Ray Hagan
Welcome to the third edition of the Beat of the East column here at Philly Influencer. The week unfolded very much as expected with the Redskins and Cowboys winning against the bottom of the league in Cleveland and San Francisco respectively. Meanwhile, the Giants fell to the Vikings on Monday night. The NFC East is pretty packed right now with two three-win teams in the 3-0 Eagles and 3-1 Cowboys. The Redskins and Giants are sitting at 2-2 each and very much in the hunt.
This time out we’re going to take a look at what happened last week, give a quick synopsis of what’s coming this week, and take a long, hard look at Odell Beckham Jr. We’re also going to hand out the hardware for our second “Beast of the Beat” award winner. There’s a lot to cover, so let’s get to it.
REWIND
The Redskins won pretty comfortably in the end, but they were in a dogfight for much of the game. The positives far outweighed the negatives for the defending NFC East champions as they evened their record at 2-2. Matt Jones once again looked like he could potentially be the type of back to carry the load for this offense. We’ve seen him show flashes before so time will tell whether this was fool’s gold or a coming out party for Mr. Jones. Kirk Cousins now has quietly completed almost 68% of his passes over the last two weeks while throwing for five touchdowns against only one interception. I detailed in this column last week that I don’t think Cousins is nearly as good as the 10-game stretch he had last year, but he’s starting to show that the fans were at the door with torches a little too early this season. Cousins is beginning to make the ‘Skins look like more of a contender in this division.
The Cowboys remain the top threat to our beloved Eagles in my estimation. Their performance against San Francisco was hardly incredible, but they did enough to get the job done. With the victory, Dallas moves to 3-1 and keeps from falling back in the division during the Eagles’ bye week. This wasn’t a flawless performance – in some ways it wasn’t even a great one. Chip Kelly’s 49ers jumped out to an early 14-0 lead, but Dallas persevered and the Cowboys put themselves in a position to win. Dak Prescott continues to be a fine quarterback for the Cowboys. He’s not only just rookie quarterback, but he’s a flat-out good quarterback. We talk a lot in this town about Carson Wentz, and rightfully so, but Prescott has played if not in his ballpark, at least in his league. Prescott has a higher completion percentage than Wentz (67.9 vs. 64.7) and more combined yards per game (267.25 to 263.33) while trailing in touchdowns per game (1.25 to 1.66) and quarterback rating (98.5 to 103.8). Prescott is the guy driving the car admirably for Dallas right now; Ezekiel Elliott is the engine that makes it run. Elliott is on pace for over 1,600 yards and now leads the league in rushing. He’s as advertised.
The Giants lost to the Vikings meaning that this column went 3-0 in our first round of NFC East predictions (though, they were fairly easy games to predict) and the G-Men continue to falter after a 2-0 start. They lost the turnover battle again and are in danger of falling totally off pace in the division. Eli Manning continues to struggle, throwing only four touchdowns in the team’s first four games against four interceptions. He’s on pace to see his interception total rise by two from 2015 while seeing his touchdown total drop by 19. Eli will likely right the ship, but he’s a huge question mark right now. Speaking of question marks, Odell Beckham once again not only looked human, but mediocre as well as looking like a ticking time bomb in terms of his ability to control himself. More on him later in the column.
FAST FORWARD
The 3-1 Cowboys draw their toughest matchup of the early season when they face off with the Cincinnati Bengals. The Bengals laid a beating on the Dolphins in their last matchup to move to 2-2. Defensive coordinator Paul Guenther (the former head coach at Ursinus) will do everything he can to flummox Prescott into making the kinds of mistakes he has yet to make. This should be a tremendous contest.
The Redskins, winners of two straight, take on their non-conference rival Baltimore Ravens. The Ravens are tied for the AFC North lead with Pittsburgh at 3-1. Old man Steve Smith, Sr. has been on fire the last two weeks in his [likely] final season after a torn Achilles cut his “final” season short in 2015. This is going to be a very tough test for the Redskins as they face a Baltimore team that fell just short against Oakland last week.
They head into a tough matchup vs. Green Bay in Week 5 on Sunday night and are in real danger of dropping to 2-3 after coming out of the gates strong. It’s doubly tough timing for the Giants as they get the Packers fresh off of their bye week with two weeks to prepare while the Giants played Monday night and thus have a short week of preparation for a very good football team.
LONG BOMB
What’s wrong with Odell Beckham? That’s the question on the lips of many people right now. Odell has been viewed in an entirely different light since his battle with Josh Norman last year. He has gone from shining star with one of the greatest catches of all-time to being viewed as an arrogant, petulant brat by many people. In four games this season, he has yet to see the end zone. He has two drops this year in four games against seven in his previous 27. There looks to be something wrong with ODB … and if there is, I think it’s safe to say that his battle against Norman was the turning point.
| Games | Target | Catch | Yards | TDs | Target (G) | Catch (G) | Yards (G) | TDs (G) | |
| Pre-Norman | 25 | 272 | 176 | 2496 | 24 | 10.88 | 7.04 | 99.84 | 0.96 |
| Post-Norman | 6 | 53 | 34 | 433 | 1 | 8.83 | 5.67 | 72.17 | 0.17 |
That’s a pretty major drop-off. Now I realize that it’s a small sample size for the post-Norman numbers, but Beckham has experienced an 18.81% drop-off in targets. That has led to a drop across the board. He’s had 19.51% fewer catches per game than his prior career averages, couple that with a 27.72% drop in yards and a monumental 82.64% setback in touchdowns and it looks like the first matchup with Norman did irreparable harm not only to Beckham’s image, but to his game as well. Fortunately for Giants fans and unfortunately for the rest of the NFC East these numbers don’t tell the full story. For as talented as Odell Beckham Jr. is and as amazing as his numbers have been over the years he’s been a notoriously slow starter. Take a look.
| Year | Targets | Catches | Yards | TDs |
| 2016 | 39 | 22 | 303 | 0 |
| 2015 | 41 | 24 | 307 | 2 |
| 2014 | 26 | 18 | 262 | 3 |
Aside from the touchdown numbers the stats look pretty similar to what they’ve been over the course of his career. As a matter of fact, they look almost identical to his 2015 numbers. Beckham finished 2015 with of 96 catches for 1450 yards and 13 touchdowns. The reality is that I believe the Odell Beckham Jr. discussion has turned on the fact that public perception of the player has changed rather than his actual performance. So if he’s such a terrible starter, where the hell does Beckham’s massive statistical production actually come from? Let’s examine, shall we?
| Games | Games | Target | Catch | Yards | TDs | Target (G) | Catch (G) | Yards (G) | TDs (G) |
| G 1-4 | 12 | 106 | 64 | 872 | 5 | 8.83 | 5.33 | 72.67 | 0.42 |
| G 5-12 | 16 | 196 | 127 | 1890 | 17 | 12.25 | 7.94 | 118.13 | 1.06 |
| G 12+ | 3 | 25 | 18 | 296 | 3 | 8.33 | 6.00 | 98.67 | 1.00 |
Now I’ll admit that the sample size for the 12+ area is very tiny, but taking that into account the data for games 5 through 12 in his career shows that he’s about to experience a massive uptick in his production. How good? If Beckham were able to take his career pace for those 8 games out over the course of a season he’d finish with 127 catches for 1890 yards and 17 touchdowns. Those numbers are absolutely insane. His production for those games is off the charts.
But you’re probably wondering what Beckham has done against the Eagles in his career. He hasn’t killed the Eagles. He’s gone for 26 catches, 328 yards and 2 TDs in 4 career games. Not tremendous numbers, but surely not bad. The Eagles face Beckham in week 9 and week 16. The first game is in the dreaded 5 through 12 zone of Beckham’s career. I was curious, so I wondered how the Eagles fared against him in that range.
| Vs. Eagles | Games | Target | Catch | Yards | TDs | Target (G) | Catch (G) | Yards (G) | TDs (G) |
| G 1-4 | 1 | 4 | 2 | 28 | 0 | 4.00 | 2.00 | 28.00 | 0.00 |
| G 5-12 | 2 | 29 | 19 | 246 | 2 | 14.50 | 9.50 | 123.00 | 1.00 |
| G 12+ | 1 | 7 | 5 | 54 | 0 | 7.00 | 5.00 | 54.00 | 0.00 |
It holds true here as well. Beckham has burned the Eagles in that range going for huge numbers. I again have to stress that this is a very small sample size, but the numbers are interesting nonetheless. Hopefully this year the Birds are able to better contain him in week 9.
The above data really paints two different pictures. Are we seeing that Beckham really has some sort of Josh Norman hangover and we can expect more of the same that we’ve seen since? Or is he about to flip the switch and do Odell Beckham Jr. type things? I’m afraid as an Eagles fan it’s the latter. Beckham is just too flat-out good not to go out on the field and ball. Eventually having Victor Cruz and Sterling Shepard isn’t going to take targets from him, it’s going to benefit him with more space to work. When teams have to pay more attention to those two, Beckham is going to enjoy free reign. I think the best is yet to come for him in 2016.
BEAST OF THE BEAT
I’m going to close this week’s column with some recognition for a non-Eagles player who shined in the division this week. This week’s winner (for the second consecutive week) is the outstanding rookie runner and former Buckeye, Ezekiel Elliott. Elliott helped pick the Cowboys up off the mat after falling behind early and finished with his second straight game over 130 yards on the ground and with over 150 yards from scrimmage. The kid is for real. He did it this time on only 23 carries and added a touchdown. Congrats on taking home the hardware for a second straight week.
If you have questions, comments or concerns, reach out to me on Twitter (@faux_philly) where I’m always happy to discuss. We’ll be back later in the week with a preview of this week’s NFC East matchups, thanks for reading and be sure to check out all of the great content here at PhillyInfluencer.com.