10 minutes ago, Connecticut Eagle said:

I am confident that with Lane returning the offense will elevate from dismal to effective.

There have been enough periods of competence throughout the season to be optimistic that maybe they get at least 3 quarters of ball movement. We have the talent. We are healthy and rested. And they should take bubble wrap off of Hurts.

It's finally win or go home. I don't expect the play calling to be conservative.

I think it necessarily Lane himself that makes the difference, but now the ability to use Fred as an extra blocker. I think Fred played fine, definitely wasn't a problem. He's probably on par with a 70% Lane (which i think is what we're gonna get). The bigger problems are the statues at LG and C. These two can't move, which obviously takes a lot off the table and is one of the glaring indictments of sirianni, patullo, and even stoutland.

They should not have been playing for a majority of this season and it's ridiculous that no one stepped back and said "you know maybe it'll be better if they're healthy for the playoffs"

10 minutes ago, Wentz_Era said:

Wild…I watch a lot of "That’s Good Sports” on YouTube, so every once in a while NFL news overtakes fishing and other nerd stuff in my algorithm. It’s startling the amount of people that cite ‘Post 1 June’ as a possibility cap wise for trading him.

It's because they don't understand how Howie structures his contracts... and that's a phrase they've heard bandied about. Just ignorance in an echo chamber.

7 minutes ago, Connecticut Eagle said:

I was referring to the taking the foot off the gas. I doubt the will continue to hand over the outcome of the game solely to Vic.

Idk, they've been doing it all year long and especially since the bye. If this defense was even average instead of other worldly we would probably be under .500

7 minutes ago, devpool said:

Fred played fine, definitely wasn't a problem. He's probably on par with a 70% Lane (which i think is what we're gonna get).

Yeah I think he’ll actually start lout around 85% and then get worse as it goes along from the pain.

oh no…..

29 minutes ago, NCiggles said:

Except Sirianni thinks he is avoiding turnovers by turning it over on a 3 and out.

Objectively speaking, it's equal to turning it over on a deep ball where the return team cannot advance the ball. I don't think it's fair to count it this way though because literally no one else does, but still, objectively speaking, what I said is correct.

3 minutes ago, e-a-g-l-e-s eagles! said:

oh no…..

Not so sure about that. If they lose in the divisional round because the offense goes into one of their notorious slumps where they can't pick up a first down for an entire half, there's no way Lurie just runs it back. Maybe Patullo stays aboard in another role, but he would not be conducting the offense next season that's for sure.

1 minute ago, e-a-g-l-e-s eagles! said:

oh no…..

Man, I might end up missing a few games next year. I don’t know if I can watch another year in a rare SB dynasty window wasted on a bumbling buffoon at OC who just happens to be a real good friend.

9 hours ago, DrPhilly said:

@mattwill

Tough game to predict given how inconsistent the Eagles O is this year. I think it all depends on whether Lane, Cam, and Landon can generate any push forward or not.

Eagles 17 Niners 13

bonus: Hurts runs for over 40 yards

Rushing yards only, or rushing yards plus scramble yards?

Extremely unpopular opinion: The Eagles should at some point, if they get the ability to do so, at least consider Belichick route of not naming an offensive coordinator (like whenever McDaniels wasn't there). The reason is multi-layered, honestly. Objectively speaking it's harder for teams to really poke at which guys are for what if it's hard to tell who acted on what. Fans would hate this though, everyone would just blame Sirianni for every single offense flaw, but it'd probably slow down people getting poached from our system because if you split the work between a few individuals, then they probably won't interview as well either.

On the flip side, this really requires knowing how to put together a team that can work together in various spots, and would make the place a lower level destination for OC talent, but it'd help cancel out the way that Philly with Jalen is used as a head coach proving ground, like it is right now.

Kind of a wild rise for no particular reason

Friday afternoon Eagles-49ers Game Score Predictions -- 48 hours until Kickoff

23 predictions recorded thus far. 15 are for an Eagles win and 8 for a Niners win. The average predicted score is Eagles 22 49ers 19.

As we do each week, we are gathering Game Score predictions. As always, please tag your prediction post with @mattwill that way I will be sure to see/record it.  Score predictions can also have an optional "Bonus Pick" tiebreaker prediction.  I will be taking predictions right up until Kickoff. If someone posts a prediction without a tag, please reply to it including the @mattwill tag.

The 23 recorded predictions are:

40 minutes ago, e-a-g-l-e-s eagles! said:

He is a good coach, but not generational. No way he deserves all of that.

3 minutes ago, LeanMeanGM said:

Kind of a wild rise for no particular reason

The Niners had to add players from the practice squad and the street to fill their LB unit. Trent Williams was limited participant yesterday, and from my brief views still looked like he was favoring the leg. Hamstrings are very tricky injuries especially on older big guys. Piersall is looking like an out. I am not sure if that is enough to tip the scales for the gamblers, but they must know something.

There’s 3 types of players/coaches: those you win because of, those you win with, and those you win in spite of. You go out of your way to keep the guys in the 1st group, pick your spots in the 2nd, and ditch the 3rd.

Anyone in the 3rd group- Patullo, Adoree Jackson, etc.- shouldn’t be here next year. A bunch of 18-13 type wins in the playoffs shouldn’t change anyone’s mind - our DC is in the 1st group.

2 minutes ago, Freshmilk said:

He is a good coach, but not generational. No way he deserves all of that.

lol...the jobs that are available are mostly crap...career killers....a coach with a proven track record of success should have a lot of leverage

So, we played 6 games against top 8 offenses (based on PPG, not yards) this year. Here's how we did:

Rams (#1 offense at 30.5 PPG, 394.6 yards per game): Held them to 26 points and 356 yards, basically shut them down in the 2nd half. LA's real success was 160 on the ground and 5.2 YPC. This was obviously without Nakobe.

Buffalo (#4 at 28.3 PPG, 376.3 yards per game): Held them to 13 points (shutting them out for 55 minutes) and 331 yards, but only 3.6 YPC. Nakobe missed this game, but Carter played and JP was on the roster.

Detroit (#5 at 28.3 PPG, 373.2 YPG): Held them to 9 points and 313 total yards. Campbell's idiocy definitely helped, but we completely shut down their running game (21 carries for 74 yards) and made Goff look terrible.

Dallas (#7 at 27.7 YPG, 391.9 YPG): Held them to 20 points and 307 yards the 1st time, but they got us for 24 points and 473 the next game. That 2nd half was brutal, and they were aided by some interesting calls.

Chicago (# 8 at 25.9 PPG, 369.2 YPG): Black Friday massacre on the ground where we just got dog walked. 25 points and 425 yards.

4-2 in those games, and we didn't give up more than 26 to any of them. And our defense seems to be peaking now. I think we hold SF under 20.

42 minutes ago, devpool said:

I think it necessarily Lane himself that makes the difference, but now the ability to use Fred as an extra blocker. I think Fred played fine, definitely wasn't a problem. He's probably on par with a 70% Lane (which i think is what we're gonna get). The bigger problems are the statues at LG and C. These two can't move, which obviously takes a lot off the table and is one of the glaring indictments of sirianni, patullo, and even stoutland.

They should not have been playing for a majority of this season and it's ridiculous that no one stepped back and said "you know maybe it'll be better if they're healthy for the playoffs"

Oh THAT'S why....

Holy crap I completely forgot about that. So THAT'S why they kept using Calc as a blocker. They probably have the running scheme this year based on FB and OL6 since they did it so much early, and Lane was out for a big amount of time as WELL as FB getting a season ender. Actually this is a pretty huge point, I hope they can use Team Johnson + Latu in that case, we can probably get the running game going. It'd be nice if they did a 50/50 split with Barkley until they were sure they could keep people from hitting Barkley in the backfield, but I think that's probably something they're afraid of a bit thanks to Saquon's brand new contract that wasn't needed...

17 minutes ago, mattwill said:

Rushing yards only, or rushing yards plus scramble yards?

Rushing yards only if you can track those

4 minutes ago, aptosbird said:

The Niners had to add players from the practice squad and the street to fill their LB unit. Trent Williams was limited participant yesterday, and from my brief views still looked like he was favoring the leg. Hamstrings are very tricky injuries especially on older big guys. Piersall is looking like an out. I am not sure if that is enough to tip the scales for the gamblers, but they must know something.

Feels like it's more of a misjudgement with the original opening line and they are trying to cover all the money that came in on Eagles. They are begging people to bet 49ers. All you mentioned certainly plays a part but it's not exactly new or unknown information. Even if it was, it wouldn't be a that big of a swing by itself.

7 minutes ago, AmericanEagle77 said:

Oh THAT'S why....

Holy crap I completely forgot about that. So THAT'S why they kept using Calc as a blocker. They probably have the running scheme this year based on FB and OL6 since they did it so much early, and Lane was out for a big amount of time as WELL as FB getting a season ender. Actually this is a pretty huge point, I hope they can use Team Johnson + Latu in that case, we can probably get the running game going. It'd be nice if they did a 50/50 split with Barkley until they were sure they could keep people from hitting Barkley in the backfield, but I think that's probably something they're afraid of a bit thanks to Saquon's brand new contract that wasn't needed...

While getting Lane back is great, I've been talking about getting Fred back as the 6th OL for weeks now. If we somehow use Fred and Latu in under center formations...we could look a little like we did against Minnesota with huge play action gains.

Our 2 best offensive games of the year, we used Fred as a 6th OL the most:

Bleeding Green Nation

Secret Superstars 2025: Fred Johnson becomes the NFL’s ul...

The Eagles figured out how to make their offense go, and sixth OL Fred Johnson has led the way, figuratively and literally.

We started to see a bit of a change in Week 7, when the Eagles, who had used 6OL personnel on three snaps in Weeks 1-6, pushed it up to 14 snaps in their 28-22 win over the Minnesota Vikings, and kept it going with 10 6OL snaps against the New York Giants on Sunday in the 38-20 win that put the Eagles at 6-2 on the season.

10 minutes ago, AmericanEagle77 said:

Oh THAT'S why....

Holy crap I completely forgot about that. So THAT'S why they kept using Calc as a blocker. They probably have the running scheme this year based on FB and OL6 since they did it so much early, and Lane was out for a big amount of time as WELL as FB getting a season ender. Actually this is a pretty huge point, I hope they can use Team Johnson + Latu in that case, we can probably get the running game going. It'd be nice if they did a 50/50 split with Barkley until they were sure they could keep people from hitting Barkley in the backfield, but I think that's probably something they're afraid of a bit thanks to Saquon's brand new contract that wasn't needed...

How did you miss it? We've written about it in here on many occasions. Anyway, it might be a really big deal.

16 minutes ago, e-a-g-l-e-s eagles! said:

No outside threat without him. Cheat up for the safeties.