Had ‘em all the way.
Yikes.
The Eagles improved to 11-2 and tied the longest winning streak in franchise history Sunday with their ninth straight win, but they sure put you through hell for three hours, didn’t they?
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The Eagles hung on to beat the Panthers 22-16 at the Linc, but it wasn’t over until Darius Slay knocked down a Bryce Young pass intended for Adam Thielen at the 19-yard-line with 37 seconds left.
Whew.
Here’s our 10 Observations:
1. It’s hard to know exactly what to make of this game. The Eagles didn’t do a lot of things well, the Panthers played better than I dreamed they would, I thought Kellen Moore’s play calling – usually so on point – was shaky, especially early, and still the Eagles escaped with a win. In a game they would have lost last year. You’re never going to have your A-game every week, so how do you respond when you don’t? Ultimately, the Eagles made some huge plays at huge moments that got them a win, but there’s a lot to fix, a lot to improve on, a lot that has to get better if the Eagles are going to keep winning. But this team has done that all year. They find ways to win. Close games, blowouts; home, on the road; good teams, bad teams. You don’t go 11-2 with nine straight wins if you don’t have that ability to shrug off adversity and laugh in its face and figure things out along the way. This was ugly. This was shaky. This never should have been that close. But they found a way, and that’s a sign of a very good team. You hate how they got there but you love the result.
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2. Is it time for the Eagles to start looking for another kicker? I can’t believe I’m even writing that because Jake Elliott has been so good for so long. Coming into this season, he was a 70 percent kicker from 50 yards and out, 13th-most accurate in NFL history. And he was 86 percent overall, 12th-highest in NFL history. And unbelievably clutch, as anybody who watched Super Bowl LII will tell you. But this year has been a nightmare. With his 52-yard miss Sunday, he’s now 0-for-5 from 50 yards and out. The last NFL kicker to attempt five or more 50-yarders in a season without making any? In 1994, Jason Hanson of the Lions was 0-for-5 and Morten Anderson was 0-for-6. That was 30 years ago. The rest of the NFL was making field goals from 50 yards and out at a 72 percent clip coming into Week 14. Elliott is at 0 percent. He also missed a PAT Sunday, although a penalty negated that miss and the Eagles wound up getting two. You want to give Elliott every opportunity to work his way out of this, but when you keep missing long field goals, you keep giving the other team a short field and momentum. When he missed his 52-yarder Sunday, the Panthers took over on the Eagles’ 42-yard-line, drove down the field and scored what was then the go-ahead touchdown. Sirianni didn’t even feel comfortable letting Elliott kick a 54-yard field goal with three minutes left to make this a two-possession game, taking a delay and punting instead. That’s really bad. The Eagles are going to have to think long and hard about whether Elliott is their best option heading into the postseason.
3. Seems weird to write that the Eagles didn’t run the ball enough when you look at the final stats and they had 31 carries for 211 yards, but I just thought there were too many drives where Saquon Barkley just wasn’t involved enough. Too many long stretches where Kellen Moore just got away from him. The Eagles ran 29 plays in the first half and only nine were Barkley runs. It felt like if Moore established Barkley at any point in this game, the Eagles would have taken command, but it just never happened. This is the worst run defense in the NFL. By far. They can’t stop anybody. Barkley should have had 30 carries. He should have had 200 yards. He got the team single-season rushing record with four games left, and good for him, but I just didn’t like the offense. The Eagles do one thing really, really well, and that’s hammer Saquon. And against one of the worst run defenses in recent NFL history they got away from what they do best.
4. It was a weird game for Jalen Hurts, but both touchdown passes were magnificent. The TD to DeVonta Smith is such a difficult ball, throwing far across the field into a tight window. And the Grant Calcaterra TD took a bit of patience and it looked like Calcaterra was about his third read, and we know that throwing into the middle of the field isn’t Hurts’ comfort zone. But he threw a dart that Calcaterra caught for his first career touchdown. The numbers look fine – 14-for-21 with two passing TDs, a rushing TD, 61 rushing yards, including a 35-yarder – the 2nd-longest run of his career. He took a couple sacks when he should have thrown the ball away, but overall once again no turnovers, and that’s now one interception in his last 10 games. Bryce Young probably made twice as many highlight plays, but Hurts keeps doing what he’s asked, and I’ll take that.
5. Darius Slay may not be the player he used to be at 33 years old – he turns 34 in a few weeks – but he sure makes a big difference when he’s healthy and can stay on the field for a full game. I thought this was his best game this year, and that 4th-down pass breakup that clinched the win with half a minute left was a thing of beauty. That was a matchup between a veteran corner and a 23-year-old quarterback who’s very promising but has never played against Slay before. Slay stayed a few yards off Adam Thielen until the moment Young unloaded and then made up about three yards in half a second and batted the ball down. Slay might not have the wheels he used to have, but he’s a 12-year veteran and six-time Pro Bowler and he knows all the tricks. Young is a promising young kid, but on the biggest play of the game, Slay got him.
6. It’s easy to start panicking about the defense and it wasn’t a great day overall, but you have to like the way the Eagles played bend-but-don’t-break and ultimately held the Panthers to 16 points and just six in the second half. The Panthers ran the ball better than you’d like and Bryce Young made some big plays and they controlled the clock and converted a bunch of third downs. But in the big picture if you can keep the other team out of the end zone, that’s all that really matters. The Panthers’ last two possessions were 10- and 13-play drives where the Eagles got 4th-down stops. You’d love to not give up 12- and 14-play touchdown drives to this offense, but the Eagles did play better after halftime, allowing just the six points and clamping down on third and fourth down. The Eagles also really missed Reed Blankenship and the physicality and playmaking he brings. Expectations are really high around here, and when allowing 16 points is disappointing that’s a really good sign.
7. No idea what the Eagles can even do at this point to start faster. Seventeen 1st-quarter points in 13 games is absurd. The Eagles keep digging these early holes and they keep scraping their way out of them, and that’s a really dangerous way to go about playing football. They should have been up 14 points after the first quarter Sunday. But it’s like they’re playing in quicksand until that first quarter is over. They’ve now been outscored 59-17 in the first quarter and outscored their opponents 325-175 the rest of the game. How can an 11-2 team that’s won nine in a row be this bad in the first quarter? It’s an issue they have to fix. I think Kellen Moore has been very good this year, but he needs to find a way to get Jalen Hurts into a rhythm earlier and mix the passing game and running game in a way that keeps defenses off balance. Right now, they’re just not doing that. It seems like defenses know what they’re trying to do, and it’s not until the second quarter or in some cases the second half before they really start rolling. They keep trying to find answers. It’s been a big priority for this coaching staff. And so far they’ve escaped. But against top teams, playoff teams, Super Bowl hopeful teams? You’re not going to get away with it.
8. I’ve run out of ways to describe just how brilliant Saquon Barkley is. You can make a case that he’s having the best season ever by a Philadelphia Eagle. There’ll be time for that after the season. But just to put his season in perspective: Through 13 games, he has 1,623 rushing yards, a 6.1 average and 11 touchdowns. The only players in NFL history with over 1,600 rushing yards, a 6.1 average and 11 rushing TDs through 13 games? Jim Brown in 1963, O.J. Simpson in 1973 and Saquon. Whether he breaks Eric Dickerson’s record or not, he's having one of the greatest seasons ever by a running back, and it’s amazing to watch.
9. C.J. Gardner Johnson is playing at a really high level right now, and the energy, playmaking and physicality he’s bringing to the defense are remarkable. His interception late in the second quarter with the Panthers already up 10-7 and driving again was one of the biggest plays of the game. The Panthers had all the momentum at that point. They had outgained the Eagles 130-87 and they had scored on their last two possessions. But C.J. comes up big in big moments and he did it again, ranging across the field to pick of a deep ball intended for Adam Thielen and then returning it 15 yards inside Panthers territory. That play seemed to finally give the Eagles some juice, and they methodically drove down and scored on Jalen Hurts’ perfect TD pass to DeVonta Smith with 14 seconds left before halftime. C.J. has been playing lights out lately, and with Reed Blankenship out he came up big again with a thunderous early hit that laid out Xavier Legette and then his ninth interception as an Eagle, the most by a player in his first 25 games as an Eagle since Eric Allen had 10 in 1989 and 1990 and the most by a safety since John Sanders had 10 in 1977 and 1978. Gardner-Johnson is a better player now than his first time here in 2022, and he was pretty good then. But he’s been more physical and the knack for big plays at big moments remains. The Eagles were scrambling late in the first half and somebody had to make a game-changing statement, and C.J. did it in a big way.
10. You know what was a really big play that was easy to miss? Just before the Panthers went for it on 4th-and-2 from the Eagles’ 27 with 8 ½ minutes to go, they had a 3rd-and-8 and Hubbard had some room to run, had a head of steam and looked for all the world like he was headed for the first down. But Nakobe Dean somehow got a hold of his foot and brought him down two yards shy of the sticks. And then the Eagles got a stop on fourth down. If Hubbard gets the first down, the Panthers have a new set of downs inside the 25. Nakobe might not have had his best game Sunday, but that was a big-time play.
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