The Philadelphia Eagles enter the season riding a wave of momentum after an impressive preseason performance. Fans and media members are buying into the hype that the Eagles are legitimate Super Bowl contenders. With the Atlanta Falcons having lost 22 games over the last two years, many are expecting the Eagles to kick this season off in style with a statement victory that puts the league on notice that the Eagles are for real.
But any thoughts of a blowout win should be tempered. The Falcons have some talented players on their roster and could present a unique challenge to the Eagles. Here are six things that matter for tonight's game in our Monday Six Pack.
1. Battle of the Unbeatens
Matt Ryan is 7-0 in home openers in his career, including a win over the "Dream Team" Eagles in 2011, 35-31. In those seven games, Ryan has completed 68% of his passes for 1,851 yards, 17 touchdowns and two interceptions.
The Eagles, on the other hand, are 6-0 in their last six openers on the road, including two wins on Monday Night Football in each of the last two seasons, against Washington (2013) and Indianapolis (2014).
These statistics are being thrown around a lot leading up to the game. However, when it comes to statistics, context is king.
Consider the following: in those seven home openers, Ryan has faced teams that have went a combined 47-65, including the 2008 Detroit Lions, who went 0-16. In fact, Ryan has faced only one team in those seven contests that went on to have a winning record, the 2012 Denver Broncos, who finished 13-3.
Dig a little deeper on the Eagles 6-0 record, and we see that they played teams with a combined record of 35-61 in those wins, with only one win (against the 2014 Colts) against a team with a winning record.
That was a long way of saying that statistics are tricky and can be twisted to support any narrative that you want.
2. Matt Ryan at home
However, we can draw much more meaningful conclusions from Matt Ryan's record at home. In 54 career games, Ryan is 39-15 (72% win percentage), he has completed 66.78% of his passes, for 13,455 yards, 88 touchdowns, 36 interceptions, and a quarterback rating of 97.2.
Compare that to the road, where Ryan is 27-29 (48% win percentage), 61.76% completion percentage, 14,721 yards, 93 touchdowns, 55 interceptions and an 86.1 quarterback rating.
In other words, the Falcons, especially under Ryan, are a much better team at home, and should present a difficult challenge for the Eagles.
3. Which Byron Maxwell are we getting?
Many around the NFL believe that the Eagles overpaid Byron Maxwell in order to shore up their leaky secondary. Part of that belief stems from the fact that Maxwell's play regressed last year compared to 2013, when he started for only half of the season.
In 2014, his first as a full-time starter, Maxwell was the 45th ranked cornerback in the league, per PFF.com. Quarterbacks completed 63.4 percent of their passes targeting Maxwell, for a quarterback rating of 8.1.
In 2013, when Maxwell was a key reason for the Seahawks Super Bowl run, he was flat-out dominant. He was the 16th ranked corner in the league per PFF.com — which undoubtedly would have been higher had he started the entire year. Quarterbacks completed only 51.1 percent of their passes for a quarterback rating of 47.8.
Maxwell will likely shadow Julio Jones for most of the game, who, when, is a top five wide receiver in the league. Last year, he caught 104 passes for 1,593 yards and six touchdowns. It would be unreasonable to expect Maxwell to shut Jones down. He is just too good and is bound to make plays at some point. But Maxwell will need to bring his A game to limit Jones' effectiveness.
4. 38%
That is Sam Bradford's completion percentage under pressure in 2013. In was one of the worst marks in the NFL, and falls well short of the 44 percent that Nick Foles completed in 2013.
Bradford did not face pressure often this preseason, but when he did, he was inconsistent. Against the Ravens, he clutched and threw high off his back foot to Nelson Agholor for an incomplete pass. But against the Packers, he delivered a perfect strike to Trey Burton for a touchdown when a defender came free on the blitz.
It is hard to draw any meaningful conclusions from such a small sample size. Chip Kelly's offense is suited to giving quarterbacks easy, quick reads to get rid of the ball before the pressure gets there. And from everything we have seen to date, Bradford has an uncanny ability to process information quickly and find the open receiver.
How Bradford performs under pressure this year, and tonight against the Falcons, will go a long way towards determining the outcome of this game and season.
5. Whether Atlanta can generate pressure without the blitz
Given Bradford's struggles, a key to this game will be whether the Falcons can generate consistent pressure. Most teams with a dearth of pass rushing talent will try to manufacture pressure by blitzing. But that should not happen with the Falcons.
Falcons head coach Dan Quinn brings with him from Seattle a hybrid 4-3 under defense, which means rotating four-man fronts, press man coverage by corners, and Cover-3 zone from back level defenders. It is a straightforward scheme that has been around football for years. One of the central components of this scheme is that it requires the front four to generate pressure without blitzing.
Under Quinn, the Seahawks blitzed only 23.3 percent of the time, per PFF.com. This ranked 24th (out of 32 teams) in the NFL. On the other 66.7 percent of plays where the Seahawks did not blitz (or 2/3 of the game), they had a Pass Rushing Productivity (a metric created by PFF) of 25.5, good for ninth in the league in 2014. In 2013, Seattle ranked third.
However, Quinn had a bevy of talented pass rushers at his disposal backed by perennial Pro Bowlers like Kam Chancelor, Earl Thomas, Richard Sherman and Bobby Wagner, who shortened the field with their length, explosiveness and aggression. This enabled him to create a pass rush without having to send the blitz often.
To say that Quinn will not have the same talent level on defense in Atlanta is an understatement. Desmond Trufant is one of the best young cornerbacks in the league, while Vic Beasely and Jalen Collins, taken in the first and second rounds of the draft, respectively, infuse this defense with some much needed young talent. But the rest of the Falcons defense is lacking, so it is fair to expect that Atlanta won't be able to execute on defense nearly as well as Seattle.
6. Battle of the Lines
The play of the Eagles offensive line versus the Falcons defensive front will go a long way towards determining how successful the Falcons are at getting to Bradford.
Andrew Porter of CBSPhilly.com provided the following statistic via @Footballguys.com:
Preseason rankings: ATL has 28th o-line, 27th front-7. PHI has 4th 0-line, 5th front-7. Only week 1 matchup where top-5 both vs. bot-5 both.
— Andrew Porter (@And_Porter) September 10, 2015
These are projected rankings for the season, so take them for what they are worth. But on paper at least, the Eagles seem to have a clear advantage in the trenches on both sides of the ball.
Bonus Round: Youth vs. Experience in the run game
The running game offers a contrast in team building philosophy. The Falcons running back trio of Tevin Coleman, Devonta Freeman, and Terron Ward, have a combined 95 NFL touches to their name. Coleman and Ward are rookies, while Freeman is entering his second season.
The Eagles trio of DeMarco Murray, Ryan Mathews, and Darren Sproles, on the other hand, have 3,085 touches in their careers.
The Eagles are paying for this experience: with $11.1 million in cap space allocated towards its three running backs, per OvertheCap.com.
The Falcons, on the other hand, are paying their trio of running backs a combined 1.68 million, per OvertheCap.com.
The Eagles seem to be outliers in the NFL in terms of their heavy investment in running backs. The NFL has downgraded the value of running backs over the years, with the Falcons — and even hated rival Dallas Cowboys — as prime examples of teams that think they can find productive running backs on the cheap.
While tonight's game will not offer a definitive answer on which approach is better, it will be interesting to see how each approach plays out.
Patrick Causey is assistant managing editor for Eagledelphia. Follow him on Twitter @InsdeTheHuddle.
