What We Saw: Week 8

The What We Saw team recaps everything you missed from a wild Week 8 in the NFL

Ben Brown
What We Saw 2 Years Ago
Series Navigation
Introduction
Ravens @ Buccaneers
Broncos @ Jaguars
Panthers @ Falcons
Bears @ Cowboys
Dolphins @ Lions
Cardinals @ Vikings
Raiders @ Saints
Patriots @ Jets
Steelers @ Eagles
Titans @ Texans
Commanders @ Colts
49ers @ Rams
Giants @ Seahawks
Packers @ Bills

Steelers @ Eagles

Final Score: Eagles 35, Steelers 13

Writer: Adam Sloate (@MrAdster99 on Twitter)

 

As you might have expected from a team starting Kenny Pickett at QB, the Steelers looked pretty awful on offense. To their credit, the Steelers hung with the Eagles for the first quarter, thanks to some well-designed plays and a little bit of trickery, but they just couldn’t hang with the Eagles, who were the more talented team. Despite all the efforts from Tony Romo to trick viewers into thinking the game was competitive, the Eagles had this game won about halfway through the second quarter (21-7 with 6 minutes remaining in the second), thanks to an incredible first-half connection between QB Jalen Hurts and WR1 A.J. Brown. With the game comfortably out of reach, the Eagles were able to stick the backups in for some of the fourth quarter and look toward Thursday night’s game against the Texans.

 

Pittsburgh Steelers

 

Quarterback

 

Kenny Pickett: 25/38, 191 yards, 1 INT, 6 sacks | 7 carries, 37 yards

 

The best thing a “young” QB can do is get plenty of reps at live speed, and Pickett sure did get plenty of reps. He just didn’t do a whole lot when he got reps in a clean pocket. The Steelers’ offensive line was absolutely abysmal and didn’t do a whole lot to protect Pickett from the many defensive linemen that got into the Pittsburgh backfield. Six sacks feels like a typo, but it looked like it should’ve been more. If the Eagles were lost, they could look and they would find the Steelers’ line willing to let them by, time after time.

Eagles DE/LB Haason Reddick got after Pickett with a vengeance, including this huge hit on Pickett early in the game:

 

 

Perhaps it had something to do with Pickett de-committing from Reddick’s (and the author’s) alma mater at the last moment?

 

 

When Pickett had time to throw, he wasn’t looking downfield very often, leaving his receivers to try to pick up yards after the catch:

 

 

Pickett looking 10+ yards downfield, per Next Gen Stats: 2/12, 46 yards, 1 INT. Not pretty, but part of that is Pickett looking uncomfortable in the pocket — which he is justified in since his offensive line was doing a fantastic impression of Swiss cheese.

With such a short time to throw, Pickett was stuck in a frustrating cycle of:

  • Look for a short pass and hope for missed tackles or YAC ability
  • Look for a long pass against the Eagles’ two high-end corners, with the officials mostly swallowing their whistles
  • Wait for routes to develop and get pressured by the Eagles’ defensive line
  • Hand the ball off for a yard or two on the ground

Some teams do really well trying to rack up yards after the catch, like the 49ers, but the Steelers are among the worst teams at that this season, so praying for his receivers to make tacklers miss or run through tackles didn’t work out so well.

Fun fact on the broadcast: Rookie QB Kenny Pickett is older than 3rd-year QB Jalen Hurts.

 

Running Backs

 

Jaylen Warren: 6 carries, 50 yards | 3 targets, 3 receptions, 25 yards

Najee Harris: 8 carries, 32 yards | 6 targets, 6 receptions, 26 yards | 1/1, 4 yards

Steven Sims: 2 carries, 21 yards | 3 targets, 2 receptions, -1 yards

 

Watching the game, I was thinking, “wow, they’re not getting any running room.” Not only did Steelers RBs not appear to have any room, but the line wasn’t getting much push on the Eagles, which is why the Steelers abandoned the run when they were trying to get back into the game.

 

 

From the carry chart, you can tell that all but two of Harris’ runs ended within 5 yards of the line of scrimmage, indicating that he was running into a lot of contact early or just didn’t have the running lanes necessary for ripping off big chunks of yardage at a time. Unfortunately, there’s no chart for Jaylen Warren available, which would have served as a nice comparison tool for us.

At first glance at the box score, the run game wasn’t nearly as bad as it looked. Each of the RBs averaged at least 4 YPC, which is better than the backfield usually does — the Steelers averaged 3.7 yards per carry as a team heading into this matchup. But a closer look indicates that half of Harris’ rushing yardage came from an 18-yard run up the middle-ish. So, if you strip that run from his total, if you’re into that sort of thing, Harris’s YPC for the game looks a whole lot worse. Luckily, for those who couldn’t afford to sit Harris this week, he got plenty of short receiving work, even if most of it was low-quality targets.

Among the two “lead backs,” it sure looked like Warren was the more explosive runner. However, Warren got most of his looks in the second half with the Steelers down 15+ points, so I’m not sure he’s going to be featured in the game plan as more than a guy who can spell Najee Harris or take over when Harris is out.

 

Wide Receivers/Tight Ends

 

Pat Freiermuth: 7 targets, 4 receptions, 57 yards

Chase Claypool: 6 targets, 4 receptions, 45 yards | 1/1, 1 yard, 1 TD

Diontae Johnson: 9 targets, 5 receptions, 35 yards

Derek Watt: 2 targets, 2 receptions, 6 yards, 1 TD

George Pickens: 3 targets

 

It was a brutal game for the Pittsburgh receiving corps, especially George Pickens, who appeared to have turned the corner lately. Instead, Pickens was totally erased, and I don’t think he was shadowed by either of the Eagles’ corners, which would have forced targets to other receivers. I think it was just a dud of a game for him, and you should keep him in your lineups moving forward.

The only guy who really salvaged his fantasy value was Chase Claypool, who was able to tack on a passing TD thanks to a well-executed trick play in the first quarter:

 

 

Claypool’s TD pass was set up by the most bizarre penalty I’ve seen this season: a delay of game penalty assessed against the defense. The Steelers were initially going to kick the field goal, but the penalty set the Steelers up on fourth and goal from very short yardage.

 

https://twitter.com/BrodesMedia/status/1586774417098653698

Pat Freiermuth may be the guy to look for if Pickett is truly the starter moving forward. The Steelers’ offensive line hasn’t looked strong enough to let Pickett get clean throws off later in the play, and when he had less time to throw, Pickett looked Freiermuth’s way.

Diontae Johnson had an eerily-similar performance to his game against the Dolphins last week. In both games, Johnson had five receptions, 9-10 targets, and approximately 40 yards. While two games is hardly enough to draw a good sample, Johnson doesn’t seem to be the reception monster he was to open the season, with Mitch Trubisky under center. He got his targets in Philadelphia, but they weren’t high-quality targets; they weren’t downfield looks and they weren’t targets that unleashed Johnson’s ability to pick up significant yards after the catch.

The following tweet doesn’t include Johnson’s yardage after the catch from Week 8, but it exemplifies pretty well the issues he comes with for fantasy investors:

 

 

Claypool faced many of the same issues as Johnson with low-quality targets, but it looked like he had a little extra pep in his step, especially on this play:

 

 

Is Claypool startable in fantasy? ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

 

Philadelphia Eagles

 

Quarterback

 

Jalen Hurts: 19/28, 285 yards, 4 TD, 3 sacks | 2 carries, 10 yards

 

When historians look back on this game, will they declare it the “Jalen Hurts Game” or the “A.J. Brown Game”? Both made their case for this to be their “Game,” Hurts tossed some dimes to Brown and just looked more comfortable in dirty pockets. Previously, Hurts has been more than willing to leave the pocket when the opposing line gets a little pressure and has tried to scramble for a first down, but this week, Hurts looked like he was a little more willing to look for routes downfield, which resulted in his first TD pass against the blitz this season:

 

 

The second TD pass to AJB was also a “Go” route against the Steelers blitz.

Holding onto the ball resulted in Hurts taking a couple of sacks, but it wasn’t reminiscent of Carson Wentz‘s days in Philadelphia, where holding the ball for far too long was one of Wentz’s signature traits. So, there’s nothing to worry about with the sacks just yet.

There really wasn’t much to nitpick about Hurts’ performance, so let’s just sit back and watch his three — not one, not two, but three! — touchdown passes to A.J. Brown, which were certified DOTS:

 

 

Here’s the second TD:

 

 

And, number three:

 

 

No other notes necessary. Hurts is that guy.

 

Running Backs

 

Miles Sanders: 9 carries, 78 yards, 1 TD

Boston Scott: 7 carries, 21 yards

Kenneth Gainwell: 1 carry, 3 yards | 1 reception, 8 yards

 

The running game was a bit of an afterthought with Hurts passing the ball so well, so Miles Sanders didn’t get a ton of action until later in the game when the Eagles were trying to salt away the remaining time on the clock. Sanders’ TD rush didn’t come until the beginning of the fourth quarter, with the Eagles leading 28-13.

 

 

Sanders looked just fine otherwise, and there’s no broader conclusion to draw from his usage of this game. The Eagles were just moving the ball really well through the air, and Hurts can always use more passing reps. Boston Scott’s carries came with the game well out of reach, too. Don’t read more into it.

 

Wide Receivers/Tight Ends

 

A.J. Brown: 11 targets, 6 receptions, 156 yards, 3 TDs

Dallas Goedert: 6 targets, 6 receptions, 64 yards

Zach Pascal: 2 targets, 2 receptions, 57 yards, 1 TD

Devonta Smith: 8 targets, 5 receptions, 23 yards

 

If you want to call this one the “A.J. Brown Game,” I certainly wouldn’t argue with you. Brown was every bit the game changer the Eagles expected him to be today, catching all of his TDs and doing it with style:

 

 

Brown’s taunt — which earned the Eagles a penalty — was him indicating that he had caught yet another TD in double coverage, which reflects well on Brown’s catching skills and Hurts’ ball placement:

 

 

One more tweet for all those happy AJB managers:

 

 

If the Eagles’ team doctors conducted an x-ray on Brown after the game, I’d expect them to find Brown filled with dogs, because he surely has got “that dawg in him.”

Forgotten in all the hullabaloo over Brown’s incredible day was the fact that Dallas Goedert moved the chains whenever the Eagles needed him to. Hurts and Goedert teamed up for a classic Eagles play: the TE screen.

Here’s an example of the TE screen from a few games ago:

 

 

The Eagles have run this play with minor variations every single game this season, and it continued against the Steelers, working to great effect. Goedert had his share of other catches, each of them evidence that he is easily a Top-5 TE in the NFL, but the one that I want to focus on is the TE screen.

The screen has worked so well that it was the thing that led to Zach Pascal‘s first TD as an Eagle. You can see at the bottom of the screen that the Eagles set up the play like Goedert is about to receive a screen pass, similar to the play above:

 

 

The Steelers player responsible for covering Pascal tries to “jump” the screen to tackle Goedert but instead has to turn and sprint after Pascal, who is already 10 yards away from him, making it an easy run in for the score.

Devonta Smith had a quiet game, but with Goedert catching everything and Brown vacuuming up TDs in double coverage, there wasn’t much for Smith to do. It happens! But, if any Smith investors need a little consolation prize:

 

Series Navigation
Introduction
Ravens @ Buccaneers
Broncos @ Jaguars
Panthers @ Falcons
Bears @ Cowboys
Dolphins @ Lions
Cardinals @ Vikings
Raiders @ Saints
Patriots @ Jets
Steelers @ Eagles
Titans @ Texans
Commanders @ Colts
49ers @ Rams
Giants @ Seahawks
Packers @ Bills

One response to “What We Saw: Week 8”

  1. Jameis Winston says:
    October 31, 2022 at 8:59 pm

    Debbie Downer masterclass.

    Reply

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