The 'Empty' Idea That Helped Fuel The Eagles' Passing Attack

The Eagles used more empty sets to help fuel the passing game in an emphatic win against the Pittsburgh Steelers.

Dec 15, 2024; Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA; Philadelphia Eagles head coach Nick Sirianni looks on against the Pittsburgh Steelers at Lincoln Financial Field. / Bill Streicher-Imagn Images

PHILADELPHIA - The Eagles came alive in the passing game during an impressive 27-13 win over the Pittsburgh Steelers on Sunday.

Behind the scenes, nearly everyone at the NovaCare Complex acknowledged that the aerial attack has to improve from a two-game lull against Baltimore and Carolina in which quarterback Jalen Hurts threw for a combined 226 yards.

Against the Steelers, the Eagles’ QB1 was back to his 2022 runner-up for MVP form and completed 25 of 32 passes for 290 yards with two touchdowns – one each to A.J. Brown and DeVonta Smith – with a 125.3 passer rating.

When targeting his two top wideouts, Hurts was 19 of 23 with Smith snaring 11 for 109 yards and Brown getting eight receptions for 110, a performance that finally took some of the load off MVP candidate Saquon Barkley, who found some tough sledding against the Steelers’ front seven which limited the star RB to 65 yards on 19 carries.

The tortured idea that Philadelphia didn’t need to show some life throwing the football despite what is is now a franchise-record 10-game winning streak is mitigated by the words of players like Hurts, Brown, Smith, and Jordan Mailata over recent weeks.

Hurts noted getting into a rhythm when talking to FOX analyst and future Hall of Fame QB Tom Brady after the game.

To do that the Eagles used tempo and more empty sets. 

The results of that idea were encouraging. Philadelphia had nine dropbacks from empty sets and netted 116 yards from that formation, more than the previous seven games combined when the passing results were more nondescript.

Sirianni has been quick to note how “efficient” Hurts has been over the past two months despite the lack of big numbers.

The actions spoke louder than the words against the Steelers as the Eagles came out in an empty set and went with tempo a little quicker than usual.

“Every game plan and everything goes into that,” Sirianni said when asked about the plan at his Monday virtual presser by Philadelphia Eagles On SI. “Every game plan is a little bit different in how you want to attack, and how teams come out in empty, and the things that they do in empty.

“We're able to do multiple things out of empty, whether it's push the ball down the field, get the ball out quick, run the ball. We have a lot of different options that we can do.”

The Eagles coach said the formation has been successful for Philadelphia in the past. That said, the Eagles had pretty much shelved it recently as the passing issues mounted.

Getting back to empty formations in a more substantive manner was obviously one of the tweaks the Eagles wanted to employ.

“It’s been a good set for us,” Sirianni acknowledged. “A little bit more than we had done in the past yesterday. … Jalen did a really good job operating from that empty set. We did it the very first play, and he makes a great play to start off with that plus-20 completion to [TE] Grant [Calcaterra].

“And the guys did a good job [protecting]. I wrote that down multiple times as I was watching it. The protection that we had in empty against a really good rush.”

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