Two obvious facts:
No. 1: The Eagles have a lot of work to do.
No. 2: The Eagles are 1-0.
After building a 17-point lead in the third quarter, the Eagles came close to defeating the Lions 38-35 in the season opener at Ford Field in Detroit on Sunday.
The Eagles didn’t secure this until Jalen Hurts scored for 1 yard on the 4th and 1st at the Lions’ 40-yard line with 66 seconds left.
Wow.
Here are 10 immediate observations from a terrifying afternoon in Michigan.
1. Nick Siriani talked all summer long about how adversity is inevitable and what matters is how you deal with it. Little did he know the Eagles would handle it in 33 seconds from the start of the season. That’s when Dandre Swift ran for 51 yards on the second play of the game to set up a touchdown for the Lions, the first since Tiki his barber got his 72 yards for the Giants in 2004. , was the longest run from scrimmage against the Eagles on Day One. The Lions started the game just four and a half minutes before he led 7-0, after which the Eagles gave the Lions a good field. Positions that could not be transformed by 4 and 5. do you want adversity? please. And you have to like how the Eagles reacted: in his next 19 minutes, the Eagles beat the Lions 223-22 he won 21-7 and it couldn’t be worse. I’m back in a game that never got off to a good start. Not all went well for the Eagles after that, but they showed a lot of character and resilience by bouncing back from a really dismal start and holding up in the fourth quarter when things were on the brink of running away from them. .
2. I’ve been blown away by AJ Brown all summer, but seeing him do the same in his first game in an Eagles uniform just reminds me of how insanely talented this kid is. is. And how crazy is it that the Eagles got him with a mid-first-round pick and a third-round pick? An 18-yarder with him about an inch off the ground was a work of art. A 54-yarder before halftime when Will Harris grabbed the jersey? It was a masterpiece. By halftime he was 128-6 and 155-10, breaking Donte Stallworth’s club record of 141 yards for the Eagles with a receiver in his debut. He doesn’t want to get too carried away in one game, but I’m afraid he’s good. He just turned 25 and at least he’ll be here until 2025.
3. We talked about many things that could have gone wrong for the Eagles this year, but no one thought run defense was one of them.The Eagles were ninth in the NFL for runs last year. But that was without Jordan Davis, Brandon Graham, Kyzyl White and all the other rookies. It’s a big concern for the Lions to slam it into the throat of the Eagles on the ground. The Lions – Run the Ball, No. 19 in the NFL last year – ran for 181 yards on Sunday. Third TD, and it can’t happen. The Eagles’ improved secondary did a great job with coverage – Goff said he was punchless for 215 yards and he was 37 for 21 – but the run defense was embarrassing. Too many guys are out of position, too many guys miss tackles, too many guys don’t close. It should be fixed soon.
Four. On defense, the biggest concern was whether they had the manpower to generate consistent passing pressure even after adding Hurson Reddick. In the first half, I thought there was pressure at times, but nothing in the second half when the Lions started. fight back. Jonathan Gannon certainly had more blitzes than last year, which created some early-game pressure…and against a beaten Detroit O-line. Reddick, Brandon he would have hoped Graham would be back and Josh wouldn’t be any more of an issue with his sweats being a big hit in the second half. But it certainly did, at least in the opener.
Five. I was curious to see how much Chauncey Gardner-Johnson could contribute just 12 days after the Eagles acquired him. CJGJ impacted his 3rd down for back-to-back Lions in the 2nd quarter. First Blitz Pressure, then he covered for Brown on third down Amon Lascent. Anthony Harris is a class act, but CJGJ played more on Sunday than Harris did last year. He’s around the ball, fast, athletic and active. Asked for his DPI which is fake in Q4. But what a huge addition two weeks before him in the opener!
6. It wasn’t a statistical masterpiece by Jalen Hurts, but he scored 31 points, took his second straight road opener, made no obvious mistakes, and was sharp on third down, with a lot of points. I played with my feet and played nice. After a 0-5 start, the job is recovering. 243 passes he finished 18-for-32 with yards and 90 rushing he had yards, so after a 0-for-5 start he was 27 for his 18. 14 carries is too much, but I thought the O-line was erratic early on, forcing me to run out of my pocket and run more than I needed to. But the offense eventually took a rhythm, throwing with precision and running less as the game progressed. Hearts didn’t throw his TD pass, but I don’t care. In a noisy stadium, on the street, in the 20th start of his career, he was fine.
7. I liked how Shane Steichen used his back to mix up Miles Saunders and Kenny Gainwell, getting good results from both and going to Boston Scott on the goal line in the 3rd quarter. Winning the first series in three quarters, Saunders was absent for a minute. Then, on his first snap after the second quarter, he rested his leg and exploded 24 yards. Three plays later, Gainwell scores. Sanders looked fast, strong and explosive – going 96-13 and his first touchdown since Week 16 of 2020. And Gainwell added 20 yards on five carries.Including receptions, the Bucks combined for 147 scrimmage for 147 yards and he had 26 touches for 3 touchdowns. It was the first time in 61 years that four different Eagles had a rushing touchdown in the same game, including his TD for Hearts. On October 22, 1961, Cotton won his bowl in a game he won 43–7 over the Cowboys, with Clarence Peaks winning his two and Billy Ray Barnes, Ted Dean and Theron Sapp winning one each. Great efficiency and production.
8. That James Bradbury pick 6 was a huge play for several reasons. And it was also the product of his two guys playing in his first game as an Eagles. Here are his two key parts of Howie Roseman’s roster overhaul. It was Kyzyl White who diverted it to Bradbury, then added a key block for good measure. But it was the kind of play that this team has been missing for a while. He was one of the worst teams in the NFL they forced turnovers over the past four years. It was encouraging that he not only scored a takeaway at a crucial point in the game, but turned it into a seven-pointer.
9. Very sloppy play by the Eagles – 2 false starts, 1 offensive holding and 1 defensive holding, neutral zone breach, 2 12s on the field, 2 game delays, no pass interference. They were lucky to overcome it, but Sirianni and Gannon have to clean it up now because they can’t win many games by taking 10 penalties.
Ten. A final word on Sanders: A second effort on a 24-yard run in 3rd-and-2 with 2:21 left essentially closed the game. Lions linebacker Derrick Burns had his arm around Sanders and was looking to make up for the loss, but Sanders showed toughness and grit to pull away from Burns and scoot down the field for one of the biggest plays of the day. Sanders, who missed nearly all of training camp, finished 96-13 with two catches for 9 yards and a 105-yard scrimmage game. And most importantly…he was not hurt. If Sanders plays like this, that new contract will come.
11. OK, bonus observation: Bradbury became the first Eagle to have a pick 6 in his first game as an Eagle. Don Rooney has since scored a 31-yarder from QB Cecil Isbell of the Packers on the opening day of 1940 at Green Bay’s Old City Stadium. And he became the first eagle his cornerback to have a pick 6 away since Dimitri Patterson picked Donovan McNabb on his FedEx field in his 59-28 game in 2010. I was.
Comments
Post a Comment