In Roob stats: Historic sack numbers keep adding up

Just how much of a Giants killer is Boston Scott? How rare is what Miles Sanders and A.J. Brown are doing? Can the Eagles get close to NFL records for sacks and rushing touchdowns in a season?

We take a look at those questions and lots more in this week’s non-Jalen edition of Roob’s 10 Eagles Stats. (The Jalen Hurts version appeared Tuesday.)

1. At 34 years, 352 days, Brandon Graham became the oldest NFL player with three sacks in a game in seven years, since Dwight Freeney of the Cards (35 years, 311 days) had 3.0 against the Packers at University of Phoenix Stadium in Glendale, Ariz., in December 2015. Graham is the second-oldest Eagle ever with three sacks in a season. In 1996, William Fuller – at 34 years, 289 days – had 3.0 in a 29-19 win over the Cards at the Vet. Graham increased his season total to 8 ½ sacks and is now the second-oldest player in Eagles history with 8.0 or more sacks in a season. Fuller had 13.0 in 1996. Graham has 29.0 sacks since he turned 30. Only Fuller (35 ½) had more in his 30s.

2. The Eagles’ 49 sacks are the most by any team through 13 games since the Saints had 49 in 2001. The last team with more sacks through 13 games was the 2000 Saints, who had 56. It’s the most the Eagles have had after 13 games since the 1987 strike season, when they had 52. That includes 12 sacks in the three strike games played with replacement players (2 ½ for Fred Smalls, 2.0 for Elois Grooms, 2.0 for Ray Phillips, etc.). The Eagles need 14 sacks the last four weeks to tie the franchise record of 62, set over 16 games in the 1989 season. They’re on pace for 64, which would be the 8th-most in NFL history.

3. Haason Reddick reached 10 sacks on Sunday, and Graham (8 ½), Javon Hargrave (8.0) and Josh Sweat (7 ½) are all within range of 10. The Eagles haven’t had two pass rushers reach double digits in sacks since Jason Babin and Trent Cole in 2011 and they haven’t had three in the same season since Jerome Brown, Clyde Simmons and Reggie White in 1989. No NFL team has ever had four players with 10 or more sacks in a season, but the Eagles will do it if Graham adds 1 ½, Hargrave 2.0 and Sweat 2 ½ over the last four weeks.

4. If Jalen Hurts scores one more rushing touchdown – and why wouldn’t he? – the Eagles will become the second NFL team ever and the first in 62 years with two players with at least 11 rushing touchdowns in a season. Miles Sanders, who didn’t score any last year, has 11 rushing touchdowns and Hurts has 10. The only team with two players with 11 rushing TDs in a season is the 1960 Packers, with Hall of Famers Paul Hornung (13) and Jim Taylor (11). That team lost to the Eagles in the NFL Championship Game at Franklin Field. A.J. Brown is also in double figures with 10 touchdown catches. This is the first time the Eagles have had three players with double-digit TDs. Last time they had two was 1996, with Ricky Watters and Irving Fryar. The Eagles are the 18th team all-time with three 10-TD players. But only five teams have had three with 11 TDs – the 1948 49ers, 1961 Oilers, 2013 Broncos and 2014 and 2020 Packers.  

5. Boston Scott has never been a regular running back – he’s averaged 6.3 touches per game since 2019 - but he’s always been a notorious Giants killer. His touchdown Sunday was his ninth against the Giants. He has seven total vs. every other team. Since 2019, only two players have scored more than five touchdowns against the Giants – Scott and Ezekiel Elliott. Scott has 94 career touches vs. the Giants, so he’s scored every 10.4 times he’s touched the football against the Giants. He has the 83rd-most career offensive touches vs. the Giants but the 19th-most career touchdowns. The only Eagles all-time with more TDs against the Giants in a series spanning 181 games that dates back 90 years are all-timers Tommy McDonald (11), Timmy Brown (11), Wilbert Montgomery (10) and Brian Westbrook (13). Scott, Steve Van Buren and Harold Carmichael each have nine. Scott has averaged 4.7 yards per carry and 51.4 yards in seven lifetime games against the Giants and 4.1 yards per carry and 16.8 yards in 54 games against everybody else. Scott also had 66- and 35-yard kickoff returns against the Giants Sunday.

6. Miles Sanders and A.J. Brown are both on pace for over 1,300 yards and 13 touchdowns, Sanders with a 5.0 rushing average and Brown with a 15.0 receiving average. No team in NFL history has ever had a WR and a RB with those numbers the same year.

7. The Eagles’ 27 rushing touchdowns are a franchise record and 10th-most in NFL history through 13 games and most since the Chargers had 30 after 13 games in 2006. Before that you have to go to 1976 to find a team with 27 rushing TDs through 13 games. The previous high for the Eagles was 25 in 1945 and 1949. The Eagles are on pace for 35 rushing TDs, which would tie the 2nd-most in NFL history behind the 1962 Packers, who scored 36. The 1948 49ers scored 35.

8. Jalen Hurts (7-for-77, 11.0) and Miles Sanders (17-for-144, 8.5) became only the second pair of Eagles ever with at least 75 rushing yards and an 8.5 average in the same game. On Nov. 15, 2010, in the Eagles’ historic 59-28 win over Washington at FedEx Field, Michael Vick ran eight times for 80 yards (10.0) and Jerome Harrison 11 times for 109 yards (9.9). Interestingly, the only other NFL team with two players over 75 yards with an average over 8.5 yards this year was the Ravens in October – also against the Giants. Lamar Jackson, like Hurts, was 7-for-77 (11.0), and Kenyon Drake was 10-for-119 (11.9) in a 24-20 loss to the Giants.

9. By scoring 40, 35 and 48 points the last three weeks, the Eagles have scored 35 or more points in three straight games for only the fourth time in franchise history and the first time since 2002. In 1949, they actually scored 38 or more points in five straight games, the longest such streak in history. Their 123 points against the Packers, Titans and Giants are their most in any three-game span since 1950, when they scored 125 (45-7 win over the Cardinals, 56-20 win over the Rams, 24-14 win over the Colts).

10. With 29, 26 and 27 first downs against the Packers, Titans and Giants, the Eagles for the first time since the NFL began tracking first downs in 1992 have recorded at least 26 first downs in three straight games. They had done it twice in a row several times, most recently in 2019. There have been only 13 streaks in NFL history longer than the Eagles’ current three-game streak.

https://www.nbcsports.com/philadelphia/eagles/eagles-stats-historic-sack-numbers-keep-adding