The Philadelphia Eagles have found a strange little football rhythm to start the season: they’ve been awful when a drive is just getting started, and suddenly dangerous when the stakes get higher.
Shawn Syed of Sumer Sports pointed out the split in a post shared on September 20, 2026. Philadelphia’s early-down offensive success rate sits at 31.5%, which ranks in the 3rd percentile, while its late-down success rate is 60.6%, good for the 96th percentile. That’s the biggest gap between early-down and late-down offensive success to begin a season since 2022.
The numbers line up with the eye test. On first down, the Eagles keep banging their head into the wall. On third down, they keep finding a way.
According to Sportradar, Philadelphia’s offense has a 37% success rate on early downs - first and second down combined - with 34 successful plays on 92 attempts. That ranks dead last in the NFL.
On third down, though, the Eagles are at 53.1%, with 17 successful plays on 32 attempts, which ranks fifth. That leaves them with a -16.2% difference between early downs and third down, the second-worst negative split in the league.
The early-down problems are coming from both sides of the playbook. The Eagles are running the ball on 54.3% of their early-down snaps, and it hasn’t gone anywhere.
They’ve gained 137 yards on 50 carries, a 2.74 yards-per-carry average, and the ground game has produced just a 38% success rate across Saquon Barkley, Tank Bigsby, and Will Shipley. Barkley is at 2.78 YPC, Bigsby at 2.57, and Shipley at 2.88.
It’s not just ineffective - it’s predictable, too. On first down alone, Philadelphia has run the ball on 62.5% of its plays, with 30 rushes on 48 snaps.
That ranks sixth-highest in the league. Defenses have had a pretty good idea what’s coming, and the results have been exactly what you’d expect.
The passing game on early downs hasn’t picked up the slack. The Eagles are averaging only 5.19 net yards per dropback in those situations, and their success rate through the air is 35.7%, with 15 successful plays on 42 attempts.
Half of their early-down throws have produced zero or negative yards. That’s a brutal way to stay ahead of the chains.
The screen game has made things even worse. Philadelphia has called 11 total screen or quick perimeter pass concepts this season, and 10 of them have come on early downs.
Of those 10, six were blown up for no gain, five went backward, and one ended in an incompletion. In all, eight of those 10 early-down screens were unsuccessful, and the offense managed only 13 yards on the 10 plays.
That’s 1.3 yards per attempt.
Then third down arrives, and the Eagles look like a different offense.
On third down, Philadelphia has posted a 71.4% rushing success rate, with 12.57 yards per carry. Jalen Hurts has been a major part of that, scrambling five times for 41 yards, while Saquon Barkley has also broken free.
The passing game has been just as efficient. On third-down dropbacks, the Eagles are averaging 8.44 net yards per play with a 48% success rate. Hurts has been able to hit intermediate throws in key spots, with DeVonta Smith catching four passes for 71 yards, Dontayvion Wicks grabbing four for 69, and Dallas Goedert finishing with three catches for 72 yards.
There’s also a simple design note here: the Eagles haven’t used screens on third down at all. None of their 32 third-down plays have been WR or bubble screens. That’s apparently reserved for first and second down, where those calls have been getting them nowhere.
So the picture is pretty clear. Philadelphia’s early-down run game has been a mess, the early-down passing game hasn’t been much better, and Hurts keeps having to rescue drives on third down with his arm or his legs. The obvious fixes, at least from this breakdown, are to run less on first down, take more shots early, and stop calling bubble screens.
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