Eagles-Bucccaners snap counts: Olamide Zaccheaus takes advantage of Quez Watkins being out

Playing time breakdown.

The official snap counts from the Philadelphia Eagles’ Week 3 win over the Tampa Bay Buccaneers are in. Let’s take a look and run through some analysis.

OFFENSE

• Offensive players who haven’t missed a snap through three games: Jalen Hurts, Jordan Mailata, Lane Johnson, Cam Jurgens, and Jason Kelce.
• DeVonta Smith has only missed two snaps this season. Last week, Smith saw five targets for four receptions, 131 yards, and one touchdown. This week, Smith saw five targets for four receptions, 28 yards, and zero touchdowns.
• After inexplicably seeing just one target in Week 1, Dallas Goedert has been targeted seven times in each of the Eagles’ last two games. Goedert’s 41 yards against the Bucs were a season-high for him.
• A.J. Brown played a season-low snap count percentage but saw a season-high 14 targets. It was nearly a career-high for him; Brown has been targeted more often in only two games during his career (16 apiece from Titans vs. 49ers in 2021 and Eagles vs. Bears in 2022).
• Landon Dickerson suffered a knee contusion and did not return to the game but it sounds like he’s going to be OK.
• With Quez Watkins out due to injury, Olamide Zaccheaus saw an increased opportunity and made the most of it. He caught two of his three targets for 58 yards and a touchdown. Both of those catches were made on plays out of structure. He could’ve had another score early in the game had Hurts not thrown behind him in the end zone. OZ is making the case to eat into Watkins’ playing time. The Eagles should probably split WR3 snaps — as opposed to one guy hogging the role — between them since they offer different skills. That’s not how they handled things in Week 1 when OZ was limited to just seven snaps (11%) while Watkins played 52 (78.8%). The last time Watkins had at least 58 yards in a game was … Week 10 last year when his fumble played a big part in the then-undefeated Eagles losing to the Washington Commanders. And whereas OZ had 58 yards in this game alone, Watkins has exactly 58 yards in his last eight games combined.
• D’Andre Swift was RB1, as he should be. He led all Eagles running backs in touches and snaps. It’s pretty insane that the Birds only gave him two touches in Week 1 after watching him gain 319 yards and one touchdown on 48 touches over the past two games. He’s too talented and explosive not be featured.
• Nine of Gainwell’s 15 touches came on the Eagles’ final two drives as they were aiming to run clock to end the game. Using him in that role to help lighten the load on Swift is fine. Using him in high-leverage situations like they did with a failed fourth down conversion attempt on their first drive? I don’t know about that one, chief.
• Opeta came in to finish out the game at left guard with Dickerson leaving.
• Grant Calcaterra has yet to see a target this season.
• Going to cover Britain Covey in the special teams section since that’s where his impact was made.

DEFENSE

• Reed Blankenship played the entire game after missing Week 2 due to a ribs injury. He was pretty great!
• Nicholas Morrow went from not even being on the roster in Week 1 to being the top linebacker.
• Terrell Edmunds saw a lot of playing time with both Justin Evans and Sydney Brown getting banged up in this game. Brown seems to be less seriously injured than Evans.
• Season-low snap count percentage for Zach Cunningham as LB2.
• Fletcher Cox only has half a sack so far but he’s already up to five quarterback hits. That’s a good pace so far (1.67 average); consider he had 15 QB hits in 20 games last year (0.75 average).
• It’s been a quiet start to the year for Haason Reddick, who did not even log a stat in this game. One would imagine his thumb injury recovery hasn’t been helping him. Reddick also started slow last year before getting on the board with 1.5 sacks against Washington in Week 3. With a matchup against the Commanders’ poor pass protection coming up next, Reddick might be able to use them to get heated up once again.
• Josh Jobe saw playing time on the outside when James Bradberry moved inside to play the slot.
• Georgia boys Jordan Davis and Jalen Carter each played the same amount of snaps and made their impact felt. Davis was credited with a team-high three stops (defined by Pro Football Focus as tackles that constitute a “failure” for the offense). He was key in stopping the Bucs’ run game. Carter was credited with a team-high four total pressures and one stop in addition to his forced fumble. Dude is a flat out beast.
• Sydney Brown prevented a touchdown by breaking up a bad pass to Mike Evans. Brown probably would’ve played more on defense if he didn’t get banged up.
• Derek Barnett had logged 0 pressures in 41 snaps so far. Doing a nice job of following in the footsteps of Robert Quinn and Ryan Kerrigan as non-factors.
• After playing 34 defensive snaps in Week 1, Elliss only played four snaps in Week 2 and eight in Week 3. Clearly LB3 behind Morrow and Cunningham.
• Marlon Tuipulotu logged one sack and one tackle for loss despite only playing eight snaps. Pretty efficient!
• Nolan Smith has a small role right now. He played seven defensive snaps in Week 1, six in Week 2, and six in Week 3. He made the case for some more playing time by putting a big hit on Baker Mayfield in this game. Barnett has one QB hit in his last nine games combined.
• Kentavius Street is DT6.

SPECIAL TEAMS

• Following up on Britain Covey: he was great! Three punt returns for 81 yards, including a long of 52. Also a 30-yard kickoff return. There’s been a perception that he’s not any good but that’s really not the case (outside of a bad fumble last week).
• Devon Allen finally made his NFL debut on Monday night. He made a bad decision to return a kick that only went for 17 yards.
• Braden Mann punted once in his Eagles debut. 38 yards typically isn’t great for a punt but the Eagles were at their own 46-yard line and it was fair caught at the Bucs’ 16-yard line. It’s fine. Mann didn’t have any holding issues for Jake Elliott; that was always an overrated reason to keep Arryn Siposs.
• Not pictured in the screenshot: Jack Driscoll had five special teams snaps.

DID NOT PLAY

INACTIVE: Quez Watkins, Boston Scott, Mario Goodrich, Tanner McKee, Tyler Steen, Moro Ojomo, Albert Okwuegbunam

ACTIVE: Marcus Mariota, Rashaad Penny

• It remains to be seen if Watkins will be ready to return on a short week. No need to rush him back from a hamstring injury.
• Scott should be on track to return this week considering he was upgraded to limited in practice late last week.
• Why’s Goodrich on the roster as the backup nickel CB if he’s not even active with Avonte Maddox going down?
• McKee, Steen, Ojomo, and Albert O have yet to be active this season.
• Penny dressed as RB3 behind Swift and Gainwell but didn’t even log a single snap. Yikes.