by Rivers McCown

It's not hard to explain why Philadelphia's offense has struggled on paper the last two weeks. DeSean Jackson has a 59.0% DVOA on the 10 targets he had this season. He left Sunday Night Football against Atlanta and didn't play in Week 3. Alshon Jeffery has a 43.7% DVOA on the six targets he has this season. He left Sunday Night Football against Atlanta and didn't play in Week 3. The (searching for adjective) ever-mercurial Nelson Agholor caught two touchdown passes in this game, but also fumbled. He dropped passes left and right against Atlanta, and also caught a big fourth-down pass that set the Eagles up with a chance to win. Agholor has been a wild ride. Zach Ertz had the worst DVOA of any tight end through two weeks, and didn't exactly have a great Week 3 either. Two of Ertz's incompletions hit him in the hands. Chris Spielman out-and-out noted that Ertz had been doubled a lot during the game against Detroit, and that Philadelphia was being forced to go further down the route tree.

One thing I do want to point out with the Philadelphia offense is an observation from our Film Room compatriot Derrik Klassen:

Not loving how often PHI played out of empty vs DET. They were an infrequent/bad empty team last year; generally don't enjoy watching Wentz work from empty. — Derrik Klassen (@QBKlass) September 23, 2019

It's worth pointing out that A) last season Wentz averaged 7.7 yards per attempt, and B) that dipped to 6.5 yards per attempt in empty sets, with three sacks, two touchdowns, two picks, and a fumble lost. While we don't have splits for that sort of thing just yet in our database for this year, Wentz played a lot of empty in comeback mode against the Falcons and Lions over the last two weeks.

The Lions got a crucial stop early in the game on third-and-goal that forced the Eagles to kick a field goal:

Tight Lions coverage on third-and-goal. pic.twitter.com/sispmi0NRJ — Rivers McCown (@riversmccown) September 24, 2019

When I stop this frame, you can see that Wentz doesn't have anywhere over the middle to throw to. They've doubled his two middle options with linebackers, and his underneath route to the left is going to have to shed a tackle to get a first down as well. That leaves Mack Hollins on the corner and the ball has to be absolutely perfect. Wentz just isn't up to the task.

Tracy Walker on Zach Ertz pic.twitter.com/PTFx183HkN — Rivers McCown (@riversmccown) September 24, 2019

Philadelphia's in comeback mode here and they're having so many problems getting routes down the field that Wentz actually takes a short check to a well-covered Ertz. Lucky this one wasn't defensed in a more impactful way, but Tracy Walker is all over it.

The Eagles had just a 42% success rate on pass plays against the Lions, and it was only 43% against the Falcons. They need their main pass-catchers healthy, and it probably wouldn't hurt to make the offense a little less predictable as well.

Where the Game Swung

(This is viewed from Detroit's perspective. GWC is Game-Winning Chance, EdjSports' metric of how likely a team is to win the game based on the game situation and strength of each team at any given time.)

The kick return touchdown by Jamal Agnew was worth 13.0% GWC all on its own. That's the first big spike. Agholor's fumble at the end of the second quarter to set the Lions up deep in Philadelphia territory added another 20.5% GWC.

The end was a wild ride, and GWC believes Lions head coach Matt Patricia played things way too conservatively. By punting on fourth-and-8 at the Philadelphia 40 with a three-point lead, the model believes he cost the Lions 4.7% GWC. By going for the field goal after getting the ball deep in Philadelphia territory, it believes Detroit lost another 4.9% GWC. Making a three-point lead into a six-point lead is something GWC often hates.

By the VOA

TEAM OFF DEF ST TOT DET -1.8% -9.8% 20.6% 28.7% PHI -0.6% 1.0% -25.2% -26.8%

As you can see, outside of special teams, VOA believes that a football game was played. Neither team had a significant edge in either offense or defense. Detroit's defense was the best of the four units on the field. Let's talk about that!

Matt Patricia's Defense Awakens

We believed that the Lions would make the playoffs this year. We projected them with 8.3 wins on account of an easier schedule than most of the NFC North. (We need a name for this sort of schedule-based turnover -- the cupcake bounce?) Year 2 of the Matt Patricia era has brought with it instant and marked improvement on defense. We projected the Lions with a 1.7% defensive DVOA. Through three games, they're at -10.0% VOA, and this matchup was more of the same.

While Darius Slay and Quandre Diggs were quite good in 2018, the rest of the Lions secondary was simply not equipped to play Patricia's scheme in their first season. Glover Quin retired, with Tracy Walker replacing him towards the end of last season and now as the main starter this year. The Lions imported Rashaan Melvin and Justin Coleman to boost Slay and Diggs on the outside. The early returns have been quite worthwhile:

Lion's Share of Cornerback Credit 2018 2019 Player Yards

per Pass Success

Rate Players Yards

per Pass Success

Rate CB2 Mike Ford 13.1 23% Rashaan Melvin 7.6 62% CB3 Teez Tabor 12.5 38% Justin Coleman 3.2 67% CB4 DeShawn Shead 13.7 24% Jamal Agnew 7.2 40%

The Lions simply couldn't get good play out of anyone they tried last year -- and they tried a lot of people. This year, Melvin and Coleman have settled things down.

Detroit's Defense Versus Receivers, 2018-2019 vs. #1 WR vs. #2 WR vs. Other WR vs. TE vs. RB 2018 21.5% 19.4% 39.5% 19.4% -6.6% 2019 -13.5% -6.9% -54.1% 4.6% 33.4%

Last year, the Lions finished 32nd in DVOA against No. 1 wideouts, 27th against No. 2 wideouts, and 32nd against other wideouts. This year, through Week 2, their rankings are at seventh, 12th, and third -- and all three are negative (which means good defense). The only area where Detroit is getting gashed in the passing game is by running backs. (Ironically, that was the only thing they were good at defending last year.)

Detroit's sack rate is falling -- which is fine, because last year's rate was unsustainable based on the pressure they were getting anyway -- but because they rush three so often compared to most other teams, they're going to be an outlier on adjusted sack rate. Typically that manifests itself as a top-10 amount of time to throw that week. Per Next Gen Stats, Kyler Murray in Week 1 had 2.84 seconds, Philip Rivers in Week 2 was at 3.03 seconds. Both underperformed their expected accuracy based on down-and-distance.

Wentz play-action, gets to his first read, realizes it's double-covered, tight end gets run over and Christian Jones gets a sack. pic.twitter.com/6WGbyEofbz — Rivers McCown (@riversmccown) September 24, 2019

This play is what Patricia is building to. He has read the offensive tendencies properly, and the quarterback wants to get the ball out to his first read but realizes that he can't. As Wentz realizes that, he gets swallowed by someone winning one-on-one. That's where the negative plays come with this defense: confusion. There has been a lot more of it this year.

Wentz in Week 3 did not have an above-average amount of time to throw. He was at 2.74 seconds. He underperformed his expected completion rate by a whopping -13.2%, the biggest difference of the week for a non-Miami Dolphin. That's a big ceiling for what Patricia's defense can do when it has you read well.

What happens if you pair a team that we had already projected for 8.3 wins with a defense that is empirically one of the ten best in the NFL? Well, you start talking about being good enough for a playoff spot even if they don't win the division. It's early yet, and Patricia may still leak win expectancy all over the field and botch more games as he did in Arizona. But this is looking pretty promising for the Lions.