Each week, prior to kickoff, let’s take a look at some of the numbers that matter and keep them in mind when the game begins.
1. After not reaching the end zone in 2021, running back Miles Sanders has scored five touchdowns in seven games this season, just one shy of his career high (set in 2020). Sanders has 563 yards on 114 attempts and has gained 29 first downs with the ball in his hands. The Eagles have scored 14 touchdowns on the ground this season, the most for any team in the first seven games of a season since the 2009 New Orleans Saints.
Why is this important? Well, Houston ranks 31st in the league against the run, allowing 5.6 yards per carry, and on Sunday in a 17-10 loss to the Tennessee Titans were pounded by Derrick Henry, who gained 219 yards, as part of the Titans’ 314-yard effort.
“I think we have it going on in the ground game and it’s because we have the best offensive line in football,” Sanders said. “I have a great deal of confidence, and it all goes back to what I was saying at the start of the year: I’ve taken my focus to a new level and I’m keeping it there. Focus and concentration on the little things. That’s not going to change. Even if teams know we’re going to run the ball, we’re still going to have the confidence that we can have success – because of the guys we have up front. It’s a combination of them winning at the line of scrimmage and me following their lead and trusting that the holes are going to be there.”
2. Big plays are a no-no in Jonathan Gannon’s defense and the Eagles have done a good job at limiting explosive plays – defined by the Eagles as runs of 10 or more yards and passing plays of 16-plus yards. That means a lot to Gannon.
“That’s a winning stat,” he said. “All the stats out there, I’m not a stat guy, but that’s one that I look at. That is. That’s why I said, I love that the head coach, it’s important to him because we’re completely in lockstep with that. Taking the ball away and explosive plays, offense and defense, those are two winning stats. We always have that in our mind. Our players have that in their mind.
“Certain situations, you obviously see, I call the game with that in mind. I do know that there’s stress and there’s a strength of every call. I think our players have done a really good job of knowing that if a stress point of a call is an explosive play, they play it that way. They’re not going to gamble and guess or be super aggressive in certain calls because they know they don’t have help…
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