Eagles Week 4 PFF Grades: Haason Reddick posts his best marks in years; offensive line dominates the trenches
Four weeks into the 2022 NFL season, the Philadelphia Eagles sit atop the standings as the lone undefeated team. What a time to be alive.
In the midst of a torrential downpour in South Philly, the Eagles rallied from an early 14-point deficit to best Doug Pederson and his Jaguars 29-21.
Against a defense that had only surrendered 55 rushing yards per game heading into Week 4, Miles Sanders and Co. managed to rack up 210 yards on 50 attempts (4.2 YPC). Jacksonville also hadn’t allowed a single rushing touchdown before Sunday. The Eagles punched in it four times on the ground.
Defensively, it was the Haason Reddick show. Week 4 was the Camden native’s coming out party, notching two sack fumbles and two fumble recoveries. The defense as a whole forced a whopping five turnovers total while giving up just 219 yards of offense.
Once again, the Eagles put forth an impressive performance from top to bottom.
As we do every week, let’s take a dive into the Pro Football Focus grades from this contest.
AJ Brown, Trey Sermon, and Landon Dickerson lead the way offensively
What’s there to say about AJ Brown that hasn’t already been said?
He’s lived up to expectations every step of the way since touching down in Philadelphia and Sunday was no different. He led the Eagles offense in receiving with five receptions for 95 yards while posting the highest PFF offensive grade at 82.0.
With four games in the books, Brown is the only wideout to record at least five receptions and 65 yards in each contest.
As it stands, Brown is the highest graded wideout in PFF’s system, posting an offensive grade of 89.4 and a receiving grade of 89.1 through four games. Elite.
Behind Brown in PFF’s grading of Sunday’s matchup is backup RB Trey Sermon, who filled in for an injured Boston Scott.
The former Ohio State standout only saw five offensive snaps against Jacksonville, but he made the most out of them. He totaled 19 rushing yards on two carries, including this 14-yard scamper in the second quarter.
For his efforts, Sermon earned a 73.8 offensive grade from PFF. Although it was a very small sample size, I liked what I saw from Sermon. His powerful running style is a nice complement to Miles Sanders and Kenneth Gainwell and he seems to have a good understanding of how this running game operates.
It’ll be interesting to see how Nick Sirianni and Shane Steichen elect to utilize Sermon — if at all — once Scott is back in the lineup.
Rounding out the top-three highest graded offensive players is guard Landon Dickerson. His pass blocking was tremendous on Sunday, posting zeros across the board in sacks, pressures, and quarterback hits allowed, en route to a pass blocking grade of 88.2.
With the likes of Jordan Mailata and Isaac Seumalo leaving the game with injuries on Sunday, Dickerson had to elevate his game to help keep the ship afloat and he did. The Eagles line as a whole did a great job keeping Hurts upright in the face of adversity, allowing just five pressures and one sack on the day.
Despite some injury concerns, Philly’s offensive line still dominated to trenches
I’m going to continue gloating about the Eagles offensive line for a minute, if you don’t mind.
There aren’t many offensive lines in football that can withstand two starters going down and still manage to dominate the opposition. None of the starters who played the majority of the game posted a pass blocking grade under 77.0. In total, the starters allowed just one pressure on Hurts.
Sua Opeta did a fine job filling in for 20 snaps while Seumalo was sidelined. Although his 52.3 offensive grade feels low, he didn’t allow any pressures on the quarterback. Jack Driscoll, on the other hand, had some trouble.
Before Sunday, Driscoll had only one snap at left tackle in the NFL under his belt. Against Jacksonville, he played 74 snaps at the position filling in for Mailata. Couple that with the fact that he was facing Josh Allen and Travon Walker the entire game, it shouldn’t shock anyone that the third-year utility lineman struggled a bit.
Nevertheless, Driscoll has still proven to be a quality lineman in this league. He posted a 70.5 offensive grade last year primarily as a right guard.
We still don’t know the severity of Mailata’s injury. If he does miss extended time, Driscoll will have to get used to playing on the left side of the line; or at least until Andre Dillard is healthy and ready to go.
In the running game, the Eagles offensive line, as they frequently do, dominated their opponent.
Their PFF grades don’t necessarily reflect that; TE Dallas Goedert was the only player to post a run blocking grade over 70.0. But when you rack up 200+ rushing yards against a defense that had been elite at stopping the run in the first three weeks, that qualifies as ‘dominant’ in my book.
PFF grades for the entire Eagles offense:
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Patrick Johnson, Haason Reddick, and TJ Edwards lead the way defensively
Although Reddick is the player everyone’s talking about after his two-sack performance on Sunday, he actually wasn’t the highest graded Eagles defender in Week 4. That crown goes to Patrick Johnson, Reddick’s backup and rotational pass rusher.
He only saw four snaps, but he managed to force a fumble, record one tackle, and one forced incompletion on those four plays. The second-year backer finished the contest with a defensive grade of 94.3. If that kind of effort on such a small sample size doesn’t earn Johnson some extra playing time, I’m not sure what will.
Actually, scratch that. If Reddick continues playing the way he did against the Jags, that will more than likely hold off any kind of uptick on Johnson’s playing time.
The former Temple Owl was easily the most valuable player for Jonathan Gannon’s defense in Week 4.
Forcing two turnovers is always huge, but the fact that he managed to force a fumble to essentially seal the victory earns some extra brownie points. Reddick ended the day with a defensive grade of 93.5 and a pass rushing grade of 94.1. Those are his best PFF marks since Week 14 of the 2020 season, when Reddick recorded five sacks and three forced fumbles against the Giants.
TJ Edwards, who’s been a PFF darling for years now, finished third on the Eagles defense in PFF grading, earning a 77.3 overall grade. He once again led the team in tackles with six while posting one sack.
Edwards has quietly become one of the most dependable linebackers in the game. He may not be the flashiest player, but he gets the job done every week. The Eagles backer currently has the second-highest defensive grade in the league for the position, sitting at 86.4.
Backup defensive backs struggle in their first extended action of the season
Heading into Sunday, the Eagles were already down slot corner Avonte Maddox, who injured his ankle during practice last week. Just three snaps into the game, Darius Slay was lost as well after suffering a forearm injury.
In their places, Josiah Scott and Zech McPhearson got extended playing time for the first time this season. Both played over 40 snaps on Sunday and neither of them posted encouraging marks in PFF’s grading system.
Scott was the worst graded player on the Eagles defense, finishing the game with an overall grade of just 29.0. In coverage, the backup nickel allowed three receptions on five targets for 79 yards (26.3 YPR) while surrendering one of Trevor Lawrence’s passing touchdowns. The Jags QB posted a 143.8 passer rating when throwing Scott’s way.
Maddox’s availability for next week in Arizona is still up in the air. If he can’t go for the second straight game, Gannon may look to shake things up in the nickel. Perhaps bringing Chauncey Gardner-Johnson down from the safety spot could help mitigate Maddox’s absence. Frankly, it would be hard to do much worse than Scott did.
McPhearson fared a bit better than Scott, but he still left something to be desired. He finished with a defensive grade of 50.0, fourth-worst on Gannon’s defense. The second-year corner was targeted twice and didn’t allow a single reception while surrendering a passer rating of 39.6.
We’ll get some clarity on Slay’s injury later this week, which will obviously determine whether McPhearson gets his first career start next Sunday. Though his PFF grade for his efforts this past Sunday aren’t great, he’s yet to be truly exposed in the limited playing time he’s seen; something we’ve seen far too often from young Eagles cornerbacks through the years.
PFF grades for the entire Eagles defense:
Mandatory Credit: USA Today Sports
