Small Sample Size Will Hamper Any Eagles' Bye Week Self-Scout

What decisions can you make about the offense without A.J. Brown?

Philadelphia Eagles wide receiver A.J. Brown (11) / Eric Hartline-Imagn Images

PHILADELPHIA - The Eagles' bye week comes at an opportune time in the effort to get injured stars like A.J. Brown, DeVonta Smith, and Lane Johnson back up and running.

However, when it comes to the annual self-scout four games is hardly the type of sample size that is going to uncover any warts that need to be fixed, particularly on the offensive because the Eagles have played 75% of their schedule to date without Brown, arguably the pure football player of the team.

"This week being a bye week, we are just doing such a deep dive on so many things," offensive coordinator Kellen Moore said Tuesday.

One thing the head coach Nick Sirianni has already noted is the slow starts.

Through four games the Eagles are the only NFL team not to score in the first quarter this season, a far cry from what was promised with the introduction of Moore and his motion-heavy offensive scheme that was supposed to supercharge things.

“We’ve been starting slow on offense," Sirianni said after Sunday's 33-16 loss to Tampa Bay in which the Bucs rolled out to a 21-0 edge after their first three possessions while the Eagles went three-and-out three consecutive times.

"Obviously, they came down and scored right away today on [our] defense, so I think it’s been both sides," Sirianni said. "We haven’t scored on any of our opening drives, so we got to start faster on offense. We’ll look into that. Sometimes we’ve had different variations of how drives have started but, that will be one of the first things we’ll look at. How we go down and go up 7-0 or how do we go down and up 7-3, whatever it is. We got to do a better job of starting fast."

Sirianni plans to look at everything.

The problem is that the current 2024 "everything" is a flawed starting point. There was the poor field in Brazil during Week 1 that impacted the footing, the oppressive heat in Tampa that marred Week 4, and those injuries, most notably Brown, who is set to return in Week 6, along with Smith and Johnson.

"I’ll look at what we’re calling, how we’re playing, anything we can do in practice to simulate it I mean that’s what you look at if something is not going the way you want it to go, whether it’s red-zone, whether it’s third down. You look, as a coach, how can I simulate this. Maybe it’s something like that."

Moore is playing the good soldier.

"This is a really fun for us to task to navigate and find a way to get going sooner, get going quicker because there are moments coming out of second halves we've had successful drives. But we’ve got to start faster, so that's a big focus for us just to continue to evaluate that and find our way," the OC said.

That way will be found when the stars are back coupled with Jalen Hurts playing with more efficacy.

There are some obvious tweaks the coaching staff can make by using the first four weeks but those involve technique and fundamentals.

Self aware or not, Sirianni even defaulted to the only positives of the early bye week.

"[The] bye week is coming at a good time. We’ve got to get our bodies right and we’ve got to make some changes as far as what’s going on fundamentally," the head coach said.

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