Heath Evans Calls Out Eagles for Lack of Toughness, Malcolm Jenkins Responds

Heath Evans, the former Saints fullback and current NFL Network commentator, is not a big fan of Chip Kelly’s offense. This isn’t exactly new. He said Chip Kelly would be one of the worst hires when it happened.

And he doesn’t think the Eagles are tough. When he took to Twitter to interact, this exchange happened.

@Nelson81
Nope....but every SB champ since 2007 has used a FB. It's called toughness. Something your @Eagles team knows nothing about.
— Heath Evans (@HeathEvans44) March 23, 2015

Because the reason those teams won is fullback. (starts a “Kuhn!” chant).

Well, this got to Eagles safety Malcolm Jenkins, a former Saint as well.

“@HeathEvans44:
Nope...It's called toughness. Something your @Eagles team knows nothing about.” That's a bold statement ... Please elaborate
— Malcolm Jenkins (@MalcolmJenkins) March 24, 2015

The two debated, briefly. As it turns out, the Eagles were best in critical short yardage situations last year, according to Football Outsiders, converting 81% of short yardage plays on 3rd and 4th down. So this fullback thing is, well, Evans being a former fullback.

Evans then clarified that his issue was with the offense and the position that it put the defense in. There are a couple of points here. One, the Eagles were last in the league in turnovers per drive on offense. The year before, Nick Foles had a crazy year where he didn’t turn it over. That regressed, and then part of that can be explained by “Mark Sanchez turns the ball over.” How much is Chip’s system?

The other is the time of possession thing. The Eagles play fast on offense. As a result, the other team averages more time of possession. Philadelphia, though, ran slightly more plays on offense than defense (1127 vs. 1113). I question whether it’s harder on a defense to be on the field for that number of plays spread over a longer period of time. It should be plays faced. And a bad offense will result in a defense facing more plays.

@HeathEvans44 I would argue that our 09 offense was the same. The difference was we took the ball away on D better than anyone in the NFL.
— Malcolm Jenkins (@MalcolmJenkins) March 24, 2015

That’s mostly true. Not just the Eagles, though they are among the leaders, but there are more plays in NFL games compared to five years ago. The Saints’ opponents did have slightly more plays, but slightly less time of possession. They also were 2nd in takeaways.

The Eagles defense last year had issues giving up big plays. I’m not sure how much of that was the pace at which the offense plays.