Dave Zangaro and Reuben Frank react to Michael Clay’s comments on Tuesday about Jake Elliott’s recent struggles with extra points.
Nick Sirianni met with the media 12:30 p.m. Wednesday ahead of the NFC Championship game against the Washington Commanders. You can watch the availability here.
You wanted more Obs? You got ‘em.
When 10 Observations just aren’t enough. When 20 aren’t enough. That’s when you get a midweek bonus edition of Roob's 10 Random Eagles Observations to help pass the time ... until Saturday, when you get 10 more.
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What a thing!
In this edition, we toss around Darius Slay’s future, an insane Saquon Barkley fact, Ohio State coach Ryan Day’s unique place in Eagles history and tons more.
Observe away!
1. Is Darius Slay planning to retire after this season? It sure sounded like he’s considering it when he spoke post-game Sunday. He started out saying how grateful he is to be part of an organization with such a winning tradition after not winning a playoff game during his seven years with the Lions: “I got a lot left. When you done so much in your career, done played so long, man, definitely (a) long one I've been blessed with and fortunate enough with, yeah, I'm just thankful for being here for this team and this organization for a great opportunity for myself and help my legacy keep going.” Then he addressed the gas can that secondary coach Christian Wilson jokingly left at his locker, as in, “You’ve still got a lot of gas left.” That’s when Slay spoke about a future that may be very close: “Yeah, there's some gas left, but you know what I'm saying? We ain't going to have too much of that gas, but I'm ready to go chill, raise the kids, be a family man, take care of my youngin’s. So I've been doing football long enough. I owe my family some time, too.” Slay, 34, is finishing his 12th season. He’s a six-time Pro Bowler and was a 1st-team all-pro in 2017, when he led the NFL with eight interceptions. Slay turned 34 earlier this month, and he’s only the third Eagles corner to start a full season at 33, along with Bob Howard in 1979 and Troy Vincent in 2003. He’s still playing at a really high level, and he’s been a great Eagle for a long time. But the more I listen to those post-game comments, the more it seems like maybe this is it.
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2. Only two Eagles in history have had multiple postseason sacks before their 24th birthday: Jalen Carter and Nolan Smith. The Eagles are only the third team with two players 23 or younger with multiple sacks in the same postseason. The others are the 1982 Raiders with Howie Long and Johnny Robinson and the 2017 Patriots with Adam Butler and Deatrich Wise Jr. Smith is already fifth in franchise history with his 3 ½ sacks, two fewer than Brandon Graham and half a sack behind Derrick Burgess, Hugh Douglas and Reggie White.
3. Saquon Barkley is the ninth player to rush for 200 yards in a postseason game, but he’s the first one to do it who rushed for over 1,300 yards during the regular season. Barkley is unique in so many ways, and one of them is his ability to still be playing his best football 400 touches and 18 games into the season. Virtually every other back that’s piled up that many touches during the regular season has been toast by the playoffs (we wrote about that here). The eight other running backs who gained 200 yards in a postseason game ranged from 126 yards during the regular season (Timmy Smith in 1987) to 1,234 (Eric Dickerson in 1985). Only Dickerson and Lamar Smith with the Falcons in 2000 even rushed for 1,000 yards during the regular season in which they had a 200-yard playoff game. Barkley was over 2,000. He is one of a kind.
4. Cooper DeJean is 21, Jalen Carter, Quinyon Mitchell and Nolan Smith are 23, Nakobe Dean is 24 and Jordan Davis and Reed Blankenship are 25, and this is the first time in Eagles history they’ve had seven defensive starters 25 or under in the postseason. Dean is hurt obviously, but he did start the Packers game. For such a young group to be playing at such a high level is truly remarkable. Of those seven, only Davis and Blankenship were starters last year. This has gone from an old, slow, awful defense to a young, fast elite group almost overnight. What’s most impressive is that for a defense that’s never played together before this year, they play incredible team football. They communicate at a high level, they compliment each others’ play, they work together and they sacrifice personal goals for team success. With this group, the whole is definitely greater than the sum of its parts. And the sum of the parts are pretty darn great.
5. The only rookie quarterback who’s ever started against the Eagles in the postseason is Brock Purdy in the 2022 NFC Championship Game. He didn’t last long, thanks to Haason Reddick, and the Eagles won 31-7. But the youngest quarterback to face the Eagles in the postseason was Michael Vick with the Falcons at the Vet in 2002. He was in his second year but was 22 years old. Bobby Taylor opened the game with a 39-yard pick-6 and Dawk picked him off as well and the Eagles won 20-6. The Eagles beat 23-year-old Shaun King and the Bucs 21-3 in the 2000 wild-card game at the Vet and 24-year-old Mitch Trubisky in the Double Doink game in Chicago in 2018. The youngest quarterback to beat the Eagles in a playoff game was 24-year-old Doug Williams with the Bucs in 1979. He's got a 116.2 passer rating so far this postseason – highest ever by a rookie – and he’s completed 70 percent of his passes – also highest ever by a rookie. Daniels just turned 24 last month, but he probably doesn’t even belong in this conversation because at this point nobody looks at him like a rookie.
6. Eagles quarterbacks have thrown 249 consecutive passes over nine postseason games at the Linc without an interception. The last Eagles INT at the Linc was the Michael Vick pass intended for Riley Cooper that Tramon Williams intercepted in the end zone to clinch the Packers’ 21-16 wild-card win in 2010. Before that it was Koy Detmer’s pass picked off by Dan Morgan at the end of the 2003 NFC Championship Game loss to the Panthers. In all, one interception in the last 353 Eagles pass attempts at the Linc over more than two decades. And get this: The last time the Eagles won a home playoff game when their quarterback threw an interception was the 2001 wild-card game against the Bucs, which the Eagles won 31-9. Donovan McNabb was picked off by Dexter Jackson on his second pass of the game.
7. Sunday’s game will be the Eagles’ eighth NFC Championship Game in the last 25 years, which is 2nd-most among all NFL teams behind – of course – the Patriots with 13 (but none since 2018). Next-most are the 49ers (7), Packers (6), Chiefs (6) and Steelers (5). The Eagles lost three straight NFC title games from 2001 through 2003 – vs. Kurt Warner and the Rams in St. Louis in 2001, home vs. the Bucs in 2002 and the Panthers in 2003 – before beating the Falcons at the Linc in 2004. They lost their last road conference title game – in Arizona in 2008 vs. Kurt Warner and the Cards – before beating the Vikings 38-7 in 2017 and the 49ers 31-7 in 2022.
8. The Eagles are the first team to have at least 450 rushing yards and fewer than 200 passing yards in a two-game span in the postseason in 50 years. The 1974 Steelers had 459 rushing yards and 179 passing yards in the AFC Championship Game win over the Raiders at Oakland-Alameda County Stadium and Super Bowl IX over the Vikings at Tulane Stadium in New Orleans. Franco Harris of Mount Holly had 269 rushing yards in those two games.
9. Jalen Hurts’ sack percentage of 25.93 Sunday – seven sacks on 27 drop-backs – is highest in the postseason in 40 years, since Steve Fuller of the Bears was sacked eight times on 31 drop-backs in a 23-0 loss to the 49ers in 1984, a 26.67 sack ratio.
10. Ryan Day is the first former Eagles coach ever to win a national college football title as a head coach. Day was Chip Kelly’s quarterbacks coach with the Eagles in 2015. Kelly is now his offensive coordinator at Ohio State.
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