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Defense Wins Everything – 25 Immediate Observations from Eagles 10, Packers 7
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Behold, the paradox of sport, when a game of football can be as ugly as it is beautiful.
Case in point, this one, a Monday Night Football slugfest featuring some of the worst offensive play you’ll ever see. Vic Fangio’s unit was as good as Kevin Patullo’s was bad, and regardless of where you fall on the spectrum that connects both sides of the ball, there’s no denying that the Eagles just made a few more plays than the Packers en route to a gritty 10-7 road win at Lambeau.
For that reason alone, you have to go Posidelphia despite wanting to jump off a bridge through the first three quarters, then at the end of the 4th. It was a classic case of the famous meme:
End of the day, the Eagles defense held Green Bay to 261 yards and one score. Jordan Love finished 20-36 for 176 yards and the Packers only converted 5 of 13 third down attempts. They entered the red zone only once and fumbled twice, a truly putrid performance without Tucker Kraft, Matthew Golden, and a depleted receiving corps.
It’ll go down as one of the best Eagles defensive performances probably ever, and it’ll cover up, at least temporarily, a poor offensive outing, especially coming off a BYE. We’ll have the rest of the week to talk about that nonsense, but for now, we celebrate a win as the Birds move to 7-2.
TO THE OBSERVATIONS
1) Obviously the Disney vs. Google standoff is pathetic. A couple of billion-dollar corporations bickering like children while working and middle class YouTube TV customers are forced to seek alternatives. Figure it out. Grow up.
2) False start on the Packers on their first QB sneak. We should ban the play because the refs can’t officiate it properly.
3) Jalyx Hunt with the drive-killing sack to kick things off. Really nice to see one of the existing EDGE guys make a big play after the addition of Jaelan Phillips. A bit of motivation for that group, perhaps.
4) It’s the small things that make you smile, like Jalen Hurts opening the game from under center.
5) The refs really do stink, don’t they? Everybody watching on television saw the Eagles jump on the first tush push, yet the zebras did not.
6) That was such a good opening drive by the Eagles before the fumble. Key third down conversions, good play calling, methodical and smart, then you give credit where it’s due. It was a great punch out by Keisean Nixon, who looked like prime Peanut Tillman out there. Jalen Hurts came down on top of the tackler and GB made a really nice play. Don’t think it has to be anything more complicated than that.
7) Anybody else have bad flashbacks to the Sao Paulo game with all of the slipping on the second Eagles drive? They had some receivers sliding around before that as well.
8) The Coward’s Draw returns! Put it in the bagster.
9) The thing that killed off the third Packers drive:
10) Bad Jalen on the third drive. Almost picked off throwing across his body on first down, incomplete/late on second down, then almost a pick-6 on a third down attempt for Jahan Dotson. Ugly-ass drive from QB1 and offensive coordinator Kevin Patullo.
11) Xavier Gipson is gonna break one this year. You can sense it.
12) Jaelan Phillips shedding a tackle for a big 2nd down stop? Yes, very good. He will fit in nicely here. He recovered the fumble at the end of the first half a little bit later and looked solid in run defense… a bit of FORESHADOWING for the play that ended the game.
13) Jordan Mailata hasn’t had a great season.
14) Horrendous penalties at the end of the first half. Mailata. Brett Toth. Kelee Ringo. Add it all up it was 40 total yards in the span of a few minutes.
15) Eagles at halftime: 125 yards, 0 points. Hurts 7/12 for 48 yards.
16) Better on the opening drive of the 2nd half, but once negative play and a penalty and you’re looking at 3rd and 12 and another give-up touch for Will Shipley. Settling for three points pretty gross when you’ve got A.J. Brown, DeVonta Smith, and Dallas Goedert as your primary pass catchers. That’s the conservative way they were operating through the first part of the season.
17) Gotta laugh at Jalyx Hunt almost clobbering the referee with that celebration. He would have knocked him out completely if that connected.
18) Thought that was a beautiful play by Reed Blankenship, but the dude didn’t catch the pass. Just took it right off the shoulder pads.
19) Former Eagle Darian Kinnard with a penalty to wipe out an explosive play. We thank him for being a sleeper agent.
20) “There you go! Five yards, there you go!” Tell me I’m not the only one who heard that after the first Saquon run of the 4th quarter.
21) Tell you what – as bad as Kevin Patullo was through the first three quarters, the decision to take a shot with DeVonta Smith after the huge Saquon reception was excellent. You’ve got Green Bay on their heels for the first time, so why not throw the dagger? It wasn’t even an amazing pass, but Smitty went up and got it. Super Bowl 59-esque. Just goes to show what happens when you get aggressive and go back to what was working against Minnesota and New York.
22) Feels pretty lame when the defense is pitching a shutout all game long, then they back up the DBs after the touchdown and allow Green Bay to go 75 yards in 11 plays in just 4:46. No reason to get soft at all with those receivers doing nothing all game long.
23) Smitty saved their bacon on the ensuing drive. Those first two plays were GROSS as hell. Seriously, that read and pull for Goedert works every time, except this time he didn’t get his head turned? Then DeVonta bails them out and moves the sticks on 3rd and 12! How about it? It’s almost like you can throw instead of doing the coward’s draw.
24) Dirty ex-Cowboy Micah Parsons with a trip that went uncalled. Or “Michael Parson,” as Jerry Jones once called him.
25) Incredible that it comes all the way down to 4th and 1 and Green Bay commits and illegal formation penalty while fumbling. A PERFECT way to end the game, or so we thought. That shot to A.J. Brown wasn’t needed. Just pin ’em back and the clock will run. Instead, we had to sweat out a 64-yard field goal.
Kevin has been writing about Philadelphia sports since 2009. He spent seven years in the CBS 3 sports department and started with the Union during the team's 2010 inaugural season. He went to the academic powerhouses of Boyertown High School and West Virginia University. email - k.kinkead@sportradar.com