The Eagles’ backups beat the Giants’ starters on Sunday, 20 to 13. That was one win. The other was a clean, injury-free outing, so that’s two victories in one afternoon.

It’ll be a 14-3 finish for the Birds, who won the NFC East last week. It’s the second time in three years that the Eagles have won 14 games, a tie for the best regular-season win total in franchise history. They got there playing 17 games, sure, but were 13-3 after 16 and had only accomplished that two times prior to the Nick Sirianni era, back in 2004 and 2017. The Eagles went to the Super Bowl in both of those seasons, once under Andy Reid and once under Doug Pederson.

Buckle up, boys and girls, because now it gets real. It’ll be the #2 seed Eagles with home field advantage in every situation other than the NFC North winner in the conference title game.

To the observations:

1) It would have been great to see Saquon Barkley break Eric Dickerson’s single-season rushing record, but we wrote last week that Saquon finished with more yards per carry over the same amount of games. You can make a legitimate argument that his 2024 was better than Dickerson’s 1984.


2) Good to see Dallas Goedert with the early targets and some important reps before the playoffs. He missed more than a month and had not played since the Baltimore win. He dropped a third down pass that would have moved the sticks, but looked like himself otherwise.

3) Tanner McKee can sling it, but you already knew that if you watched any of the preseason games. He throws an accurate ball, gets rid of it quickly, and typically seems to find the open receiver. The play that popped more than anything was when he was going down for what looked like a bad sack and was able to dump it off to Will Shipley for a huge gain. He’s a smart player and has the physical tools, just needs reps and experience.

4) First NFL TD for Ainias Smith. Always cool to see stuff like that. He had only played 49 offensive snaps coming into the game and is not used on special teams, so there’s been a lot of standing on the sidelines and watching other people play this season. E.J. Jenkins also caught his first NFL pass, which went for a TD.

5) Got a good laugh out of Darian Kinnard slapping Dru Phillips in the helmet after the 4th and 1 neutral zone infraction. The Eagles got ’em with the ‘ole tush push hard count.

6) Jahan Dotson was one of the few “starters” playing in this game, if you wanna call 11 personnel the Eagles’ base offense. He finished with 7 catches for 94 yards.

7) Jake Elliott shanked a 39-yard field goal. Not great. He hit his other two attempts, from 32 and 24, finishing 2-3 on the day. How do we feel about him going into the postseason?

8) The Eagles had numbers on that fake punt, it was just well-blocked by the Giants. If New York was trying to lose, and improve their draft position, they did a good job of disguising it, and throwing people like Sal Pal off the trail. Not until Boogie Basham jumped offside after the two-minute warning was there any egregious behavior taking place. Kayvon Thibodeaux then contributed to the tank job with a roughing the passer penalty at the 1:46 mark.

9) Nick Gates plays without gloves and now doesn’t even wrap his wrists with tape, like he did in New York. Is he the biggest “football guy” on the roster? He’s like a larger Bryan Braman. There’s always room for at least one white dude with long hair on the roster.

10) Christian Watson and Jordan Love both left the Packers/Bears game. That matchup didn’t mean much to Green Bay, who was already playoff qualified and could only have finished as the 6th or 7th seed. They’re saying it was funny bone for Love, so nothing serious, but Watson was carted off with a knee injury. More fuel for the Saquon argument.

11) Bryce Huff didn’t pop at all in this game, save for what may go down as a fourth quarter pressure on 3rd and 7. You’d have to go back and look at the film to see how he played the run, but he didn’t show up in the pass rush. Regardless, he’s missed time and needed the reps the same way Goedert did.

12) Dotson as a punt returner is intriguing.

13) Couple of high snaps to McKee. Not sure how you snap it over a 6’6″ guys head.

14) Washington pulling Jayden Daniels was interesting. You’d think they’d want the six seed to avoid having to come to the Linc, but you never know what’s going through a Commie’s head. Guess they wanted to keep everyone healthy and focus on what’s next.

15) Okay, that was an awesome touchdown from Malik Nabers. The balance, the athleticism, switching the ball into the other hand. Jeez.

16) When the game means nothing:

17) The Eagles ended the season with all three quarterbacks running the tush push. The tush push is unstoppable.