Eagles Kellen Moore Brings Balanced Attack In Week 1, Can It Stay That Way?

The Eagles' first-year OC did a good job of game-planning to get all the team's weapons touches and targets, but that will be difficult to do the rest of the way, said head coach Nick Sirianni.

Aug 9, 2024; Baltimore, Maryland, USA; Philadelphia Eagles offensive coordinator Kellen Moore looks on as quarterback Jalen Hurts (1) throws: Tommy Gilligan-Imagn Images / Tommy Gilligan-Imagn Images

The two previous Eagles season openers didn’t look like Friday night’s 34-29 win over the Green Bay Packers.

All three openers were wins, but last year in New England, free-agent addition D’Andre Swift carried the ball only once, and two years ago, DeVonta Smith didn’t have a catch in Detroit. Those are two big stars who got lost in a constellation of them on the Eagles’ roster.

Those stars are still here with the addition of Saquon Barkley the only exception, but first-year offensive coordinator Kellen Moore found a way to get every one of the Eagles’ playmakers involved.

-Barkley had 26 touches for 132 total yards.

-A.J. Brown had 10 targets and five catches for 119 yards.

-DeVonta Smith had eight targets and seven receptions for 84 yards.

-Dallas Goedert had five targets and four grabs for 31 yards.

Sep 6, 2024; Sao Paulo, Brazil; Peacock sideline reporter Kaylee Hartung (center) interviews Philadelphia Eagles wide receiver A.J. Brown (11) and running back Saquon Barkley (26) after the 2024 NFL Sao Paolo Game at Neo Quimica Arena. Mandatory Credit: Kirby Lee-Imagn Images / Kirby Lee-Imagn Images

Moore even found a way to dial up a target each for Jahan Dotson, Grant Calcaterra, Kenny Gainwell, and rookie Johnny Wilson.

Some of those targets may have been second and third reads for quarterback Jalen Hurts, but the bottom line is Moore found a way to distribute the football to the team’s stars.

Don’t expect that to be the case every week.

“It’s impossible to be consistent in that,” said head coach Nick Sirianni on Monday afternoon. “…to be consistent with that would mean teams aren’t going to focus their attention to one guy. The great part about having all these different weapons, and (general manager) Howie (Roseman) and his staff have done such an unbelievable job in building this roster, but the great part of that is when they take one guy away, they make themselves susceptible to another guy.”

That’s what happened on the Eagles' four-minute drill at the end of the game, which actually ran for more than seven minutes and led to a field goal to make the Packers have to go 84 yards with 22 seconds left after Keisean Nixon foolishly tried to take the ball deep out of the end zone on Elliott’s kickoff.

The Packers were trying to take away A.J. Brown, so the Eagles went to Smith on two throws late in the march.

“There was something they were doing defensively with A.J. – I won’t get into specifics – that they weren’t doing as much with DeVontra, so you shift them around and take advantage of what the defense is doing,” said Sirianni. “Our personnel gives us the ability to do that because we have so many different weapons that can do that.”

There will be more weeks than not where the Eagles offense will ride the hot hand or it will identify what is being done to defend one or two of those weapons, which will open up room for another.

“There’s going to be different circumstances that take balls away from them,” said Sirianni. “That’s where it’s going to be so important, the selflessness. … it’s going to take all of them to have the type of season we want to have and be able to handle the highs and lows throughout the season of how the ball comes to you.”

Barkley understands that and set that tone following his big Eagles debut in Brazil in which he scored three touchdowns.

“(Friday) might have been my day scoring touchdowns, it was never no hate, no none of that,” he said. “It was like go ahead, go get four (touchdowns). That's what you need with a team like this that has so many stars.

“There’s going to be a time for A.J. going crazy (where) he's going to have three, four touchdowns. DeVonta, Dallas. …That's my favorite thing about being part of this team. There are really no selfish personalities here. We have one common goal, and I'm excited to be part of that.”

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