Roob's Obs: Too close for comfort, but Hurts again shows he's a winner

 

 

 

Reuben Frank

EAGLES INSIDER

They’re not always easy, they’re not always pretty, they don’t always go the way you expect, and sometimes you just have to hold your breath for three hours. It’s why we love the NFL so much and why it drives us crazy.

The Eagles have won a lot of ugly games this year — when they almost blew a 17-point lead in Detroit, when they were tied with the Texans midway through the third quarter, when they trailed the Colts by 10 points going into the fourth quarter.

Happened again Sunday.

That was too close for comfort, but the Eagles are now 6-0 in one-possession games and they’re 13-1 overall, and that’s all that matters.

Here’s our observations off the Eagles’ fifth straight win:

1. Jalen Hurts didn’t have any fancy stats this time. Didn’t throw any touchdowns. Struggled early. But he did what the great ones do, shrugged it all off and made a whole bunch of plays to help his team win. I don't know if he'll get MVP, but Hurts is a winner and he showed why once again Sunday. He took a beating. He threw two bad interceptions early. He struggled at times. He completed less than 60 percent of his passes. Yet you look up at the scoreboard and it’s Eagles 25, Bears 20 and another win. Hurts overcame mistakes, a bad start and cold and windy conditions and simply willed the Eagles past the Bears. These are the games where you really appreciate Hurts. The last couple wins came easily. This one the Eagles needed every drop of Hurts’ magic. Whether it was his three rushing touchdowns, his 164 passing yards after halftime, his huge 3rd-down conversions late in the game, his two-point conversion or his big throws to A.J. Brown and DeVonta Smith, Hurts picked up the team and carried them to their fifth straight victory under some very difficult circumstances. The stats were ugly. The performance was beautiful.

2. Hurts did flat-out take a beating Sunday, and there is nothing more important than getting him to the postseason healthy. This was a little scary to watch. He’s such a weapon running the ball, and it’s a tricky balance figuring out how much to use him and when to back off. I thought Sunday, Shane Steichen called too many plays that put Hurts at risk. Now, some of those are RPOs and some are scrambles when the pocket breaks down, and sometimes hits are unavoidable. But whatever the breakdown between called runs and improvised plays, it was too much. Gotta keep the franchise safe.

3. I get that the Eagles believed they had some mismatches with their receivers vs. the Bears’ corners, but on a cold, windy day it just didn’t seem like a bunch of deep shots to open the game made a whole lot of sense. You have Miles Sanders vs. the NFL’s 27th-ranked run defense, and considering the conditions that seemed to be the mismatch the Eagles should have been trying to exploit. The Eagles ran 18 plays before Sanders (or any other running back) got a carry, and by then Hurts had already thrown a couple bad interceptions. I fully expected the Eagles to come out and ram it down the Bears’ throats. Was surprised they didn’t. And, really, the Eagles never did get into much of an offensive rhythm, and that’s what happens when you don’t establish early that you can run and throw. Steichen has been terrific this year, but this was not a very good day for the Eagles’ play caller.

4. What a monster performance by the Eagles’ defensive line. That’s 55 sacks this year and 19 in the last three games, and that’s crazy — especially considering the Eagles ranked 31st in sacks last year with just 29. The Bears would run the ball every snap if they could, but when they got into 3rd-and-longs and were forced to pass, it was no contest between the Eagles’ deep fleet of pass rushers and the Bears’ shambles of an o-line. The Bears only threw 22 times but the Eagles still recorded six sacks, making them the 10th team in history with six sacks in three straight games.  They're just seven away from the franchise record of 62 set in 1989 by Jerome Brown, Clyde Simmons, Reggie White and company. On Sunday, Haason Reddick, Josh Sweat and Javon Hargrave had two apiece. So Reddick now has 12, Hargrave 10, Sweat 9 ½ and Brandon Graham 8 ½. And no team since sacks became an official stat in 1982 has ever had four guys with 10. This defensive line has been lights out lately, and Sunday was no different.

5. Focusing on Reddick, he’s been everything the Eagles could have imagined when they signed him to open up free agency. He’s the first Eagle with 12 sacks in a season since Connor Barwin had 14 ½ in 2014, and you’ve got to love his consistency — he’s had at least one sack in nine of 14 games and he had half a sack in a 10th. After being held without a sack the first two weeks of the season, he’s now got 12 in 12 games. He forces fumbles, piles up tackles for loss, gets hits on the quarterback, and he does it every week. Early in the season, I thought the Eagles’ defensive MVP was Darius Slay. In the middle of the year, I was thinking T.J. Edwards. But right now it’s Reddick. He’s in the middle of everything this defense does. What a signing.

6. What a lift Boston Scott has given the Eagles the last couple weeks as a kick returner. On top of his 66-yarder last week he added a 58-yarder Sunday to open the second half and set up Hurts’ second rushing TD. Scott doesn’t play a ton, but he’s such a valuable guy to have around, and he just seems to have a knack for big plays no matter what role he’s in. He’s the first Eagle with more than one 50-yarder in the same season since Quintin Demps in 2008 and the first in at least 40 years with 50-yarders in back-to-back games. My only question is why did it take 11 weeks to put him back there?

7. My favorite play in this game came late in the third quarter with the Eagles facing a 3rd-and-10 on their own 4-yard-line and the Soldier Field crowd getting louder and louder. Hurts threw a short pass to DeVonta Smith, who was surrounded by Bears defenders but just plowed his way through traffic until he got the first down and then got a few more yards as he fell forward. Smith was fabulous Sunday — five catches for 126 yards, second-most of his career. But that play was special both because it was so critical — punt there and the Bears have great field position down four — and because it was not the type of pattern he usually runs. We know Smith can catch and run, but he’s such a tough player, and his ability to break tackles and not let the first guy get him down made that play happen and got the Eagles out of the soup. He's become a big-time blocker, too.

8. Let’s talk about A.J. Brown and DeVonta Smith. Two years ago, the Eagles’ receivers were Travis Fulgham, Greg Ward and Jalen Reagor. Brown and Smith just might wind up as the greatest Eagles WR duo ever. Brown is now over 1,200 yards, Smith is over 900, and both of them were incredible Sunday, making tough, physical, contested catches when the Eagles really needed them. Brown caught nine passes for a career-high 181 yards — most by an Eagle since Jeremy Maclin had 187 in Arizona in 214 — and Smith had the second-most yards of his career with his 5-for-126. These guys are so clutch, so big-time, so consistently great, and they were both huge Sunday. The chemistry they have with Hurts is so profound, he just believes he can get them the ball any time he wants. And sometimes he does.

9. I was surprised Dallas Goedert didn’t play, but if he’s not 100 percent, it’s the right call. I’m all for making these decisions based only on health and not whether the Eagles feel like they really need him. What’s remarkable is that the Eagles are now 5-0 without Goedert, averaging 33 points and 425 yards per game. And when he does come back — hopefully Saturday in Dallas — the Eagles’ offense will be more loaded than ever.

10. One thought on the Cowboys losing to the Jaguars Sunday: Who cares? It doesn’t matter. The Eagles were going to be the No. 1 seed no matter what happened with the Cowboys in Jacksonville. The Cowboys are the Cowboys. They’ve won three playoff games since 1997. The Eagles have won 14. They haven’t been to an NFC Championship Game since 1995. The Eagles have been six. The Cowboys aren’t a threat to the Eagles.

https://www.nbcsports.com/philadelphia/eagles/eagles-vs-bears-eagles-observations-jalen-hurts-aj-brown-nfl-week-15

I don't know why but I didn't actually think this team was going to lose yesterday. Oh actually no there was a small point in the fourth before we scored our last TD where it felt like maybe it would go against us. We were letting things get away from us a little (except on the score board) and it just had that feel of a game that was going to end in disappointment. But this team has earned our trust I think. Despite a poor performance they still led a lot of the game or at least that's how it felt.