It wasn’t pretty, it wasn’t easy, but it was a desperately needed win for the Eagles to keep their Wild Card hopes alive. As opposed to years past, this is a team that’s confident and intimidating at home and uses Lincoln Financial Field’s environment to its advantage. All week, this game had a Vikings-like feel to it. The Vikings had the best defense in the league and the Falcons had the best offense in the league, but neither team really exuded an undefeatable aura. I expected the Eagles to emerge with a win, but I thought it’d be a back-and-forth, high-scoring game in which the Eagles matched the Falcons’ explosive offense by taking advantage of their soft defense. A 34-31 heart-stopper sounded right. So, naturally, we got a defensive slugfest. This was exactly the Eagles team we envisioned going into the season and that played over the first three weeks: Defense rises to the challenge, run game establishes a ball-control offense, team grinds out the win. A week after Malcolm Jenkins said the Eagles had to get back to playing “boring” football, they re-embraced the formula and identity necessary to mask their deficiencies and be successful.

THE GOOD

Defense

Aside from one breakdown where Leodis McKelvin took the cheese (although his post-game quote almost made the gaffe worth it) and let Taylor Gabriel run past him for an easy, 76-yard pitch-and-catch touchdown, the Eagles defense completely stifled the best offense in the league. The Falcons managed 11 first downs and gained just 227 yards on their other 47 plays, while Matt Ryan went 17/32 for 191 yards (6 ypa). This is an offense that came into Sunday’s game leading the league in passing and total offense, that had scored at least two touchdowns in every game and at least three touchdowns in seven of their nine games. Props to the Eagles offense for controlling the ball for nearly two-thirds of the game, but it’s really incredible what the defense accomplished — things no defense had been able to do all season, even things no defense had been able to do to the Falcons in the Matt Ryan era.

Jim Schwartz gave Kyle Shanahan a wedgie, stole his lunch money, and then came back later to hit him over the head with a folding chair and, being the silver-haired fox he is, fucked his wife for good measure. We have a shirt for that:

This hasn’t been a typical Falcons team that goes gangbusters at home in the dome and then withers on the road, either. In fact, they averaged 34 points in their first five away games. They couldn’t get half that against the Eagles. The front seven was able to exploit a shaky offensive line and get pressure on Ryan, sacking him twice, hurrying him six times, and affecting numerous other throws by disturbing the pocket. The Falcons were the NFL’s most prolific deep passing team and Ryan had the most attempts and completions over 20 yards. He managed just three completions of 20 yards or more in this game on eight attempts. Every time the Falcons offense got into a bit of a rhythm, the defense stiffened and came up with a crucial stop — and they managed to do so without forcing a turnover, either (excepting McKelvin’s game-sealing interception).

Maybe what impressed me most was how disciplined the defense was fundamentally, particularly with their tackling. Two weeks after missing 12 tackles against the Cowboys, I can’t recall a single costly missed tackle against the Falcons. Individual defenders wrapped up and everyone else swarmed to the ball. Julio feasts after the catch but didn’t have any room and was constantly met by multiple tacklers. Like Antonio Brown’s 12 catches, 140 yards and no touchdowns in Week 3, Julio had a relatively non-impactful 10 catches, 135 yards and no touchdowns. The Eagles don’t have a cornerback who can shut down that kind of wide receiver, so the objective has to be a collective effort to make sure he doesn’t kill you.

Aside from the Redskins game and the end of the Cowboys game, the defense has been as advertised and truly among the NFL’s best. I think it’s safe to say Sunday’s inspired performance was all because of Bennie Logan returning to the lineup.

Malcolm Jenkins

There are a number of defensive players who deserve to be highlighted, and it’s hard not to give his paragraph to Jalen Mills for somehow hanging in there in single coverage (!) against Julio Jones (which I still can’t comprehend) or Jordan Hicks for continuing his sublime post-bye week play, but Malcolm Jenkins stood out the most in real time. The leader of the defense made a number of strong solo tackles in the open field and key stops on third down when one-on-one with wide receivers (like tackling Mohamed Sanu three yards short of the stick on third and 11 on the second drive of the game). He was also called upon to fulfill increased cornerback duties once Nolan Carroll left with a concussion. On fourth down late in the game, with the Eagles clinging to a 21-15 lead and the Falcons attempting to drive for the go-ahead touchdown, Jenkins matched up with Julio Jones out of the stack and stayed with him 20 yards down the field to help force a drop. This is remarkable coverage on the league’s best wide receiver in the game’s biggest moment.

Run game

First time all year the run game was legitimately dominant. The Falcons came into the game with a pass defense giving up over 280 yards per game (mostly because teams are always trying to keep up or playing from behind), but their run defense was actually top 10, allowing just 4.0 yards per carry. There was really only one way to keep the Falcons offense at bay: Keep them off the field. The Eagles came out determined to control the game by running the ball and asserted themselves on the very first drive with eight carries for 46 yards (5.75 ypc), punctuated by Ryan Mathews scoring from four yards out to cap five straight handoffs. The rest of the game was more of the same, as the Eagles gashed the Falcons defense and broke off chunk after chunk. They finished with 38 carries for 208 yards and a 5.5 ypc that was a full yard-and-a-half above what the Falcons were giving up.

Mathews ran with power and purpose and looked the best he had since Week 1 (19 carries for 109 yards and two touchdowns). Wendell Smallwood was finally worked in early and throughout the course of the game. The burst and downhill style he showed against Pittsburgh were on display again, and he finished with 13 carries for 70 yards. Sure seems like Doug Pederson and Frank Reich realized they were tempting fate by overworking Darren Sproles and wised up. I feel like Mathews-Smallwood will become the bell cow duo for the remainder of the season, with Sproles retaining change-of-pace and mismatch receiver duties.

Carson Wentz

Wentz went back to being a game manager after passing for 364 yards against the Giants and was in complete control of the offense. A couple critical drops didn’t help matters, but the focus of the Eagles offense was clearly on the run game. I will say that the two plays at the end of the first half were the first time all season I’ve been enraged with Wentz, however. How could he not fall on the fumble at midfield after having it knocked out of his hands? Instead he got on his knees, ass up in the air, and attempted to cup the ball into his body. Who in their right mind tries to cover a fumble like that? Then at the end of the half on fourth down, he throws the ball short and into the ground, giving the Falcons one last chance for a Hail Mary with three seconds left on the clock. The play call was for a quick out to the sidelines with the hope of getting in field goal range, but when the throw wasn’t there, Wentz has to be smart enough to just chuck the ball to Camden and let the rest of the time tick off. The fumble and fourth down play are simple mistakes that a player with Wentz’s football IQ absolutely cannot make. He’s lucky the defense bailed him out on both occasions (stopping the Falcons on three plays and forcing a long field goal that Matt Bryant missed, then rushing Ryan and not even allowing him to get off a desperation heave to the end zone).

Offensive line

The whole unit was excellent, especially, of course, in the run game. Stefen Wisniewski, Jason Kelce (who was up and down) and Brandon Brooks road graded the interior of the Falcons defensive line (which includes one of the league’s most underrated defensive players, Grady Jarrett) and constantly blew them off the ball (aside from the stretch play on third and goal from the 1, naturally). Every run up the middle seemed to gain at least four yards, and I can’t remember any immediate penetration into the backfield that reestablished the line of scrimmage and resulted in negative yards. The Eagles were able to operate in a lot of manageable second and third downs and utilize the whole playbook.

PS – Shoutout to Isaac Seumalo, who had a few key blocks to spring runs when he came in as the sixth offensive lineman.

Kick returns

Turns out cutting Josh Huff wasn’t a difficult decision because he wasn’t the reason for the return game being a legitimate weapon. Kenjon Barner looked great, but he needs to finish and take it to the house. Cut inside, my man, don’t let the kicker push you out of bounds because the offense probably isn’t going to score a touchdown.

THE BAD

Every wide receiver not named Jordan Matthews

Can you imagine what’s going to happen against Seattle? My God, it’s going to be like watching a JV team go up against pros. Actually, I’d rather take my chances with the JV guys. No wide receiver aside from Matthews is even going to get a target. A week after showing he can take the top off a defense, Bryce Treggs saw just 15 snaps and not a single target. I don’t want to even bother wasting words on Dorial Green-Beckham (zero targets) and Nelson Agholor (two catches for seven yards on five targets and a third-down drop). They simply don’t deserve snaps. Agholor being on the field for 71/79 offensive plays is lunacy. Honestly, at this point the coaches can’t just keep hoping one of these guys will break out when all they do is actively hurt the team. They’ve shown nothing and are undeserving of continued chances.

Penalties

After three straight games where the Eagles cleaned up their sloppy play and committed only 15 penalties total, they had 10 penalties for 78 yards against the Falcons. Luckily five of those penalties were false starts and two others were delay of game, so there was nothing devastating — except for Najee Goode’s inexcusable, unforgivable personal foul penalty for hitting the punt returner after he snagged the ball on the bounce out of bounds. I forgot Goode was even on the team. Dude, you were an engineering major. I know it was at West Virginia, but how can you not be smarter than that? How is that even possible? There’s four minutes left in the game, your team’s up six and you give 15 free yards to the league’s best offense that was in desperate need of any of kind of break. For what? So you can get your lick in on a guy since you don’t get a chance to hit anybody all game? I would’ve cut that selfish asshole right there on the field.

Eagles at the end of the first half

The Eagles have been sharp at the end of the first half so far this season, but that was not the case on Sunday. There was Wentz not falling on the fumble and cuddling the ball like it’s his girlfriend who wants to be little spoon, the low-percentage screen pass play call to Sproles that was DOA (thanks to Kelce whiffing on his block) and should’ve been a fumble but wasn’t because nothing in the NFL is a catch, and the fourth-down play call in which Wentz didn’t make sure to waste the rest of the clock and instead gave the Falcons one last chance with the ball.

None of the above plays came back to haunt the Eagles because 1) the fumble was ruled an incomplete pass upon review 2) Matt Bryant holy shit no way missed a field goal (after the defense forced a three and out) and 3) Brandon Graham didn’t allow Ryan to throw a Hail Mary. However, the results do not change the concerning nature of the process for all three. They won’t be so fortunate again.

THE UGLY

Not actually giving a shit about player safety

What a shameful farce. There are seven referees on the field, and not one of them has the balls to call that? They call clean, bang-bang hits all the time because of the violence of the collision, if only to protect the “defenseless receiver.” Are they even watching the play? Apparently they were but that doesn’t even matter because they either forget the rule or are disgustingly selective. As Howard Eskin reported from the sidelines afterwards during the WIP broadcast: When the referee came over to talk to an irate Doug Pederson following the play, he said he thought it was a clean, shoulder-to-shoulder hit. Which was obviously wrong. Maybe in addition to his eyes, his ears stopped functioning for that play as well. When Pederson brought up the “defenseless receiver” rule, the ref said, and I shit you not, “Oh, I guess I could’ve called that.” Cool. I’m glad Matthews spoke his mind in the locker room because that was some indefensible BULLSHIT.

WHAT’S NEXT

You might want to talk yourself into this game and believe it’s a trap for the Seahawks coming off an emotional win in Foxboro over the Patriots, but they’re going to be at home and are at that point of the season where they hit their stride. I know the Seahawks haven’t been rolling over teams, but this is a really bad matchup for a toothless offense. I think there’s no way this isn’t the Eagles’ first blowout loss of the season. The Seahawks will single up the receivers (who won’t get open), put eight or nine in the box every play and bring overload blitz after overload blitz. Wentz is going to be under siege, and he hasn’t exactly shown the ability to escape intense pressure. I don’t see how the offense plays mistake-free football or moves the ball at all and don’t see them breaking 200 total yards. The front seven is going to have to take over and get to Russell Wilson, and the defense and special teams will probably each need to score a touchdown for the Eagles to even have a chance.