The only (?) winning move is not to play (more offense)

Last weekend, on Shutdown Fullcast's After Dark episode, there was a discussion of Ohio State's offense, and an advantage the Buckeyes may have going into the College Football Playoff: by running an extremely low total of offensive plays during the regular season -- OSU ranks near the bottom of FBS in plays run -- their physical toll paid through the season will be much less than their rivals, to the point of being like an extra bye week.

This made me think about football's other defending national champions, the Philadelphia Eagles, bidding to become the first back-to-back Super Bowl winners since (checks notes)... Kansas City the previous two years.

The Eagles making the playoffs isn't in doubt, as they're running away with the NFC East, but their dreams of a repeat do feel shaky for several reasons. Like any Super Bowl champion, Philadelphia lost several key players from last year's roster. Those personnel changes have shown up both in the eye test and in the statistics. After ranking seventh in the NFL in points scored and eighth in yards gained, the Eagles are 12th and 23rd this season, respectively. Philly's defense, which allowed the second-fewest points and the lowest yardage total in football in 2024, now ranks 10th and 18th in those categories. The Eagles' plus-26 point differential ranks behind six teams who have worse records than Philadelphia's 7-2, including the Houston Texans at plus-54 and a 4-5 mark. That's usually the sign of a team that's been getting away with it, or can be spun positively into a "they know how to win" narrative. Either way, it's much dicier than dominating everyone in front of you.

A notable thing about Philly's dominance in 2024 (even though the Lions had a better regular-season record) is that they ran the third-most offensive plays in the NFL and had the fewest defensive snaps. That seems like a good path to success in general, but according to Stathead, the Birds' 1,114 offensive plays last year are the most ever by a Super Bowl champ, breaking the record set in 1981 by the 49ers. Of the 100 teams in the Super Bowl era to run at least 1,100 plays in a season, 53 have made the playoffs, eight have made the Super Bowl, and three have won it (the other was the 1983 Raiders). It's by no means an indicator of success on its own, nor is running fewer plays an indicator of how a team will perform overall.

What we do know is that running a lot of plays takes that greater physical toll, and for an Eagles offensive line that operates at the top end of physicality but doesn't have the same people or health level as a year ago, this stat is interesting. After running the third-most plays in the league last year, the most of any Super Bowl champion ever, this year's Eagles have run the sixth-fewest offensive plays.

Between the regular season and playoffs last year, Saquon Barkley had 482 touches. an average of 23 per game. This year, that number is 19.6. He's on pace for 58 fewer touches than last year, about three fewer games' worth of tackles he might take. That's not insignificant.

It's pretty clear that this year's Eagles are not as good of a team as last year's Eagles. But they don't have to play against last year's Eagles, except insofar as they have to combat what comes with being defending champs. Nick Sirianni takes a lot of heat, a lot of it deserved, for being overly conservative on offense. It might be a literal conservation of the Eagles' energy that helps the Birds get to where they want to go again.