Eagles news: New benchmarks are set both obvious and unknown

With the existence of NFL Next Gen Stats, Pro Football Focus, and other numbers-obsessed publications (like our own), it can be a difficult task to stay on top of all of the statistical data. Terms like ‘overwhelming’ come to mind. These days, it feels like the 2022-2023 Philadelphia Eagles are setting a record of some sort weekly, whether that be a franchise mark they’re eclipsing or an NFL record that no one knew existed.

On Sunday, they managed to do both!

By winning their regular-season finale, the 2022-2023 Eagles have notched 14 wins. That’s a franchise record. That we knew (and we don’t care how it looked).

You’ve watched enough football to know that a win is a win. Raise your hand however if you knew the Birds have become the first NFL franchise to field five guys with 30 or more pressures.

That too sets a benchmark. You have to admit that is impressive!

Five Eagles combine to again re-write the NFL record books. Who knew?

We realize that some people who read our publication are new to the NFL. We understand that they getting their first taste of professional football, and they may not know how sacks differ from pressures. Here’s a crash course.

If the defense gets to the opposing quarterback and brings him down… voila! We have a sack. Pressures can include sacks, but they also include other defensive plays that influence the opposing signal-caller negatively, QB knockdowns and hurries for instance. That brings us back to our previous point, records that seemingly are set at will and our ignorance of some of their existence.

How about a hand for our Birds who have, again, rewritten history?

So here’s how things shake out. With 17 regular-season games in our rearview mirrors, the Birds failed to snatch the NFL record for total sacks in a season from the 1984 Bears. Chicago finished with 72 that year. Philly closes the show with 70, which is also nothing to sneeze at, but here’s a nice consolation prize.

No previous NFL team has ever fielded five players who have tallied 30 pressures or more. With that being said we tip the cap to Fletcher Cox, Javon Hargrave, Josh Sweat, Brandon Graham. and the team leader in sacks, Haason Reddick.

Reddick, Hargrave, Sweat, and B.G. have all also tallied double-digit sack totals. No other NFL team has had that happen either.

What’s most important about Week 18’s win is the Birds finished the season with a win. Knowing that win is a record-setter is just an added bonus.

With that, they secure the National Football Conference’s top seed and home-field advantage through the NFC Playoffs. It wasn’t always pretty, but we have been here before. One goal has been accomplished. Benchmarks have been set. Enjoy for now. We’ll start working on a few more tomorrow.