The YAC-Backwards Eagles; Gen-13.

Hey, Iggles fans: do you want to see a really scary stat?

The Eagles attempted 12 passes of less than five air yards in Week 1. They completed just five of them. For negative-3 yards. Yes, negative-3 yards.

Dallas Goedert caught one micropass (let’s call them that, for brevity’s sake) for five yards. Saquon Barkley caught one micropass for a loss of three yards, dropping a second one. Rookie Makai Lemon caught three for a total loss of five yards. 

One micropass each to Goedert, Lemon and Dontayvion Wicks fell incomplete. Three attempts have unidentified targets in the play-by-play, which is never a good sign, though it’s not as bad a sign as netting negative-3 yards on a dozen plays. At least the passes with unidentified targets (throwaways at the ends of scrambles) netted zero yards.

Here are the teams with the fewest yards on micropasses in Week 1:

• Eagles: 5-of-12, -3 yards
• Vikings: 7-of-8, 40 yards
• Commanders: 11-of-20, 41 yards
• Packers: 7-of-16, 44 yards
• Dolphins: 7-of-9, 44 yards

For those of you who expected to see Bo Nix and the Broncos on this list after Monday night’s Failed Completion Festival: the Broncos went 14-of-20 for 89 yards on micropasses, a middling performance, on par with what Nix often does. 

Micropasses can broadly be thought of as an extension of the running game, so 4.5-to-5.0 yards is a good baseline for average production, once other factors are accounted for. (A good team should average at least 4.5 yards per rush once short-yardage plunges and kill-the-clock plays are removed from the data.) The Commanders cannot be happy about averaging 2.0 yards per attempt on so many passes designed to produce YAC. The Packers cannot be happy about averaging just 2.8 yards. But at least neither of those teams averaged -0.3 yards per attempt.

The Seahawks led the NFL in Week 1 micropass production: 13-of-17, 142 yards, Jaxson Smith-Njigba’s catch-and-run touchdown. The median yardage figure on micropasses for Week 1 was 85 yards. Coming out with a negative yardage total on (mostly) screens and short passes into the flats isn’t just alarming. It’s downright challenging. Defenses are often content to cede a few yards on such plays. 

As you may recall, the Jalen Hurts/Nick Sirianni Eagles have always had a weak micropassing game. The Eagles gained a league-low 1,073 yards on passes of less than five air yards in 2025. They averaged 4.3 yards per attempt on such passes in 2025; only the Browns (4.0) had a lower average. Their quick-passing game was rudimentary: screens to Barkley, shallow drags to Goedert, comeback routes to the receivers that landed at about five air yards.

New offensive coordinator Sean Mannion has reimagined the Eagles micropassing game for 2026: more motion, more under-center formations, more throws to the perimeter right after the snap. So instead of the static Eagles offense of yore, fans now get to see Lemon motioning behind Hurts from left to right before the snap, catching a screen well behind the line of scrimmage, then getting swarmed by unblocked defenders. This happened twice in Week 1. For variety, Lemon once jet-motioned to the sideline for a quick out, which sailed out of bounds because Hurts had a free rusher in his face.

The Eagles have serious blocking and timing issues to work out in their micropassing game. I’m also not sure about play designs that require Barkley to backpedal from the line of scrimmage, then wait flatfooted for a pass about five yards deep, with Goedert and Wicks (not to be confused with Walter Jones and Orlando Pace) as his lead blockers. How about, say, a “normal” running back screen instead?

Astute readers will note that Mannion came from the Packers coaching staff, and that the Packers are on the list above. The Dolphins are a Packers farm team, though offensive coordinator Bobby Slowik is a spiritual LaFleur cousin, not an acolyte. The Packers averaged a respectable 4.8 yards per micropass in 2025, though their offense was usually at its best when Jordan Love was winging it downfield and at its worst when LaFleur broke out the slot screens in the red zone. The Eagles offense was also at its best when Hurts was letting it rip in between Barkley jabs. Perhaps everyone learned the wrong lessons and are emphasizing the wrong things?

The Titans defense should provide the Eagles an opportunity to debug their micropassing game a bit. The Jets offense was able to do anything it wanted in Week 1, and it’s the Jets offense. 

The Eagles will be better off with a serviceable quick game to open up both deep shots and running lanes. But they have a long way to go before they achieve one. Because the fourth positive yard they gain on a micropass this season will technically be their first. 

The 13 Revolution Was Televised

The 2026 Rams initially picked up right where the 2025 Rams left off. They lined up with three tight ends, one running back and one Puka Nacua. They proceeded to shove the 49ers defense straight into the Outback with simple rushing concepts. The Rams averaged 5.1 yards per carry in the first half and bullied their way down to the 1-yard line midway through the third quarter.

Then the Rams’ circadian rhythms struck “nap time,” and the 49ers tucked them in. But that’s not what this segment is about. 

The Rams rushed 16 times for 61 yards from their signature 13 personnel package. Matthew Stafford went 5-of-5 for 96 yards passing with three tight ends on the field. McVay’s 13 package will remain a problem for opponents so long as the Rams remain in the Western Hemisphere.

Ah, but what of the copycats? There was a run on tight ends in April’s draft. Many teams appeared to be loading up so they would be three-to-five deep at the position. Surely there was a mass proliferation of 13 packages in Week 1, right? 

Well, sort of. 

Before we get to the teams that used the most 13 personnel in Week 1, we should note that about a dozen teams did not use such personnel packages at all. The 49ers, Browns, Buccaneers, Dolphins, Eagles, Giants, Panthers, Patriots, Raiders, Seahawks, Titans and Vikings did not run a single play from a 13 package which was recorded in the Sports Info Solutions database in Week 1. Several of the teams that did use 13 packages only ran a play or two from them, suggesting that it was only a short-yardage or run-out-the-clock tactic. So not every offensive coordinator Xeroxed McVay’s latest playbook in the offseason.

Still, there were a lot more 13 packages on display in Week 1 than there were last year. There were only 88 total snaps across the NFL from 13 packages in Week 1 of 2025; that was before even McVay adopted 13 packages as anything but a situational tactic. By my count, 153 plays were run from such personnel groups in Week 1. So several teams have indeed embraced the strategy whole-heartedly.

Here’s a look at the teams that appear to be most devoted to punishing the world with tight ends in 2026:

Los Angeles Rams: 16 rushes, 61 yards, 1 TD. 5-of-5 passing for 96 yards

Don’t be fooled by any storylines coming out of Week 1. They are going to positively flatten a lot of opponents.

Buffalo Bills: 15 rushes, 55 yards, 1 TD. 4-of-5 passing for 86 yards, 1 sack