BEYOND
THE
SCORE

DCI scores each coaching decision based entirely on what was known before the snap. Sirianni's clearest win of the day was defensive, not offensive: trusting Fangio's front to stop Washington on a 4th-quarter two-point conversion rather than assuming the lead was safe on paper.

Eaglytics DCI Verdict: An 88 DCI reflects a coaching staff that made the right calls on the two highest-leverage sequences of the day — the blocked extra point and the game-sealing 2-point stop. Both were process wins for Fangio's unit as much as Sirianni's.

An OPI of 61 is a real improvement over the 74 the Eagles posted in the Wild Card loss — and a significant improvement over the 84 second-half number that ended that season. Mannion's West Coast-based scheme leaned on pre-snap motion and personnel disguise that Patullo's offense rarely used.

The Wicks connection is the OPI story of the game in miniature. A 64-yard completion put the ball at Washington's 6-yard line, and even after that explosive gain forced the defense to adjust its shell, Mannion still got Wicks isolated on a corner route against Mike Sainristil's inside leverage two possessions later for the 9-yard score. That's a coordinator manufacturing an advantage before the snap rather than living off one big play.

Eaglytics OPI Verdict: A 13-point drop in game OPI compared to the 49ers loss (74 to 61) is the single most encouraging structural number from this game. The offense is meaningfully harder to defend than it was in January.

Three touchdowns, zero interceptions, a 122.2 passer rating — this is Hurts' most efficient statistical line in over a calendar year, and the +0.31 EPA+ confirms it wasn't empty volume. The rating held up in adjusted terms once game state and leverage are factored in, not just raw box-score counting stats.

The 64-yard Wicks gain alone was worth more than an entire quarter's typical value under standard game flow — the kind of explosive, low-probability, high-value play the Eagles rarely generated down the stretch of 2025. Zero turnovers against a divisional opponent to open the season is the floor Eaglytics wants to see from a quarterback in Year 6, and Hurts also added 46 rushing yards on 7 carries.

PDR rates the play design itself before a single route is run. Mannion's route concept that isolated Wicks against inside leverage for the game's second touchdown is the headline, and Goedert's 43-yard catch-and-run over the middle in the fourth quarter — the eventual game-winner — is the play that will get replayed all week.

Eaglytics PDR Verdict: A 7.4 PDR in a coordinator's very first regular-season game is a strong signal. The offense already looks more varied than anything Patullo ran in the second half of the Wild Card loss.

GOPP measures the gap between the optimal pass/run ratio given the game script and what the offense actually called. This was a genuine one-score game for almost all 60 minutes — the Eagles never led by more than 8 points. Barkley carried 15 times for 83 yards (5.5 avg), and the Eagles used the run game to control tempo (26:40 time of possession to Washington's 33:20) despite Washington actually holding a 20-10 first-down advantage.

Zack Baun's 12-tackle, 1-TFL, 2-PD performance — enough to earn him NFC Defensive Player of the Week — meant the offense rarely had to erase a deficit, which let Mannion call the game largely on his own terms even though Washington's offense had success moving the ball (295 total yards, 20 first downs) for long stretches.

Eaglytics GOPP Verdict: A near-optimal pass/run mix given the leverage of the game, aided heavily by Baun's defensive workload. The one real dock: Washington actually out-gained the Eagles in total yards and first downs, and the final margin came down to one blocked extra point and one goal-line stop rather than sustained offensive control.

Here's what's important to understand about 3rd-and-long defenses: they are not stacking the box. They know a pass is coming. Safeties are playing deep halves or quarters. Linebackers are dropping into zones. Cornerbacks are in off coverage or pressed at the line. The run fit is actually softer than normal — which means a scramble or designed run can occasionally catch them.

That is not why the Eagles failed. They failed because no alignment makes a running back averaging 4.1 yards per carry suddenly gain 8, 10, or 13 yards on a single play. The defense isn't the constraint. The geometry of the situation is the constraint. GOPP measures whether the call matches what the game script demands. On 3rd-and-5 or longer, the game script demands a pass on approximately 94–96% of snaps across the league. The Eagles called pass on roughly 78%.

That 16-point GOPP gap means roughly 1-in-5 times the Eagles were in a pure passing situation, they handed the ball off instead. Not because the defense was soft against the run. Because the coordinator chose a call with a mathematically near-zero conversion ceiling — and did it 32 times.

EPA+ on a 3rd-and-long run is almost always negative — not because the defense is loading the box, but because the required gain exceeds what running plays produce at any reasonable rate. Barkley averaged 4.1 yards per carry in 2025. On 3rd-and-long he averaged 2.1 — but even if he'd hit his season average every time, a 4.1-yard gain on 3rd-and-8 is still a punt. The math fails before the snap.

Even in the best case — a defense in soft pass coverage with a gap open — Barkley would need to nearly double his season average on a single carry to convert a typical 3rd-and-long. That's not a reasonable ask. The EPA+ consequence is severe: every failed 3rd-and-long run that produces a punt generates approximately -0.7 to -1.1 EPA, because it hands the opponent the ball with full field position advantage and consumes a possession.

The correct framing: This isn't about predictability. The defense being in pass coverage doesn't help you if your runner can't gain 8 yards. GOPP says you should be passing. EPA+ says every time you don't, you're burning expected points. The 6.3% conversion rate is the mathematical outcome of those two facts colliding 32 times.

The Yahoo Sports post-mortem on the Wild Card loss listed 12 instances of 3rd-and-long situations in the 49ers game alone. "A Barkley run on 2nd-and-18? A five-yard completion to Goedert on 3rd-and-18? Another Barkley run on 2nd-and-10 and a Hurts run on 3rd-and-13? A Barkley run on 2nd-and-20? WILL SHIPLEY? On 3rd and 13?" The frustration is understandable. The data makes it worse.

OPI doesn't actually indict the 3rd-and-long run specifically — defenses are in pass coverage, so the run isn't "predicted" in the traditional sense. What OPI does indict is the first and second down play-calling that kept putting the Eagles in 3rd-and-long to begin with. An OPI of 84 in the second half of games — the number Patullo posted against the 49ers — means defenses knew what was coming on early downs too. That's how you manufacture 3rd-and-10 situations: lose on 1st and 2nd down because the defense already has you dialed in.

The systemic failure is a two-layer problem. Layer one: high OPI on early downs created 3rd-and-long situations at an above-average rate. Layer two: once in those situations, the GOPP gap meant the Eagles were calling runs 16 percentage points more often than league average — on a play type with a 6.3% ceiling. One problem fed the other all season.

The 2026 correction: New OC Sean Mannion comes from the Shanahan tree (Green Bay). The Shanahan system creates favorable down-and-distance via run efficiency on 1st and 2nd down — which means fewer 3rd-and-longs to begin with. Fix the early-down OPI, and the 3rd-and-long run problem largely disappears on its own. Eaglytics will track Mannion's early-down OPI starting Week 1 of 2026. That's the leading indicator.

DCI scores each coaching decision based entirely on what was known before the snap — field position, score, time remaining, down and distance, win probability. A high-DCI call that fails is still good coaching. A low-DCI call that works is still bad coaching. We make that distinction every single week.

Eaglytics DCI Verdict: Sirianni's overall DCI of 79 means he made analytically correct decisions on 4 of 5 fourth downs. The coaching failure in this game was not the head coach.

OPI measures how often an offense runs the play the defense most expects given down, distance, and field position. A score of 74 is concerning. But the halftime split is the real story.

Defensive coordinator Robert Saleh — working with a patchwork roster missing Bosa, Warner, and Kittle — made his halftime adjustments. Kevin Patullo never countered. The Eagles ran 41 plays in the second half averaging 3 yards per play against a defense playing backups. The OPI swing from 58 to 84 is the single most damning number in this game.

Eaglytics OPI Verdict: The Eagles scored 0 points in the 3rd quarter on 16 plays averaging 2.25 yards. That is not bad execution. That is a defense that knew exactly what was coming on every snap — and a coordinator who ran out of answers.

Standard EPA treats all plays equally. EPA+ adjusts for what the game situation demands. Hurts threw for 168 yards on 20-of-35 against a secondary missing multiple starters — with no Bosa, no Warner, and Kittle carted off in the second quarter. In that context, -0.4 is well below replacement level for a playoff starting quarterback.

Barkley's +0.8 rush EPA+ was the one bright spot. He ran for 106 yards but was limited to 35 yards on 11 carries in the second half — a clear sign the 49ers adjusted. The Eagles never fully pivoted to the pass once the run was taken away. That's GOPP, covered below.

PDR rates the play design itself — scheme creativity, route concept leverage, motion usage, personnel fit — on a 0–10 scale before a single block is thrown or a route is run. This is the coordinator's grade, not the players'.

Eaglytics PDR Verdict: Shanahan used a trick play from the 49ers' Super Bowl LVIII loss — the same Jennings-to-McCaffrey combination that scored early in that game — and the Eagles were caught completely off guard. That is a preparation failure as much as a design failure. The PDR gap of 3.1 points between Kubiak and Patullo is the single largest coaching differential in this game.

GOPP measures the gap between the optimal pass/run ratio given the game script and what the offense actually called. Barkley was limited to 35 yards on 11 carries in the second half — a clear signal the 49ers had adjusted to take away the run. The Eagles were approximately 18 percentage points over-reliant on the run in the 4th quarter, given the game situation and field position.

When trailing in the 4th quarter with Hurts on the field and two minutes left, GOPP says you lean pass-heavy from the second Barkley's yards-per-carry drops below 3.0. The Eagles were 8 to 10 plays late making that adjustment. By the time they committed to the pass, there was too little time left to execute the game script the analytics demanded.

Eaglytics GOPP Verdict: This isn't about Barkley — his first-half numbers were excellent. This is about Patullo reading the data available to him on the sideline and failing to adjust the game script accordingly when the 49ers took away the run.