When the Eagles face the Dallas Cowboys for the second time this season on Sunday, they’ll face a team that plays the seventh-highest rate of zone coverage, according to Sharp Football Analysis.
The Eagles passing offense — which has seen a lot of zone coverage — has been a roller coaster this season. Eagles quarterback Jalen Hurts and wide receiver A.J. Brown haven’t put up the production to match the gaudy numbers they’ve produced together in years past.
Brown still thrives against man coverage, catching 16 of his 25 targets for 244 yards and three touchdowns this season against man schemes, according to Next Gen Stats. But Brown not only has his lowest target per route percentage (20.9%) against zone coverage since joining the Eagles in 2022 per Next Gen, but has a career-low 38 yards after catch vs. zone coverages and is averaging 1.14 yards per route against zone coverage, the lowest rate of his career.
We took a film- and stats-based dive into why Brown is having a down year, and particularly what’s contributing to his issues against zone coverage this season as the passing game searches for consistency:
Route variety
For this exercise, we watched all of Brown’s targets in an Eagles uniform, beginning with his dynamo 2022 season, in which he finished with a franchise-record 1,496 receiving yards on 88 receptions with 11 receiving touchdowns.
The playcaller that year was current Indianapolis Colts head coach Shane Steichen, and the first noticeable difference from 2022 to now is the variety of routes that Brown ran in that offense.
According to Pro Football Focus, Brown had a near 70/30 split in terms of his alignment, with 808 of his 1,187 snaps that year coming out wide, and 342 coming from the slot. This will be important later, but that unpredictability allowed Brown to be moved around to several spots and be utilized in different ways.
One of the best ways to get receivers the ball against zone coverage is moving the pocket and utilizing shallow crossing routes. Brown had a career-best 17.5 yards per reception vs. zone coverages, and the utilization of him getting underneath or between linebackers across the middle of the field made for easy throws for Hurts.
Even though that route wasn’t as prevalent in 2023, the Eagles brought it back more often in 2024, especially after the bye week with the Birds sitting at 2-2. Against the Cowboys, Commanders, and Rams, there was a noticeable effort to get Brown touches and space for yards after catch opportunities on those routes, and even Brown’s touchdown in Super Bowl LIX came on a shallow cross route.
In 2025, there have been attempts to incorporate crossing and shallow routes into the offense, but the attempts have been either infrequent or unsuccessful. A shallow route passing attempt from Hurts to Brown vs. zone coverage against Denver was rushed because of pressure and fell incomplete, and a crossing route to Brown vs. zone went for a 16-yard gain against the Giants.
The routes that Brown was known for in Tennessee and even now as an Eagle, are in-breaking routes, including slants and dig routes. Those have been a major aspect of Brown’s game, because of his ability to create after the catch, and his physicality to withstand hits that come over the middle of the field.
A large portion of his catches in 2022 were on those routes, and he dominated after the catch that year. According to Next Gen, 40.5% of his YAC came against zone coverage, and he caught 51 of his 78 targets against zone coverages for 892 yards. He also averaged 2.62 yards per route against zone, which is still the second-highest split of his career.
In 2023, those numbers took a dip, to 2.19 yards per route, with just 26.7% of his YAC coming against zone coverages, per Next Gen. But the in-breaking routes were more successful post-bye last year, as his numbers crept to the highest yards per route mark (2.83) of his career and his second-highest YAC percentage (29.4%) against zone.
This season, he’s at career-low in both categories: 1.14 yards per route and just 17.8% of his YAC are coming against zone coverages. He’s averaging just 9.7 yards per reception vs. zone and has 22 catches on 187 routes run against zone this year.
Part of that is linked to the running game’s ineffectiveness in past years, but also the increase in heavy personnel. The Eagles are running 13 personnel (one back, three tight ends) at a 6.47% rate, according to Sumer Sports, almost double the rate from last year, and 12 personnel (one back, two tight ends) at a slightly higher rate this year (30.32%) compared to last year (30.16%).
The Eagles are running more condensed formations while running 11 personnel (one back, one tight end) at the lowest rate since Brown as been an Eagle, with just 54.8% of their snaps. They’re also not throwing the ball as much either from empty formations, where Brown has thrived in previous years against both man and zone coverages.
Add in that fact that Brown has been targeted on just 21.3% of his routes against zone coverage this season, his lowest rate since his rookie year in 2019 (20.7%), according to Next Gen, and it’s been a struggle for him to get the ball. Per Pro Football Focus, 13 of his 14 catches between the numbers this year came on passes of 10 yards or less, with just one coming in beyond 20 yards. In 2022, he had 14 catches beyond 10 yards between the numbers, 12 in 2023, and 10 last season.
Formational changes
As outlined above, formational changes have played a part in Brown’s struggles this season, with a shift to heavier personnel and dialing back 11 personnel. But so has Brown’s alignment, which has trended away from utilizing him in the slot.
After playing 342 snaps in the slot in 2022, he played 259 in 2023, and 171 in 2024, which matched more of his alignment with the Titans in 2019-21 (when he averaged 131 slot snaps). This year, Brown is on pace for his fewest such snaps as an Eagle, with 52 of his 504 snaps coming in the slot, per PFF.
He’s aligning outside the numbers over 88% of the time, which not only allows defenses to send multiple defenders his way, but also limits his route tree. Almost all of his routes against the Lions last week were outside the numbers and he played just four snaps in the slot.
Having Brown in the slot not only creates opportunities for mismatches, but it gives him a chance to create big plays against linebackers and safeties. The 2023 season probably shows his slot usage best, when Brown had career-highs in routes (366), targets (89) and catches (62) against zone coverage with 801 receiving yards, his second-highest total behind the 2022 season.
The route spacing this season just isn’t as sharp as years past and it seems to bring some hesitancy from Hurts in challenging those windows at times. Hurts had no problem ripping the ball Brown in 2022 and 2023 on curl or in-breaking routes, but appears not as confident in doing so this year.
Brown had targets where he sat in the soft spot of zone coverage against Denver and Green Bay, and against the former, Hurts eventually hit him after scrambling and immediately put the ball on him against the Packers.
What could help?
One way to combat some of the bracket coverages and extra attention that Brown is getting from opposing defenses is to have him align on the same side as DeVonta Smith. Especially against zone coverages, the alignment puts defenses in a bind, forcing them to choose one star receiver or the other.
A lot of Brown’s big plays against zone coverage in those situations came in either 12 personnel or empty formations, and since the heavier personnel isn’t working this year, adding more empty passes could be beneficial for Brown and the Eagles’ passing game.
Most of the time the Eagles are attacking downfield this year, its in man coverage situations, but Hurts and the passing attack has shown the ability to hit “hole shots” which are passes in between the corner and safety in zone coverage. They did so in 2022 and 2023 to Brown, making two-high zone coverages pay for not sending help to the corner on such throws.
The Eagles have Smith and Brown run hitch routes above league-average this year (16.5%), at 24.5% and 23.7%, respectively, according to Next Gen, and that will always be an identity of the offense. But adding in more variations, where Brown isn’t always working along the sidelines, could help open some throwing windows for Hurts.
Whether it’s adding him more to the slot or utilizing more empty formations and 11 personnel, there has to be a more concerted effort for the Eagles to find more easy targets for Brown and find answers to their issues against zone coverage. Unlocking this dimension could be the step forward the offense needs.
