Why the Eagles Are Primed for Regression in 2023

Loss of Coordinators

The 2022 Philadelphia Eagles became the first team since 1991 to lose both their offensive and defensive coordinators to head coaching jobs. Shane Steicahn was an incredible coordinator and play-caller for the Eagles’ offense since week 6 of 2021. Jonathan Gannon, despite being widely disliked by the Philadelphia fanbase, was still a really solid defensive coordinator for two seasons. These are two major changes in the Eagles’ coaching staff. If you include the loss of other Eagles’ assistant coaches like Dennard Wilson, Nick Rallis, and Joe Kasper, then that’s a lot of staff turnover. Where there’s a lot of turnover, there’s a higher chance of regression. Even if you believe Sean Desai is a better coach than Johnathan Gannon and that Brian Johnson will have similar success to Shane Steichan, the point is that those are two big changes to the Eagles’ coaching staff that could potentially lead to regression. 

Injury Luck

In his pre-draft press conference, Howie Roseman said the Eagles experienced a lot of injury luck in 2022 and needed more depth in upcoming years due to the fact they won’t be so fortunate with injuries. This was wise of him to note. The Eagles really only had three injuries affect their season. Dallas Godert missed 5 games with a shoulder injury, Jordan Davis was banged up throughout the end of the season with an ankle injury, and Jalen Hurts missed two games with an injured shoulder. That was it. Devonta Smith and AJ Brown missed zero combined games, while the offensive line faced no serious injuries through 20 games. The Eagles also lost none of their key players on defense. Their best interior pass rusher (Javon Hargrave), best edge rusher (Haason Reddick) and two outside cornerbacks (Slay and Bradberry) stayed healthy all season. The Eagles are not going to be as lucky with injuries in 2023 as they were in 2022. They might lose a few games, because Jalen Hurts is out or because a large portion of their roster is banged up. Those games happen in the NFL and they must be accounted for.

Defensive Instability

On a year to year basis, defense is way more unstable than offense in the NFL. Sacks & turnovers are largely unpredictable outcomes, yet they have big effects on defensive efficiency. In other words, the highest impact plays a defense can make are often the least predictable. Additionally, individual defenders tend to have big swings in performance from season to season. This is why elite defenses the year before, are rarely elite for consecutive years. This, added with the Eagles loss of five defensive starters, makes me think that the Eagles defense will regress in 2023. In 2022, the Eagles had one of the best defenses in the NFL in terms of EPA per play and DVOA. They had 70 sacks and over a third of their interceptions were made by Chauncey Gardner-Johnson, who is no longer on their roster. Nothing about the Eagles defense last year indicates stable results for upcoming seasons. 

Tougher schedule

The Eagles schedule was released on Thursday May 12th. It’s impossible at this stage of the offseason to assess the degree of difficulty of the Eagles’ schedule, but it’s still a tough schedule based on multiple factors. For one, They play a first-place schedule after winning the NFC East last year. They play arguably the best division in the NFL— the AFC East. They play in a really good division themselves, as the Cowboys are super bowl contenders, while the Giants and Commanders both have playoff potential. And the Eagles one game against a Non-AFC-East AFC team is against the Chiefs. Last year the Eagles’ easy schedule allowed them to beat up on some bad teams. It will most likely not be the same in 2023. A harder schedule after winning the division in the prior year is probably the most consistent contributing factor to regression in the NFL and it’s another factor the Eagles will have to overcome in 2023.

Final Thoughts

Loss of staff, bad injury luck, defensive instability, and a harder schedule are all factors that could cause Philadelphia to win significantly less games then they did in 2022. The Eagles are still a playoff team forsure, but I’m not expecting them to earn the #1 seed in the NFC for the second year in a row. History—along with general probability—suggest the Eagles won’t earn another first round bye this year. History even suggests the Eagles might not win their division. There hasn’t been a back-to-back winner of the NFC East since 2005.

It’s important to remember that Regression isn’t the end of the world. It’s natural and normal. Transiency in the NFL is common for a reason—It’s how schedules are designed. Eric Eager, VP of Development & Research at Sumer Sports, wrote an article on transiency in the NFL a few months back. In Eager’s piece, he found that elite teams have the most stability in their results on a year-to-year basis when compared to above average, below average, and poor teams. So if the eagles are truly an elite franchise with an elite quarterback, then they should have similar results in 2023 as they did in 2022 regardless of the factors mentioned above. And if they’re not at that level yet, they’re still a playoff team capable of going on a super bowl run in the weak NFC over the next few seasons.

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