A Close Look: Passing Offense

We began the offseason review on Monday with a post suggesting that the offense in 2008 wasn't quite as good as many people seemed to think.  The top-line numbers are pretty black and white in telling us what happened, but of course they aren't much help in explaining why those things happened.  So let's start looking into that question, beginning today with the passing game. 

On the face of things, Donovan's numbers looked pretty good this year.  Almost 4,000 yards, 60+ percent completions, slightly better than two-to-one with TDs-to-INTs.  All good stuff. 

Which makes sense, since it's not like the passing game was terrible this year.  But why was it around 10th, rather than top five? 

The answer, I believe, begins with a statistic made locally famous last year during the Lito Sheppard saga.  Remember when Jeff Lurie denigrated Lito's abilities as a corner by throwing out his (presumably poor) yards-per-attempt-against statistic?  Fun times.

Anyway, that stat is far more often used with quarterbacks.  A figure of at least 7.0 YPA is considered sort of the floor for proficient modern quarterback play, kind of how a completion percentage of 60 percent is the same way.  The big guns are generally going to be over 7.5.

Here's the distribution of high-end YPAs for the past five years:

 

As you can see, getting north of 8.0 is pretty impressive.  Generally only two or three QBs will reach that level.  Anything over 7.5 generally puts you top ten or better. 

McNabb has had two years when he exceeded 8.0 on this stat -- 8.3 in 2004 and 8.4 in 2006.  (There's a reason I keep coming back to these two years.)  This year he put up a 6.9, tied with Joe Flacco for 18th best in the league. 

The first and most obvious question is if this is just a function of a limited Brian Westbrook.  Nope.  It's not:

Westbrook's numbers were down, but thanks mostly to Buck, the contribution of the running backs to this whole deal is pretty minimal.  The real issues came with the wide receivers and tight ends.  And by tight ends, we mean LJ Smith.  Celek's YPC this year was 11.8, which won't get him into the Pro Bowl, but isn't terrible.

(Also, those are YPC, not YPA numbers, but for this narrow purpose they're pretty interchangeable.)

There are a couple related reasons for these numbers.  Here's the first, in a series of charts showing McNabb's regular season passing stats for throws behind the line, 1-10 yards, etc.:

 

 

The numbers are pretty striking.  What had always been a deep ball offense became something very different this year.  McNabb completed only two of his 22 attempts over 30 yards.  His average the five previous years was about nine of 32.  In the two really good years, he was 15.5 of 45. 

That's going from one deep ball completion a game to one every half season.  That's an enormous difference.  And it's one that's again evident if you look at the passing stats from each point on the field:

I realize that's a somewhat overwhelming looking graphic at first, but it's not really that complicated.  On the left is the field position for each set of pass plays.  Once again, I'm comparing 2008 to the previous five years as well as just 2004 and 2006.  And as always, the numbers are prorated to assume 16-game seasons.

The numbers in red are the ones I find most intriguing.  Takeaways:

• The Eagles had one passing touchdown on a play starting in their half of the field.  McNabb's averaged 3.6 the last five years and 5.1 the two big ones.
• The Eagles scored only four passing touchdowns in the opponent's half of the field, outside the red zone.  Comparison numbers are 6.2 and 10.4
• Fully 15 of the Eagles' 23 passing TDs came within 10 yards of the end zone. 
• Finally, the lack of big passing plays shows up quite well in the YPA and YPC numbers from the middle of the field and back.

In conclusion ...

All of this is why I don't totally buy the "fine in the middle of the field, struggling in the red zone" talking point.  McNabb was actually pretty good within 10 yards of the end zone.  Could he use another go-to guy down there?  Sure, of course he could, but that's not really the big problem here ...

... which is that this offense has completely lost the big play passing threat.  That's a longstanding part of this offense, and while we may all mock the contributions of guys like Todd Pinkston, it's clear that the "field stretcher" role has not been adequately filled by the current group of guys, which leads to the really big question ...

... which is what's the ceiling for DeSean Jackson?  It's worth noting that against Arizona, Jackson finally broke free on the deep ball these two came so close to hooking up on this year.  Is the answer to this question simply more experience for DeSean combined with more reps with Donovan, so they get locked in to each other?  Or do the Eagles need to think about bringing in another guy, either an all-around talent or something of an unpolished flyer who can at least run sideline patterns to open things up again?

You scoff, but there's a good chance Donte Stallworth is going to be hitting the market (again) this year.  At the right price...

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Note on statistics:  All situational stats are from ESPN.com.  I've noticed slight variations in their statistics over the couple weeks I've been working on all these posts.  I'm not sure what's going on there.  Database cleanup or something.  I've tried to keep things consistent by using numbers from all at one time, but there will be some final adjustments.  Like that "two for 22" stat above, now would be "two for 24." 

Even better, as they say.