first three games of the season. While the lack of pass rush has certainly hurt the secondary, the Eagles’ back end will have a tough matchup against Shaheed in this game. The Saints’ top receiver has 7 catches for 169 yards and 2 touchdowns through two games. He’s averaging an insane 24.1 yards per catch. He had a 59-yard touchdown catch in the opener and a 70-yarder in Week 2. Shaheed is averaging 17.1 air yards per target through two games, which ranks fourth in the NFL.

It’ll be a team effort but the Eagles have to keep eyes on Shaheed. He can flip a game in an instant. The Eagles safeties Reed Blankenship and C.J. Gardner-Johnson will have to be ready for the deep ball too.

Josh Sweat, Bryce Huff vs. Saints’ tackles

The Saints don’t have the best offensive line — PFF ranked them 31st before the season — but Saints offensive coordinator Klink Kubiak has been getting around that by using play action and the screen game. He might not need to do all that this week against the Eagles’ non-existent pass rush.

But you can see what happens when the Saints had typical drop-backs. There’s an opportunity to get some pressure on Derek Carr.

The Saints passed the ball 16x yesterday with 3 total drop back passes. Watch the tackle who doesn't get help on those 3 here (RT-LT-LT in order).

NO is avoiding pass protection through 2 weeks with heavy PAP, a potent run game and lethal screen game. Good ball! pic.twitter.com/y7UKQEVQdU

— Brandon Thorn (@BrandonThornNFL) September 16, 2024

The Saints have rookie Taliese Fuaga starting at left tackle and Trevor Penning at right tackle, filling in for Ryan Ramczyk, who is going to miss the entire season. Penning was benched during the 2023 season and is definitely beatable. But do the Eagles have the guys to beat him? Bryce Huff will get a chance to rush against Penning but after signing a three-year, $51 million contract this offseason, Huff is off to an incredibly slow start. Through two games, Huff has played 62 defensive snaps and has exactly one assist on a tackle. He hasn’t come close enough to talk to a quarterback yet.

Through two games, Carr has been pressured just 10 times, which is the lowest total in the NFL among quarterbacks who have started two games.

Vic Fangio’s defense vs. Saints play action and screens

Like we mentioned, Kubiak has done a really nice job so far this season utilizing a good running attack and then building a play action and screen game off of it. He might not need to do that if the Eagles still can’t rush the passer but it has been working for them so far.

Here’s a look at Carr’s numbers in these two areas:

Play action: 14/20, 263 yards, 3 TDs, 1 INT

Screen game: 7/8, 85 yards, 1 TD

It’s also worth noting that the Saints have been using bigger personnel packages, which has created a lot of their success through the air. They are in 11 personnel just 33% of the time. It’ll be fascinating to see how Fangio matches the Saints’ personnel groupings.

Either way, the Eagles first have to stop the run, which won’t be easy. But then it also won’t be easy to stop the next step of the Saints’ offensive attack. This is going to put a lot of stress on the Eagles’ linebackers Nakobe Dean and Zack Baun. We’ll see how they handle it.

Jalen Hurts vs. Tyrann Mathieu

Through two games, Jalen Hurts has thrown three interceptions and two of them have come from opposing safeties Xavier McKinney and Jessie Bates. At 32 years old, Mathieu might not be his former All-Pro self but he’s still the kind of player you need to worry about because he covers a lot of ground and has always been a ballhawk.

Mathieu picked off a pass against the Cowboys last week. It was his 34th career interception, which ranks second among active players behind just Harrison Smith, who has 35.

Interceptions were an issue for Hurts last season when he had 15. While the advanced metrics indicated there would be some natural regression to the mean in 2024, that hasn’t happened yet. Two games is obviously too small a sample size but Hurts’ interception percentage in 2024 is 4.7% — his career-high in 2023 was 2.8%.

This could be a game with a small margin of error and one where the Eagles need to maximize their possessions to stick with the Saints. Turning the football over could be disastrous.

Lane Johnson, Jordan Mailata vs. Carl Granderson, Chase Young

The Saints are about middle of the pack when it comes to pressure rate in the NFL, but they do have a few edge rushers who can give you problems. It starts with Granderson and Young but 35-year-old Cameron Jordan is still playing a lot too.

Granderson had 1 1/2 sacks against the Cowboys in Week 2 and we have seen what Young and Jordan have been able to do in their careers.

The good news is that the Eagles have two of the best tackles in the NFL and both Johnson and Mailata have lived up to that billing through two weeks. Through two games, ProFootballFocus has Mailata ranked as the third-best tackle in the NFL and Johnson is ranked fifth. Neither has given up a sack yet. Mailata has given up three pressures and Johnson hasn’t surrendered one yet.

Johnson and Mekhi Becton had some issues with stunts in Week 2 so they have to clean that up. But the Eagles’ offensive line is still a strength. The Eagles have plenty of issues but their OL is still really good. Here’s a look at the PFF rankings of all five starters as their respective positions:

LT Jordan Mailata: 3rd
LG Landon Dickerson: 18th
C Cam Jurgens: 7th
RG Mekhi Becton: 15th
RT Lane Johnson: 5th

Saquon Barkley vs. Demario Davis

The drop from Barkley in the fourth quarter on Monday night was brutal and he owned up to it. (Although, you can certainly question the play call). But Barkley has been very good early in the season. He has 26 touches in back-to-back weeks and has been productive.

Barkley has 46 rushing attempts for 204 yards and 2 touchdowns. He also has 6 catches for 44 yards and another score. He’s been very good.

In this game, though, he’ll face one of the best linebackers in the NFL in the perennially overlooked Demario Davis. Davis is 35 now but he definitely doesn’t look like it. He was a Pro Bowler in 2022 and 2023 and is well on his way to another Pro Bowl nod in 2024. He has had seven straight seasons with 100+ tackles and has 12 through 2 games in 2024, to go along with a sack and a pass breakup. The Saints are also getting solid play from his running mate Pete Werner.

DeVonta Smith vs. Saints cornerbacks

There’s a good chance that A.J. Brown (hamstring) won’t be ready for this game so you can expect another healthy dose of DeVonta Smith. The Eagles’ No. 2 receiver had a big game against the Falcons with 7 catches for 76 yards and a touchdown. Unfortunately, the Eagles didn’t get much production from the receiver position outside of Smith.

In this game, it seems likely that the Saints’ top cornerback Marshon Lattimore will return from an injury that kept him out in Week 2. Even without Lattimore against the Cowboys, the Saints still kept Dak Prescott and co. in check. Rookie Kool-Aid McKinstry had a strong performance in his place. Prescott threw for 293 yards but he was also picked off twice and the Cowboys’ high-flying offense scored just one touchdown in the game. It came on a 65-yard pass from Prescott to CeeDee Lamb. On that long touchdown play, Lamb was able to beat Paulson Adebo, who lines up as the Saints’ left cornerback. But this is a good group of corners.

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