OK, let’s start with Lemony Snicket’s Series of Unfortunate Oh My God What The Fack Was Dat? Five straight turnovers, two punts. Gross. This game was a bit of a defensive battle, and give credit to both teams for forcing turnovers, but holy disgusting football, Batman– just brutal play. Two horrible decisions from Carson Wentz:

Thanks, Sam. You suck.

Throw in a couple of fumbles and you have yourself the worst quarter of football of the season, in the entire league, between two of arguably the best teams in the NFC.

I’d argue that all three calls-non calls were wrong, but here you have one play with incidental, non-intentional, non-violent contact that made no difference on the outcome of a play, and two obvious MUGGINGS that did impact the play… and only the first one was called. Not to mention that Carson Wentz was steamrolled on that throw to DGB:

Jesus Christ– even Judge Doom was like, yeah man, that’s a penalty:

It feels like every big play in this league comes back because some lineman sneezed on a blocker in the backfield long after the play, but then when you have genuine, obvious infractions… nothing. It’s infuriating. Oh and hey THE CLOCK:

But if the refs are going to be game-tarnishing morons, at least they’re taking their sexual(?) frustrations out on the other team:

The defense

So good!

Strife!

Carson Wentz wasn’t great against an admittedly very good D, but one thing that continues to plague him is his stubborness to not look beyond his first read (something Dan has been harping on). Here he is not only missing a wide open Zach Ertz, but also not even seeing Brent Celek, who inexplicably still has enough speed to get down the field and open like this, and then failing to connect with Nelson Agholor on a deep route that Agholor predictably mis-ran:

The throw in the vicinity of Agholor* was probably more on Agholor than Wentz, who was not happy with his middling, nonchalant, continually disappointing receiver after the play:

*I’d submit that we just call all passes to Agholor “in the vicinity of” rather than “targets,” because the best you can do is just throw it in his general direction and see if he happens to be anywhere near it (usually not).

Oh and STOP DROPPING THE FUCKING BALL:

There was another drop by Trey Burton on the all-important third and 2 during the Eagles’ two-minute drill at the end of the half, but Wentz can be partially blamed for that one.

Of course, if it’s not the missed receivers, piss poor routes, or drops, then it’s Jason Kelce trying to cut the fucking play off at its root with his inability to SNAP THE FUCKING FOOTBALL. Here’s Wentz making something out of Kelce’s nothing, repeatedly and consistently to the point of chafing, like when you first discovered channel 97 showed boobs if you hit the TV with an overstuffed beanbag:

Somehow Wentz found two nipples and, I think, a crotch in that jumbled mess. Hot.

Agholor

Here’s a Reddit post submitted for your review:

Does anyone else think he is playing soft? There were at least 2 instances where I felt he could have done a better job. One was the Rhodes interception http://www.nfl.com/videos/nfl-game-highlights/0ap3000000725825/Rhodes-comes-up-with-diving-INT-of-Wentz

There was another deep ball where Wentz seemed frustrated with him for not running the right route or for easing up too soon.

We have seen this in previous weeks as well, especially with deep throws.

Looks like Wentz trusts him quite a bit but Agholor misses more often than not. I think they need to do something to address this.

Yeah he kind of stinks.

Josh Huff return

Blair Walsh, turnstile, welcomes you to the pink and black parade:

Just dive on in:

Pink

Speaking of the Pink, Sam Bradford’s a pussy what a perfect time to focus on all the league does for women. Luckily Josh Brown checked his wife for lumps when he was beating the shit out of her.

Beau Allen showed the appropriate way to raise awareness and oh my he looked just adorable:

Thom Brennaman

I generally don’t hate Thom that much, but he was positively awful yesterday. I honestly don’t think he prepared for the game. Just from my observation, he got downs wrong, once said the Vikings had a third and goal when it was really third and 1 inside the 10, he called DGB “Dorial Beckham Green,” and I think referred to Nelson Agholor as “Agolini.” And he so badly mangled Wentz’s botched-snap-turned-completion to Darren Sproles by saying “BARNER… watching as Sproles makes a reception.” Barner was on the other side of the field.

Doug Pederson’s timeout usage

OK, this is apparently an unpopular opinion judging by my Twitter replies yesterday, but I had a real problem with the way Doug Pederson used a timeout before going for it on fourth and 2 at the end of the second quarter.

Here’s the situation: The Eagles had a fourth and 2 coming up with 1:21 left in the second quarter after Trey Burton dropped Carson Wentz’s lousy pass that would’ve been an easy first down. They were at midfield, with the clock stopped, and lined up in what looked to be an obvious attempt to get the Vikings to jump offsides. They didn’t, the play clock ran down, and Pederson called a timeout. The Eagles decided to go for it and got the first down because Wentz did something with Kelce’s horrible snap.

The Eagles eventually scored on the drive, kicking a field goal on third down with 10 seconds to go because they didn’t have any timeouts left and couldn’t risk taking another shot at the end zone. Never mind that it took an icing the kicker timeout from the Vikings on the play before it to snap Doug Pederson out of kicking on SECOND DOWN with 15 seconds left.

Give Pederson credit for going for it and getting points on the drive, but his logic to call a timeout was once again flawed. Your odds of getting the Vikings to jump there are small. You can’t just blow timeouts all willy nilly! There was under two minutes to go, you only had two timeouts left, and were actually entering Vikings territory. As it turned out, if the Eagles had a timeout, they would’ve been able to take another shot at the end zone. Who knows if they would’ve got it, but you have to play the odds with these things.

People on Twitter told me that maybe they were lining up to see the Vikings’ D or needed the timeout to decide whether to go for it, but I don’t believe that to be the case. Watch the video here– it looks like they only lined up in an attempt to get them to jump and had no intention of snapping the ball [I don’t know why the video is so small]:

I just don’t buy that they were sizing up the Vikings’ D, because everyone on Earth knew that it would be a run play anyway, and the Vikings are good at disguising their looks.

Between this, Pederson’s literally incorrect decision to use a timeout before punting at the end of the game last week, and his and Andy Reid’s reasoning behind their 8-minute drive in the playoffs last year, he continues to show a maddening inability to understand how a clock works. Sure, sometimes unconventional buffoonery works, but when it comes to timeouts and the clock, you have to play the odds. Using a timeout to attempt draw the Vikings offsides is not worth it when you could use it to get another play. Calling a timeout before punting, when you can control the clock, is mathematically wrong when the result is that the other team will surely milk the clock on the ensuing drive. And thinking that your odds of recovering an onside kick rather than stopping Tom Brady, as difficult as that may be, is simply wrong. I think Doug Pederson has done a very good job so far, but these timeout snafus reek of just the worst of Andy Reid (which smalls pretty bad), and I worry that they are going to cost the Eagles a game or even their season at some point.

Mike Trout

Best fan ever:

"E-A-G-L-E-S EAGLES!" – @MikeTrout (@MLB, @Angels)

Trout cheers and sings after the big win! pic.twitter.com/bfTlkJvuqD

— NBC Sports Philadelphia (@NBCSPhilly) October 23, 2016

Jon Dorenbos

Ladies man!

Shout out to @JonDorenbos for this! #GoBirds #46

@dmcarlyon @Kina521 pic.twitter.com/xW4XCxFyJ8

— michelle (@michelleXox0) October 24, 2016

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Cowboys next week. Fly now.