‘Do anything to win:' Despite broken ribs, Kenny Pickett leads Eagles past Cowboys

At first glance, it looked like a terrific, tough, gutsy performance.

We didn’t even realize till after the game just how terrific, tough and gutsy it was. 

In his first start in more than a year, Kenny Pickett led the Eagles to a huge win over the Cowboys that clinched the NFC East title and No. 2 seed in the playoffs and gave the Eagles their first sweep of their fiercest rival since 2011.

And a while after the game, we learned that Pickett wasn't just playing with sore ribs. He was playing with broken ribs.

With Jalen Hurts sidelined with a concussion, Pickett made his first start since Week 13 last year with the Steelers and he did everything you’d want your backup quarterback to do in the Eagles’ 41-7 win at the Linc.

“Yeah, of course you want to finish it out,” Pickett said. “ I left it all out there. I did everything I could to play today, stay in there as long as I could. I have no regrets or anything, leaving the stadium, we got the win. That's all that matters. So, it was a special day for everyone in there.”

It was hard to watch Pickett run the tush push three snaps in a row just getting clobbered by a host of Cowboys on each one.

The third try finally paid off. 

“The sneaks were a little tough,” he said. “All the bodies lying on top of you, and then those couple hits afterwards. Tough. 

“But it's part of the game. We love the game. Do anything to win.” 

Guys love playing for someone who puts it all out on the line like Pickett did, putting the team ahead of himself.

“Oh man, it don't go unnoticed,” DeVonta Smith said. “For him to fight through the things he was fighting through, he's a very tough guy.”

Pickett completed 10 of 15 passes for 143 yards with no turnovers before leaving the game in the middle of the third quarter after a vicious hit from Micah Parsons. He threw a 22-yard touchdown pass to Smith, a 50-yard TD to Smith that replay turned into a 49-yarder down to the 1-yard-line, a 34-yarder to Grant Calcaterra on a 3rd-and-8 with the game still tied at 6, and he ran for a touchdown on his third try in the second quarter.

His 119.6 passer rating is the highest of his career, as was his 14.3 yards per completion. This was the first time he’s ever had a rushing touchdown and a passing touchdown in the same game. 

And get this: Pickett never put up 26 points in consecutive games as a Steeler, and he’s put up 26 and 27 the last two weeks in 3 ½ quarters against the Commanders and 2 ½ quarters against the Cowboys.

“People always forget that Kenny was a starting quarterback in this league and won a lot of games over there in Pittsburgh before,” Darius Slay said. “So you know, we expect him to do great things and he did that tonight and let y'all know he’s still here. Some great throws by Kenny man, big time, and then he had broken ribs a little bit? That’s even better, you know what I'm saying, to see him out there just competing like that.

“Last person I've seen do stuff like that was (Lions teammate Matt) Stafford, you know, Staff played real bad injuries and was still making hell-of-a-plays and to see him come out and do that? Man, shows how tough he is and how much he cares about his team to put us in a great position to win. So we appreciate him.

“I don‘t know how he’s doing it, but kudos to him because he’s getting hit and broken ribs? Damn! That [bleep] HURTS.” 

Pickett played down the injury - “I'm good, I’ll be all right,” he said. “We’ll do some more tests and everything, see how it looks. But I'll be OK.”

The toughest ones don’t have to tell you how tough they really are.

Most likely McKee will get either all the snaps vs. the Giants Sunday in a game that’s now meaningless, although Nick Sirianni might want Hurts to get a series or two before the playoffs.

Whatever happens, Pickett earned the respect of everybody in that locker room Sunday with the way he battled and fought for his team while fighting an injury that would have kept a lot of guys out of the game entirely.

“He got hit pretty hard a few times out there and he’s got a lot of grit to him,” Lane Johnson said. “He’s a fighter. I was impresssed with how he conducted himself out there today. 

This was the first game the Eagles won without Hurts since Gardner Minshew beat the Jets at the Meadowlands late in the 2021 season. 

Pickett left the game with the Eagles up 27-7 and Tanner McKee, in his NFL debut, finished up, throwing two touchdowns in his NFL debut.

Pickett’s work was done. He won the clincher and helped get the Eagles a win on a day they didn't have their franchise QB.

“Jalen Hurts is a special football player, but to be able to win in a scenario where you're a man down, whether it's Jalen or whether it's Nakobe [Dean], it takes everybody,” Nick Sirianni said. 

“We talked about that last night. ‘Kenny, you're going to play a good game today because you're a good player, but you're going to play a good game because A.J. is going to do things only A.J. can do and Saquon is going to do things only Saquon can do and Smitty is going to do things only Smitty can do, and the O-line is going to do things only the O-line can do.’ I said it to Kellen (Moore), too: ‘Kellen, you've got to be great. In order for Kenny to be great.’”

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