Without knowing exactly what went on behind the scenes, we can safely say that the Titans trading A.J. Brown was one of the dumbest NFL moves of the last 10 years. It’s right up there with the Raiders bringing in A.B. and Chip Kelly shipping Shady McCoy to Buffalo for Kiko fuckin’ Alonso.

The Birds ran roughshod in what admittedly was a herky-jerky type of game. Every offensive line penalty was seemingly followed by a big passing completion, so it was like football vertigo watching this team go up and down in the first half specifically. The refs also decided that they wanted to be the stars of the show, bringing this game to a crawl and messing with the portion of Eagles nation that suffers from ADD. It was really hard to pay attention because there was a stoppage every five seconds.

No matter.

Jalent Hurts played an awesome game (380 yards, 3 TD), the defense shut down Derrick Henry, and the special teams had its best performance of the season. It’s the first time since the Pittsburgh win that all three units performed well, and that is quite worrisome for everyone else in the NFL.

The takeaways:

 

1) The Eagles got away with holding on the opening kickoff, but it was good to see Boston Scott look for the edge instead of running forward five yards before being absolutely obliterated, ala Britain Covey. HOWEVER – Covey (the Mormon Missile) had punt returns of 20, 28, and 25 yards in this game, which was the best we’ve seen from him this season. The special teams really rebounded after stinking up the joint last week.

2) Two false start penalties and a wasted timeout on the opening drive. We got Nick Sirianni mumbling some combination of cuss words on the sideline. But they recovered nicely with a 3rd and 8 conversion to DeVonta Smith (great route) before taking two deep shots and carving up the Tennessee secondary.

Greg Olsen explained this on the broadcast, but the safety jumped the tight end route and that left Smitty 1v1 on the deep post:

3) The second drive ended with Jalen Hurts throwing a pass into the ground, but that’s okay. He was just paying homage to Donovan McNabb. He finished this game with almost 400 yards passing and three TDs, plus a score on the ground, so it’ll go down as one of his best performances ever.

4) We’re going with the nickname of “Ed Reed Blankenship.” I’m not sure where it came from, but I saw it on social media, so if you are the originator, let me know so we can give proper credit.

5) Ryan Tannehill had a couple of first down conversions with his feet. Those happen when a play breaks down, but when the Eagles are playing two-deep, it’s hard to ditch your assignment and close the gap. The onus has to be on the line to keep contain there, because once he got to the outside, everyone else was downfield in coverage. You saw Fletcher Cox do a nice job with that on the 3rd down stop in the second quarter, so they fixed it and didn’t let it happen again.

6) Five false starts on the offense in the first half. Landon Dickerson, Lane Johnson, Jack Stoll, Jordan Mailata, and Jason Kelce all guilty. There was an illegal shift on an audible as well as holding on Isaac Seumalo and Kelce (a make-up call).

7) Those were tough catches, but Quez Watkins probably should have hauled in one of his first two targets.

8) Kevin Burkhardt and Greg Olsen is currently my favorite FOX announcer pair. That being said, it was goofy to hear Olsen complain about the pass interference rules when a ball is thrown short. If you don’t get your head turned and locate the ball, then you gotta get flagged for DPI.

9) Tennessee challenged that nine-yard catch in the first half and won. Refs got it right, only for the Eagles to come back on the very next play with a 26-yard Jack Stoll gain. Then Stoll jumped offside on the very next play.. followed by an overturned touchdown, then an actual touchdown. I felt like I was on mushrooms watching this game.

10) What was going on with Mike Pereira during the A.J. Brown catch that was overturned? Sounded muffled, and he was looking at the wrong foot on the line. He couldn’t even get through the explanation before the officials finished their review and made the decision.

11) TERRIBLE unnecessary roughness penalty on that Jalen Hurts sack. We would be going apoplectic if that was called on an Eagle. The Bud Dupree one was legit though because of the contact to the head and neck area.

12) They did use Jordan Davis and Linval Joseph at the same time in this game. Davis lined up as nose tackle and Joseph was one of the DTs in their Bear front.

13) A new wrinkle to the QB draw play. They ran it out a split back formation, which I don’t remember seeing earlier this season.

14) No issue with the challenge on the Robert Woods incompletion. You’re up 21-10 at that point with a chance to take possession deep in the opponent’s half. My thought was that he didn’t make a “football move” and that’s what they ended up ruling.

15) A.J. Brown’s second TD catch was sick. Nothing profound to say about it. He just looked it in with the guy draped all over him:

The only Eagles receiver of the last 15 years who can make that catch is 2017 Alshon.

16) FOX played some Dinosaur Jr. as bump music. Dinosaur Jr. is great, really underrated band from back in the day.

17) Hey refs, keep the flag in your pants! We didn’t tune in to watch you.

18) The Watkins double-reverse/option flea-flicker was the best four-yard gain of all time.

19) Smith and Brown both went over 100 yards receiving. That’s the first time it’s happened for the Birds since Riley Cooper and DeSean Jacccccson in the Nick Foles 7 TD game.

20) I wrote Seth Joyner’s postgame introduction:

“Yeah the Eagles won by multiple touchdowns, but if they commit these penalties next week, they will lose to the Giants. They have been exposed.”

21) Good to see Nakobe Dean get some run. I keep forgetting he’s sitting on the bench. We’re stacked at linebacker! Who’d have thunk it.

22) Andrew Adams twisting A.J. Brown’s leg was corny and dirty. Let the dude go.

23) Final line for Derrick Henry: 11 carries for 30 yards

24) I don’t like the red line for first downs. Please switch it back to yellow, FOX.

25) Sports radio callers are going to have nothing to complain about this week. Might be a long seven days for ’em.