Philadelphia Eagles: 5 Keys to a win versus Los Angeles in Week 2
By Hunter Doyle
2. Miles Sanders needs to be a big part of the Philadelphia Eagles’ game plan.
If Miles Sanders is one-hundred percent, the Eagles will need him to play a majority of the snaps on offense. He’s going to be a crucial part of this game plan if fully healthy. While the Rams have a solid front seven, they do have a few holes. They’re young at inside linebacker. A third-year man, Micah Kiser, is the starter, and Week 1’s start was his first after missing all of 2019 with a pectoral injury.
Los Angeles will run a good amount of nickel formation and bring in an extra defensive back rather than having another inside linebacker in the formation. Their other inside linebacker is Kenny Young, who’s also in his third NFL season. If the Eagles run the ball to the outside, Kiser and Young are going to have a difficult time beating Sanders to the edge. Outside runs could also limit the impact Michael Brockers and Aaron Donald can have in the middle.
The Rams aren’t the best open-field tacklers either. They need everyone to swarm to the ball to get people down. Kiser had seven tackles versus the Dallas Cowboys on Sunday Night Football, but he missed seven tackles as well.
As a team, Los Angeles missed 15 tackles. Samson Ebukam has made plenty of plays for this defense in the past, but he’s also no stranger to whiffing on a few stops as he’s missed 16 tackles over the course of his last two seasons. That’s good for a 15.4 missed tackle percentage. Sanders hopes to make these guys miss in open space, and maybe he’ll show off more of that stiff arm we saw flashes of in 2019. Getting the run game going could put Wentz in a much more comfortable situation than he was in last week. It could also help the Eagles win the time of possession battle and control this clock.
Sanders is also dangerous in the receiving game and a significant pass protector. It also can’t be overlooked that adding him to the backfield with Boston Scott and Corey Clement will give this team a major boost of confidence that they lacked in Week 1. While both of those guys should be solid contributors, they both also had obvious difficulty with pass protection. Expect ’26’ to pay huge dividends in his first game of the 2020 season.