The Eagles went into a must-win game with three healthy receivers on Sunday afternoon, one of whom is a rookie while the other two weren’t even on the squad to the begin the year.

Naturally, they leaned on one of those guys for the game-winning touchdown, a play where Greg Ward went up, attacked the football in the air, and came down for the score with 26 seconds remaining on the clock. What a pleasure it was to watch an Eagle receiver make a play on the ball. It was refreshing.

And listen, sometimes when the season is on the line you have to lean on the practice squad receiver who actually played quarterback in college. It’s just like we all drew it up back in the summer.

This game was not an instant classic by any means, but the Birds clawed their way back to .500 and host the Cowboys this weekend with the NFC East and a home playoff berth at stake. It’s been an ugly and choppy and thoroughly unenjoyable ride, but if you’re looking for reasons to remain optimistic, the division title is within reach.

1. Carson Wentz, comeback king

For the second straight week, Carson Wentz did what his detractors have been asking him to do. He led a game-winning drive.

Of course, they’ll immediately poo-poo that by saying, “well it was just against the Giants and Redskins,” which is a fair enough point, but you really can’t have it both ways. You can’t demand something specific from the guy and then try to downplay it when it actually happens.

Like most things in the life, actuality lies somewhere between the lunatic fringes of perception, and this Wentz game was no different than most of the games he’s played this year, a sampling of some great plays and some bad plays, like the fourth-quarter fumble preceding the comeback drive. The problem I have with the Wentz haters is that they continue to believe he’s problem #1 when he’s really problem #4 or #5 when looking at the Birds from a macro perspective.

As such, I made a meme that I hope fellow pragmatic neutrals can appreciate:

Get it? It’s that Asa Khalif guy, when he was yelling at some random Starbucks employee who had nothing to do with the arrests of two guys last year.

Anyway, here’s what I liked from Wentz:

  • 1st drive scramble on 3rd and 3 (with the ole’ shovel pass fake beyond the line of scrimmage)
  • the end zone toss that was dropped by J.J. Arcega-Whiteside
  • the fantastic corner end zone toss for Miles Sanders
  • hanging in the pocket on the third down play of the final drive
  • pretty much everything else on that drive

Didn’t like:

  • threw high on a couple of occasions again
  • that risky 3rd down attempt for Dallas Goedert while falling over (almost picked off)
  • the bad low throw to Greg Ward on 3rd and short
  • fumble that Big V jumped on
  • the fourth quarter fumble, which was lost

That’s pretty much par for the course with Wentz this season, and chalk this one up as one the best throws of his career:

2. Greg Ward, our savior

Four catches for 40 yards and a touchdown on the final drive alone. Ward finished with seven grabs for 61 yards on nine targets.

For context, Mack Hollins has 10 catches for 125 yards and 0 touchdowns this entire season, so Ward’s single-game production on Sunday was about 50% of what Hollins did over the course of six games.

So yeah; what in the world were the Birds thinking when they kept Hollins and cut Ward? Even in the summer Ward looked better, so it wasn’t like he was chopped liver and blew his chance to impress. They likely just kept Hollins because he was a better special teamer and they thought he’d play a small receiving role behind Nelson Agholor, DeSean Jackson, Alshon Jeffery, and the tight ends to begin with. Then, when everybody got hurt, Hollins had to play more, and he was exposed as a stinky receiver and later cut. Here we are now with Greg Ward catching game winners.

Good thing, too, because Arcega-Whiteside didn’t have a fantastic game, dropping what looked like a touchdown here:

He had another shot in the end zone on the first drive but didn’t really fight through the corner and attack the ball. Need more from JJAW, but Ward was great.

3. Stinky defense

The Redskins came into this game as the NFL’s worst offense, averaging 262 yards per game. They were starting a rookie quarterback and missing Derrius Guice, leaving 65-year-old #boomer Adrian Peterson to carry the load.

Jim Schwartz’s defense was feeling charitable on Sunday afternoon in that boring stadium, gifting Washington 362 yards while Dwayne Haskins threw for a career-high 261 on just 19 completed passes. That’s 13.7 yards per pass, a QB rating of 121.3, and a 67% completion rate.

You can take your pick of infuriating defensive sequences from Sunday, but the thing that bothers me more than anything is that inability to string momentum together, which I think I wrote about a few weeks back. What I mean is that when the offense scores, the defense is typically inexplicably shitty on the ensuing drive, and in this game they followed up every single Philly score by allowing Washington to score.

Seriously.

Here, look:

Two first-half scoring drives for the Eagles, both resulting in the defense giving up touchdowns on the ensuing Washington possession. That was the case again for part of the second half:

Big difference in the second half was the defense holding twice for field goals, which kept the offense in it, especially after the Wentz fumble.

But it’s really annoying, isn’t it? They just can’t seem to link offensive momentum to defensive momentum, and vice versa. Special teams was also uninspiring. This is enough to beat some crappy teams, but Sunday against the Cowboys might be different.

4. Running the football on third down

Almost had a heart attack when I saw Wentz hand the ball off on 3rd and 7 and 3rd and 11, a pair of plays that Sanders saved with his shiftiness and skill.

It’s interesting to me, the concept of running on third and long, since typically the ‘ole draw play was a “let’s just phone it in because we’re gonna punt anyway” kind of thing. Then it caught on a bit in the college game, where pass-heavy teams in pass-heavy leagues (Big 12) would put the ball on the ground against light defensive fronts and try to catch teams off guard.

In this case, the Eagles ran those plays into what ended up being a five-man rush with a stunt and a weakside blitz, respectively:

He beats Landon Collins in space on the first play and then somehow skirts Jon Bostic on the second play, leaving nothing but green grass in front of him. That was 50+ yard gain that could have been a tackle for loss.

5. Miles Sanders appreciation

Most scrimmage yards by a rookie in franchise history, breaking DeSean Jackson’s record.

He stepped up big time Sunday with 172 yards and two touchdowns, which is less like a “breakout” game and more like a “I’m gonna carry these guys” type of game. Seriously though, 172 and 2 touchdowns is a prime Alvin Kamara or Tyreek Hill type of stat line, and yet it doesn’t feel like Sanders is getting a ton of national attention this morning.

I feel like his season has been a bit overshadowed by the injuries and assorted crap stories that have dominated headlines (Wentz, Pederson, etc). In any other year, we’d be talking about how special this guy is, and how the Eagles hit a home run with this draft pick, but it’s different in 2019 because of all the negativity surrounding the Birds. I also don’t know if Sanders has had that ‘wow’ type of play that puts him on SportsCenter and kind of gets the floodgates opened.

But look at this game log; this is a rookie doing this:

Fantastic stuff.

6. Mistakes and breaks

Not exactly a lengthy list this week:

Mistakes:

  • JJAW end zone drop
  • another Jason Peters false start in opponent territory
  • defensive holding penalty negating a sack (late flag yo)
  • Ertz 3rd and 7 drop, which was probably zipped in there a little too hard

Breaks:

  • Washington deciding to punt from the Eagles’ 43 yard line on the opening drive
  • JJAW jumping on the Boston Scott fumble
  • late hit on Zach Ertz after ball was way beyond him
  • terrible call on the low hit against Wentz, which gave the Eagles an automatic first down
  • review overturning the Wentz fumble via incomplete forward pass
  • Big V fumble recovery
  • Steven Sims not running forward on 3rd down and failing to move the chains

That last one was huge, and they talked about it on the broadcast. Sims caught a third down pass, turned, and may have been able to dive forward to move the sticks. Instead, he tried to round a guy, got tackled, and then Warshington ended up kicking a field goal instead.

The rest, as ‘they’ say, is history.

7. Ancillary wins and losses

Let’s take a look:

  • won time of possession 36:57 to 23:03
  • 0 turnover margin (actually -1 until final play of the game)
  • 11-16 on third down (69%)
  • 0-0 on fourth down
  • allowed Redskins to go 4-10 on third down (40%)
  • lost 8 yards on 2 sacks
  • 4-5 success rate in the red zone
  • 7 penalties for 54 yards
  • 27 first downs, 19 for Washington
  • ran 73 total plays, Washington 51

Huge TOP discrepancy as a combination of quick-strike Redskin offense and slow, methodical Eagle drives with strong third down conversion rates. They did a nice job of moving the chains and committed few enough mistakes that it didn’t kill them in the end.

Another reason they control the clock is because they have no other choice but to plod down the field on 10, 12, and 13 play drives, since the personnel doesn’t hit for big chunk type of plays.

8. Doug’s best call?

I liked the pair of screens and pair of toss plays on the second drive, those quick pitches with pre-snap motion that get Sanders quickly into space.

For the most part, Doug used a lot of the stuff that worked on Monday night, a variety of screens, some short passing with easy releases, and a bit of working Wentz outside of the pocket. If it ain’t broke, and you have a short turnaround on the road, then don’t fix it.

Don’t worry too much about the 46-25 pass/run ratio. A decent chunk of those plays were short hits and screen plays, which are extensions of the running game, so it was more like a 40-30 split if we’re being honest, which is about a 57% to 43% discrepancy.

I’m talking about plays like this one:

Pre-snap motion, flare Sanders out, quick hit and let him work in space. If you don’t have downfield threats, use your best players in the same fashion as the New England cheating Patriots and let them YAC is up out there.

9. Doug’s worst call?

Not sure about three straight passes to start the third drive, though they did have Dallas Goedert open on a jump ball he couldn’t pull down.

I was ready to hang my head in shame after seeing the 3rd and 7 and 3rd and 11 draws play unfold, two calls that would have made Andy Reid very proud. Sanders turned both into first downs somehow, but Doug would have been absolutely crucified if those plays didn’t come off.

And how about declining the holding penalty for the 10 second runoff? What was that all about? This was after the Eagles took a timeout earlier on that Washington drive and stopped the clock before giving up a first down on a big screen play. Feels like Doug has been a little ‘off’ when it comes to  managing the end of the first half going back a few weeks now.

10. Let’s talk about the broadcast

Thom Brennaman and Chris Spielman with Shannon Spake.

Gotta level with you:

I feel like this segment hasn’t been very good lately. I’ve got a baby in the living room and the dog is always a pain in the ass, and therefore I haven’t been paying sharp attention to the commentary like I usually do. I’ve been really distracted.

One thing that did jump out to me was Spielman trying to talk through the late hit Ertz took from Montae Nicholson, which resulted in a 15 yard penalty.

He said this:

“I get that’s he gotta be able to pull up, but that wasn’t anything, I don’t think, vicious or malicious. I mean, the way it is now though, who knows. But I know this, I’ve seen a lot more devastating hits and I thought Montae actually did a good job of pulling off and not leading with the helmet…”

Yeah? Well maybe, but that’s not really the point. It’s not about whether the mechanics of the hit were legal or not legal, the point is that the hit was late. Look at where the ball is when Ertz is contacted:

It bounced off the grass more than five yards away before Nicholson came over and hit Ertz, and that’s the problem everybody had with it.

But let’s not worry about trivial things like color commentary. The Birds are 7-7 and remain undefeated in games where they only dress three healthy wide receivers.