The added benefit of Eagles' winning in blowouts

 

The Eagles didn’t just win against the Titans and Giants the last couple of weeks.

They crushed them.

They beat the Titans 35-10 and they beat the Giants 48-22. And the Eagles did it quickly enough to empty their bench in the fourth quarter of both of the wins.

The biggest benefit to getting Jalen Hurts and the rest of the starters out there is pretty obvious. It eliminates the risk of injury as the Eagles get close to what they hope will be a long and successful playoff run. Every time a player lands awkwardly or is slow to get up over the next month, you’re going to hold your breath.

But the other benefit is pretty important too. These blowouts are giving the Eagles’ younger players opportunities to get some live game action in the regular season.

"Unbelievably valuable,” defensive coordinator Jonathan Gannon said. "I talk about there are a lot of ways to learn. To me in my opinion the biggest learning tool that you have are game reps. When you can play five snaps here or 10 snaps here or 15 snaps here, those snaps add up.

"It's cool, too, because those guys bust their ass when they're out there, and you like to get them in the game and let's see what you can do and they want to play. Ultimately when they do -- you never want to have a guy that needs to go in and start and not having played any snaps on defense. You'd like to get him out there and play a little bit.

"Those are huge snaps for us as a defense, as an organization, for those guys. They want to get out there and play, and I thought they did a very good job.”

Here’s a list of young defensive players who have benefitted from these recent blowouts. Next to their names are how many snaps they played the last two weeks and in parenthesis is their snap count before the last two weeks:

LB Nakobe Dean: 27 (4)
LB Christian Elliss: 22 (0)
CB Zech McPhearson: 24 (75)
CB Josh Jobe: 12 (0)
S Andre Chachere: 10 (0)
OLB Kyron Johnson: 10 (8)

A couple weeks ago, Dean got in there for some extended time after Kyzir White got banged up but he still played more snaps because of the blowout. And the third-round pick made several plays in his limited time, which is good to see. And Elliss also picked up a bunch of tackles as a practice squad elevation.

The corners McPhearson and Jobe benefitted too. While McPhearson is the next man up on the outside and has seen some time on defense before, those 12 snaps from Jobe against the Giants were the first of his career.

All 10 snaps for Chachere and Johnson came against the Titans. Chachere was back on the practice squad against the Giants and Johnson had to leave the game with a shoulder injury.

And that’s just the defense.

"It’s great. That stuff is invaluable,” offensive coordinator Shane Steichen said. "When you can get those young guys in to play there, because at some point, if something happens to somebody, the next guy has got to be able to step up and play. So, to get those reps late in the game is awesome for them.”

Here’s a similar list of offensive players:

Gardner Minshew: 14 (11)
Britain Covey: 14 (5)
Andre Dillard: 20 (15)
Cam Jurgens: 16 (17)
Jack Driscoll: 21 (194)
Tyree Jackson: 17 (14)

While Minshew certainly doesn’t qualify as a young or inexperienced player, getting some snaps in the offense is definitely a good thing for the backup quarterback. You hope the Eagles never need to see him in any other situation but it’s a good thing for him to be ready.

A few of these offensive players are unique cases. Dillard filled in some at guard after injury and Driscoll has a ton of experience. But gettin Jurgens in there at center is nice. The second-round pick has spent most of his season on the bench.

As the Eagles get ready to face the Bears on Sunday in Chicago — as 8.5-point favorites — it seems possible they might get another chance to clear the bench.

But they’re not taking the Bears lightly.

"The way we've been winning has been awesome,” Steichen said. "But again, like each week is a new week, and we've got the Bears this week.

"They're a young team. They've got a lot of young players playing for them. If you look back, I don't care about their record, whatever it is. They've had a lot of one-score games. They've been right in the thick of it. We've got to be ready to go with our preparation and take care of business.”

https://www.nbcsports.com/philadelphia/eagles/eagles-getting-young-players-snaps-thanks-blowouts

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But they’re not taking the Bears lightly.

They better not be (and to be honest, I doubt they would be ... there are quite a few folks there that will do whatever they can to make sure they stay focused, starting with Sirianni and Hurts).  But hoping Dallas is looking ahead to our Christmas Eve matchup when they play Jacksonville tomorrow and the Jags hand them a L.  

This is why I think they should play the starters right through. There's a chance they can blow out both NO and NY so they will have an opportunity to rest starters late in the game. Hell if the #1 seed is secured then they could sit the starters in the second half.