It wasn’t always pretty, but the Eagles are 1-0 after a tough win against the Green Bay Packers in Sao Paulo, Brazil.

Saquon Barkley was a monster in his Birds debut, scoring three touchdowns and going for more than 125 all-purpose yards. A.J. Brown was his beastly self, DeVonta Smith looked great, and the offensive line played well enough in the post-Jason Kelce era. Jalen Hurts threw a couple of bad picks and exhibited some head-scratching decision making, but threw a couple of TD passes as well. And Vic Fangio’s defense was up and down throughout, giving up some chunk plays on the evening but holding Green Bay to field goals and coming up with a key takeaway to swing the second half momentum.

Season openers are usually like this. The Eagles had some center/QB exchange issues both early and late. There were a million penalties, as a conservative guess. It wasn’t an instant classic, but the Birds found a way to get the job done against a 2023 playoff team, and they did it in unfamiliar territory after flying to a different continent entirely. You consider all of the circumstances and you’ll take a win, knowing there’s plenty to improve ahead of Week 2.

To the takeaways:

1) The black helmet + white jersey + black pant combination looked sharp. It feels a little weird seeing so little green when they wear any kind of black, but matching the Corinthians home team colors made a lot of sense considering the circumstances.


2) Cris Collinsworth’s son did pregame and Ian Eagle’s son did play-by-play. Chris Simms was on the halftime show. Insert nepotism joke here.

3) When you watch the international NFL games, you see a smattering of random jerseys in the crowd. If you were watching during the national anthem, you saw everything in the crowd shots – Cowboys, Steelers, Niners, Vikings, etc. That’s how it’s been in London, Munich, Mexico City, and now Sao Paulo.

4) Illegal formation on the first kickoff of the season? Fire Michael Clay!

5) Have you ever seen offsetting penalties for both teams having 12 players on the field? The Packers were trying to push that early 3rd down so quickly that both squads were flagged.

6) Quinyon Mitchell has that dawg in him. This guy will talk shit to anyone. He’s gonna get whistled for taunting at some point, but he looks like a gamer with a competitive attitude:

7) Dark and somewhat dope vibes inside the stadium. Not sure if it was the design or what, maybe the fact that you could see the night sky through the endzones, but it added to the whole black helmet/black pant/Corinthians theme.

8) The first Eagles drive was a total disaster. Saquon Barkley slips on the first play for a five-yard loss, then incomplete on 2nd down and Jalen Hurts tosses up an intercepted duck on 3rd and 15. Green Bay got the ball back at the Eagles’ 19.

9) Unsurprisingly, the training camp interception stats meant absolutely nothing. ESP is gonna fire up Twitter when he gets back to the U.S. and see a dumpster fire in his mentions.

10) There wasn’t much in that Jalen Carter penalty. Play is dead, two guys scrapping a bit on the ground, maybe they threw the flag because he got the lineman up in the facemask area.

11) Not to overreact, but if Kellen Moore calls another sideways screen, we’re all jumping off a bridge. The only screen that should be called is inside/middle screen to Dallas Goedert. Please take all perimeter and bubble screens out of the playbook. (thankfully he only called 2 all game long, none in the second half)

12) Stating the obvious, but two turnovers on two drives is going to have everyone calling for these guys to play in the preseason next summer.

13) The Eagles had so little of the ball early that NBC couldn’t introduce the Green Bay defense until the 2:29 mark of the 1st quarter.

14) Five Packers penalties in the first quarter. They added a 6th on the 4th and 1 tush push and finished with double digit flags.

15) Really nice design on the first Eagles touchdown. They run orbit motion with Jahan Dotson to get the defense thinking about the wide side of the field, then they come back with Saquon sneaking out against a linebacker wile A.J. Brown and Devonta Smith clear out the short side with dummy routes:

16) Bad slipping throughout the game. Looked like Super Bowl 57 at times. Dunno what the deal was, because there was reporting earlier in the week that the surface used the same Desso Grassmaster system that the Eagles use at Lincoln Financial Field. It’s natural grass with synthetic fibers interwoven. Maybe it was treated differently or watered differently, or humid/wet down there. We’ll get more info over the weekend I’m sure.

17) Zack Baun with a missed tackle on the first Green Bay score. Everyone else was swallowed up by blockers. Lot of ugly to go around there, but the Packers did a really nice job of getting some big boys out in front.

18) At least the D shrugged that off to stuff the two-point conversion. Would have been a 21-17 game going into halftime but that kept it to 19-17.

19) A big play was that 3rd down completion early in the second quarter. For all of the Eagles struggles against the blitz last year, Hurts stood in there, took a hit from an unblocked rusher, and completed an out route that A.J. Brown took for 20 yards.

20) After the ugly early turnovers:

  • 11 plays, 70 yards, touchdown
  • 9 plays, 70 yards, touchdown
  • 15 plays, 57 yards, field goal

They were 4 for 6 on third down on those three drives combined and got a Green Bay penalty to move the sticks on a 4th and 1.

21) Nakobe Dean dropped a pick-6. A couple of plays later, Chauncey Gardner-Johnson was doing God knows what on a 3rd and 10, 70-yard touchdown completion for Green Bay. The defense was as bad as the offense was good once the latter figured it out. They got killed by explosive plays in the first half.

22) The Eagles ran the QB draw on 3rd and 8 right before halftime, knowing they were going to go for it on fourth. They ended up using a hard count and then burning a timeout, then came back and converted 4th and 3 with a DeVonta Smith slant.

No issue with that first call, though, honestly. Why? Because they’ve had a lot of success running Jalen Hurts out of empty set over the years (five receivers wide). It’s a classic Shane Steichen-era call and even if you went throw/throw there, you may not have picked up 8 on the first play. They were obviously in four down territory.

23) Saquon got dinged up before half. I don’t think the broadcast picked up on it. Kenny Gainwell came in and made a couple of fools miss on 2nd and 7, but they took a sack later, committed a false start, and then had to settle for a field goal.

24) Not sure if you caught that halftime graphic, but the Eagles used pre-snap motion on 27 of their 40 first half plays.

25) The new kickoff feels anticlimactic. Feels like it’s not a “football play” with dudes just standing there waiting for the ball to drop. At some point they will probably get rid of it entirely.

26) Nothing profound to say about the A.J. Brown touchdown bomb. That top-end speed was impressive and not something we get to see from him very often. The guy is the best receiver we’ve had since Terrell Owens.

27) Loved Darius Slay lowering the shoulder on Josh Jacobs for a forced fumble that Green Bay unfortunately grabbed. Pro Football Reference says he’s only had one FF in his entire career before that.

28) Avonte Maddox had a poor game. Reminder that Mitchell played in the slot throughout camp and the only reason Maddox was out there is because of the injury to Isaiah Rodgers (and perhaps Cooper DeJean as well).

29) Rashan Gary wasn’t in the neutral zone on that 3rd down sack. The defensive tackle next to him jumped and got back onside, which threw off Lane Johnson off.

30) Nakobe Dean laying the god damn wood on Emanuel Wilson got me off the couch. Good lord.

31) That Jalen Hurts zone read looks to be dead in the water. It hasn’t look good in more than a year. That was a crap series after Saquon ran it for 8 on first down and then they couldn’t move the sticks on 2nd or 3rd down.

32) Todd Blackledge did a good job explaining the Reed Blankenship interception, the part about Baun dropping into coverage and influencing that play. That’s the strength of Vic Fangio’s system, with disguised pre-snap looks and guys rolling into different area of the field:

33) Barkley only had one three-touchdown game in his entire New York career.

34) Add the missed field goal to the list of Packer mistakes, which included a number of slips, drops, and missed passes. They were gashing the Eagles at times, but did quite a bit of shooting themselves in the foot also.

35) Baun played a really nice second half. He was “flying around” out there, as the high school coaches like to say. Not sure about the guy’s ceiling, but he’s definitely got some athleticism and toughness and Philly fans will appreciate his effort and drive.

36) The second Hurts interception may have been worst than the first. Throwing across his body in the red zone on third down? You get three points there and it’s an eight-point lead. And the sideline throw to Jahan Dotson was almost a pick-six. Pretty bad stuff.

37) The EDGE group was invisible.

38) Three Eagles turnovers, three field goal holds from the defense. The analytics guys are saying Green Bay should have gone for it instead of kicking down 31-26, but there was plenty of time left on the clock at that point, their defense just couldn’t get the needed stop.

39) Hurts didn’t do much with his feet until late in the game. Couldn’t get outside and the option game wasn’t there. There were a couple of 4th quarter scrambles, one where he was able to barrel forward and move the sticks around the 3:30 mark, but nothing designed that gained any sort of meaningful yardage.

40) The Eagles closed it out with a 16 play drive that took more than seven minutes off the clock. By the time Green Bay got the ball back, all they could do was move into position for a Hail Mary attempt that didn’t even come off.

41) 17 penalties for 128 yards. And it was more than that, because there were several instances of flags against both teams on the same play, and other penalties that were declined. It was out of control and killed the game flow. Someone tell the Brazilians that NFL games are not always like this.

VAO AGUIAS / GO BIRDS. Sao Paulo is Eagles TERRITORY.