Roob's Instant Observations after Eagles' biggest comeback ever at the Linc

The Eagles rallied from a 19-point deficit to improve to 3-0 on the season.

By Reuben Frank • Published September 21, 2025

Now, that was an ending. Are you kidding me? That doesn’t happen. It can’t happen. It happened.

Two blocked field goals in the final nine minutes? What a way to win.

The Eagles rallied back from 19 points down early in the third quarter, scored the last 26 points of the game and beat the Rams 33-26 at the Linc and improve to 3-0.

Biggest comeback for the Eagles ever at the Linc, biggest comeback anywhere since they came back from 20 points down at the Meadowlands on the DeSean Jackson punt return in 2010.

Here's our 10 Instant Observations from a improbable, unlikely, improbable, impossible win.

1. This is the offense we’ve been waiting all year to see. This is the play calling we’ve been waiting all year to see. More than anything, this is the Jalen Hurts we’ve been waiting to see all year. This was Super Bowl MVP Hurts, putting on an astonishing 2nd-half display. The first half Hurts was 4-for-8 for 17 yards without a completion longer than 11 yards. Second half? How about 17-for-24 for 209 yards with three TD passes? Hurts was magical in the second half. He took the game over. You knew it was there. We just haven’t seen it. The second half Hurts engineered touchdown drives of 79, 87 and 91 yards and he was brilliant on every one, finding A.J. Brown finally, finding DeVonta Smith finally. That might have been the best half of his life, not just because of the stats and the numbers but because of the way he picked up a team that looked dead and single-handedly brought them back to life.

2. Let’s talk about Jordan Davis. What a beast. What a player. Vic Fangio challenged him to get himself in shape and become the player we all knew he could be, and we started to see it at the end of last year, but he’s been on another level this year and Sunday was his best game ever – even before the clinching field goal block. Davis was everywhere. He had five tackles, a 4th-down stop, the Eagles’ only sack, a tackle for loss a quarterback hurry, a blocked field goal and that amazing 61-yard blocked field goal return as time ran out. He could be NFC Defensive Player of the Week AND NFC Special Teams Player of the Week … the same week. It’s interesting how Jalen Carter and Davis, best friends and teammates at Georgia, have changed places. Carter is playing well but Davis has been the best interior lineman on the team. Last year in the playoffs, it was Carter who made the game-winning play against the Rams in the final seconds. Sunday it was Davis. Incredible.

3. A.J. Brown showed up in such a big way in the second half, especially with those two tough, physical big plays on the go-ahead drive – 25 yards and 23 yards. You watch him make these tough catches with those powerful hands and pick up big yards through traffic after the catch, dragging corners, trampling safeties, and it just seems incomprehensible that he had 35 yards through two games. Brown was the best player on the field Sunday, with six catches for 109 yards – all in the second half. Who knows why he was invisible the first 2 ½ games of the season, but this guy may be the best wide receiver on the dang planet and everybody involved with this offense has to make sure it never happens again. Throw him the ball. Then throw him the ball again. Then keep throwing him the ball. Nobody can stop him.

4. I’ve been saying all summer I don’t like Matt Pryor as a tackle. When he’s played well throughout his eight-year career it’s been at guard. That’s why I thought it made sense to bring Fred Johnson back before the season began. He did such a good job last year as a swing tackle, and it just seems to make sense to have him back in that role. But it was Pryor who replaced Johnson when he got hurt and it was painful to watch. It was Pryor who missed the block on Jared Verse, who forced the Jalen Hurts fumble that led to the Rams’ second touchdown. Pryor played five drives after Lane Johnson left the game, and those drives netted negative-10 yards and no points. He couldn’t block anybody, and the Eagles couldn’t run the offense with him out there. Johnson played four drives, and they netted 260 yards and three touchdowns. The switch should have been made sooner, but fortunately it was made just in the nick of time. If Big Fred doesn’t replace Pryor, the Eagles don’t win this game.

5. Here’s why you should be really encouraged about this football team. They have yet to play 60 minutes of football. They have yet to play a complete game on either side of the football. They have yet to look like a Super Bowl team. Yet they’re 3-0 against a minefield of a schedule against their biggest division rival, the defending AFC champions and a team that was 2-0 and goes to the playoffs every year. There really is something to be said for a team that finds ways to win. There is a mental toughness on this football team that very few teams have. There is an inner confidence that starts with the head coach and trickles down through the roster and down to the practice squad. Sirianni always says you learn the most about a team – or about anyone – with how they handle adversity, and it doesn’t worse than trailing 26-7 in the third quarter and getting outgained 222-31 – I mean, 222-31? Seriously? – and getting booed (deservedly) by 67,594 fans at the Linc. Rest of the game, the Eagles outgained the Rams 257-134 and outscored them 26-0. Never any panic. Never any yelling or shouting. Never any doubt. Something special happening in that building.

6. This is three games now that the Eagles haven’t been able to get Saquon Barkley going, and that’s a concern. Barkley ran 18 times for just 60 yards against the Cowboys, he fought his way to 88 yards on 22 carries in Kansas City – respectable but certainly not what we expect from Barkley – and then Sunday he had a quiet 18-for-46. That makes him 58-for-194. That’s a 3.3 average for a guy who ran for an NFL-record 2,500 yards last year. Here’s why I think there’s hope for the running game. If the passing game can continue to generate plays down the field like in the second half Sunday, it’s going to open things up for the running game. It has to. The passing game wasn’t a threat for 2 ½ games, so defenses had the luxury of focusing on Barkley. A consistent vertical passing game is the best solution to a struggling running game.

7. Let’s talk about comebacks. This was only the eighth comeback in franchise history of 19 or more points and the biggest comeback since 2010, when they trailed the Giants by 21 points early in the fourth quarter at the Meadowlands - 31-10 – only to score the game’s final 28 points in the final 7 ½ minutes. That rally was capped by DeSean Jackson’s 65-yard walk-off punt return. That game and this one are the Eagles’ only comebacks from at least 19 points in the last 30 years. This was the biggest comeback ever at the Linc and the Eagles’ biggest in Philadelphia since 1988, when they trailed the Cowboys 20-0 in the middle of the second quarter at the Vet but rallied on a Randall Cunningham TD pass to Keith Byars and a couple Anthony Toney touchdowns, winning 24-23. The Eagles’ biggest comebacks ever were from 24 points down – in Washington in 1946 and in Chicago vs. the Cardinals in 1959.

8. We’ll all be talking about A.J. Brown this week and how he bounced back with some incredible catches after sitting there with 35 receiving yards early in the third quarter of Week 3. But we can’t forget about DeVonta Smith, who didn’t put up the numbers that Brown did but made a bunch more tough catches Sunday, including the winning touchdown with 1:48 left. Smith finished with eight catches for 60 yards, 6-for-44 in the second half. He’s such a tough player at 6-0, 170 pounds, and it’s got to be inspirational to everybody around him seeing this little dude pop up after every big catch and toss the ball to the ref and run back to the huddle. First half Sunday, Brown and Smith had two catches for 16 yards. Second half, they had 12 for 153. What a tandem. As great as A.J. is, let’s not forget what a special player DeVonta is as well.

9. Vic Fangio said the other day halftime adjustments are over-rated, that adjustments are something he does throughout a game. But, dang, it sure seems like he’s a master. Dallas game. Cowboys score 20 points in the first half, nothing in the second half. Chiefs game. Patrick Mahomes tears up the defense with five runs for 60 yards. Second half? Two for six. And Sunday? Rams had 212 yards in the first half, 144 in the second. Kyren Williams ran for 69 yards and 5.3 per carry in the first half, 25 yards and 3.6 per carry in the second half. Rams scored 26 points in the first half, seven in the second half. And those seven came after they got the ball on the 10-yard-line half a minute into the third quarter. Fangio is a genius. He’s brilliant. But what makes him truly remarkable is his ability to diagnose what’s going wrong early and figure out ways to solve it. The Eagles have allowed 56 points before halftime this year and 14 in the second half, seven of them after a 10-play drive. If you’re going to beat the Eagles, you better score enough points early to hold up. Because you’re not going to score in the second half.

10. The Eagles also need to figure something out in the return game because they kept muffing kickoffs – two by John Metchie, one by Tank Bibsby – and that made field position a disaster. When your offense is already struggling, starting drives deep in your own territory is not ideal. The Eagles averaged 11 yards on five kick returns – the league average is 25 yards per return – and had six drives that started at their own 20 or worse, including the 9, 10, 13 and 14. Britain Covey anybody?

https://www.nbcsportsphiladelphia.com/nfl/philadelphia-eagles/roobs-observations-rams-jordan-davis-jalen-hurts-aj-brown/685300/