Week 2 MNF Eagles-Falcons: Advanced Review

Falcons win with a late touchdown and Kirk Cousins looking like the passer of old, while coaching decisions make the difference

The adjusted scores quantify team play quality, with emphasis on stable metrics (success rate) and downplaying higher variance events (turnovers, special team, penalties, fumble luck, etc). Adjusted expected points added (EPA), in conjunction with opportunity-based metrics like total plays and drives, projects adjusted points. Adjusted scores have been tested against actual scores and offer slightly better predictive ability, though their primary benefit is explanatory.

All 2024-2022 and historical Adjusted Scores and other site metrics are available in a downloadable format to paid subscribers via Google Sheet.

Find previous advanced reviews here

** Adjusted Scores table:

• “Pass” - Pass rate over expectation (based on context of each play and historical averages

• “Success” - Success rate on offense, a key metric in adjusted score vs actual

• “H & A” - Home or away team

PHI-ATL

A game that started off as a slog offensively came together for a fantastic finish. Fourth down decisions ended up being highly impactful and consequential in this game, something I’ll get to in the analysis below.

The adjusted scores agree with the actual for the most part, as the Falcons were the more successful offense on a play-by-play basis, but were hurt somewhat by relative underperformance on late downs (5.7 EPA advantage to the Eagles, Falcons only converted 2-of-9 third downs and 1-of-2 on fourth).

Both offenses were threatening passing and running, and each leaned into the run relative to expected pass rates. The Falcons were ultimately more efficient overall due to their superior passing, and their lower expected pass rate was actually higher overall, trailing on many drives and needing to score more quickly by throwing.

This game was a return to normalcy for many aspects of both offenses that looked off in Week 1. Kirk Cousins returned under center often and utilized play-action, and Jalen Hurts made massively valuable plays with his legs, including successful “tush pushes” on more solid ground than the soccer pitch in Brazil.

Even more hyped than the quarterback matchup going into the game was that between Bijan Robinson and Saquon Barkley, and both delivered with a couple major negative plays. You can’t necessarily blame Robinson for getting stuffed on 4th & 1 on the Falcons side of the field with 5:42 remaining, but it was the most negative play of the game for either team in expected points lost (-3.4). Outside of that run, Robinson was +3.5 EPA on 13 runs, plus flat EPA on six targets.

Barkley was slightly negative running the ball (-1.9 EPA on 23 carries), but not overly so considering the general negative value of rushing. Barkley added 2.3 expected points on five targets, but most memorably dropped what could have been a crucial late-game conversion that would have put the Eagles in position for the clinching touchdown. The Eagles still had a 85% win probability after the play, but a really poor decision from Nick Sirianni to kick the field goal immediately dropped their win probability below 80% in betting markets. More on that later.

Hurts and Cousins finished with similar numbers, though the Eagles offense was more reliant on the former. Hurts was involved in 46 plays (38 dropbacks and eight designed runs), generating almost all of his EPA on the ground (+3.3 on those runs, +5.7 on four scrambles). Hurts was also extremely accurate, but his overall passing efficiency was lowered significantly by a failed 4th & 4 pass in the first quarter (-3.1 EPA).

Cousins, by the stats, looked like the quarterback we’ve seen over the past several years. He was efficient and accurate, even if it may have looked a little funky to the eyes of observers. Cousins wasn’t a checkdown machine in this one, forced to throw to keep the Falcons in the game, he averaged 8.1 air yards per target and gained enormous value throwing to all three of his top wide receiver targets.

I maintain that if we ran an experiment and showed people an older Cousins game and told them he had Achilles surgery before that, they’d have had similar reactions to what I saw on Twitter that his physical limitations were so obvious.

Now let’s get to the fourth downs. I love what Raheem Morris did going for it twice on his own side of the field. By the numbers, the 4th & 1 failure was the obvious call down three points that late in the fourth quarter (+7.7% win probability), though I can see a lot of coaches passing up the chance. Morris’ decision to go on 4th & 4 from the Falcons 47-yard line down a single point in the third quarter was even more unconventional, but the numbers agreed with his aggressiveness (+2.4%). Close games on the road against a good opponent are as close if you consider giving up the ball and basically losing the possession advantage with a punt in that spot. The fact that the call led to a touchdown on the next play made it even more sweet.

The really bad call from Sirianni, who is normally really strong with decisions and was good earlier in the game on a few, was to kick the field goal up three points with a little under two minutes remaining. The numbers put it at a 3.2% win probability gain, which is especially big considering that the Eagles were basically extinguishing any chance that the Falcons could win with a conversion. Game theory also comes into play, as moving the lead from three to six forces the opponent to go for the touchdown and win in regulation, rather than giving them the chance to be conservative and take overtime once they move into field-goal range.