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26 UNANSWERED POINTS – 30 Immediate Observations from Eagles 33, Rams 26
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Alright I’m gonna be honest with you, I wrote this intro and headline three different times. The original title of the article was “Ass,” when the Birds couldn’t pick up a first down and looked like the Bad News Bears in the first half. Then the second title was “The Good News and the Bad News,” predicting a walk-off field goal loss despite the offense figuring things out in the second half, and reviving the passing game in the process.
And after all of that, we settled with 26 UNANSWERED POINTS as the Eagles miraculously clawed their way back to take the late lead and then block their second field goal to ice it. The image of Jordan Davis hauling ass all the way down the field is going to be one of the all-time Eagles images. A thicc six walkoff? Incredible!
It felt almost like the Week 3 play back in 2017, when the Birds won their first Super Bowl. Remember Jake Elliot hitting from 62-yards against the Giants? Of course you do. That was a destiny type of play and this one also felt like a destiny type of play. It’s THE snapshot of a 3-0 team that now has the offense unlocked and firing on at least 5 of 6 cylinders. Not only do the Eagles get the improbable W, but they answer a lot of questions at the same time.
From here? Sky is the limit.
To the observations!
1) Greg Olsen is a lot better at color commentary than Tom Brady.
2) I would have loved to see the Birds take a shot on the opening drive, after the Zack Baun interception. You have a turn of momentum there and an opportunity to maybe hit one of those go balls down the sideline. The Rams looked like they were keeping two safeties back early, so instead the Birds threw some underneath stuff and eventually got a PI on A.J. Brown in the end zone. That led to a tush push TD.
End of the day, it’s 7 points.
3) Time to bust out the flow chart after the Birds converted with a designed QB run on 4th and 2:
4) So much for the extra enforcement on the push. The Eagles false started on the first one and the refs didn’t whistle it.
5) Jalen Hurts anytime touchdown scorer has now hit six times in a row and 16 times in his last 22 games. That’s 72.7%.
6) It was refreshing to see Mike Pereira doing unbiased ref analysis, as opposed to Cowboy lover Dean Blandino giving his personal opinion.
7) The Ram’s kicker made 51 yards look like a chip shot. Looked like he didn’t even step in and boot it that hard. Too bad that was the highlight of the game for him.
8) Looks like the Eagles are gonna be a third and long “coward’s draw” team this season. You can at least throw something underneath there and gain back some yardage instead of letting Saquon Barkley take a hit on a give-up run.
9) Eagles fans were calling for OPI on the Davante Adams bomb. The arm does come up and extend, which usually gets flagged. Refs decided not to throw it.
10) Broadcast did a good job diagnosing the early problems with Matt Pryor coming in for Lane Johnson. Saquon totally blew that blitz pickup on the third drive, but he’s shading to his right and looking to help a backup left tackle, which is the catalyst for the missed assignment. You start to overcompensate and then things like that happen.
11) At least the refs saw the LA center picking up Jihaad Cambell and driving him into the ground. Needed that one after the Birds were pretty much abused on that drive.
12) Starting field position was horrendously bad after the interception. Throw in some penalties with struggles in fielding the line drive kick off, and the Eagles began five straight drives inside their own 20.
13) Seemed like a weak throw by Hurts on the 3rd down to Jahan Dotson. Came out too late, didn’t have a lot of oomph on it.
14) Pretty underrated play was Stafford just missing Adams on that third down speed out. They had to settle for two field goals when the Birds O was playing like garbage. Thankfully Sean McVay was being a humongous wussy in the 2nd quarter, getting really conservative when he could have blown that game wide open.
15) What an open to the second half! Pryor gets beat by Jared Verse, Hurts is crushed and fumbles, then LA scores when one of their guys successfully picks three Eagles at the same time.
16) I’m old enough to remember when Pryor was a guard. What was the point of having him out there at tackle anyway? Fred Johnson replaced him after the fumble and they looked like a completely different team. Good job Howie making that trade and good job by Stout or whomever realized the mistake and made the change.
17) Eagles’ 7th drive: 5 plays, 79 yards, 2:28 off the clock, touchdown. Let Jalen sling it!
18) Jordan Davis vs. Matt Stafford in the open field was somethin’ else. You shed some weight and now you’re running down scrambling QBs on 3rd down. Also helps that Stafford is slower than molasses. Huge play no matter what, and a bit of foreshadowing that we didn’t realize until later.
19) 3rd and 10 on the 8th Eagles drive, and the Rams decide to drop 8 and rush 3. Absolute cowardice! That’s malpractice on LA’s part. We’d be flipping out if Vic Fangio did something like that.
20) That was OPI on the A.J. Brown score, but we’ll call it even. One for you, one for me.
21) Thought it was pretty funny when Joe Davis said Jalen was hyping up the Eagles defense on the sideline, when you could see Cam Jurgens’ mop from a mile away. There was another shot of him talking to Patullo, it appeared, with Jemal Singleton standing there.
22) That taunting flag on Nacua was weak as hell. Just let them play. That was maybe a 0.2 out of 10 in terms of unsporting behavior.
23) It appears that McVay went to the 2002-2012 Andy Reid school of timeout usage.
24) 4th and 6 from the 50? Hoo boy. Need to see what the analytics sheet says about that one:
Recommendation is to go for it. You do have to account for momentum at that point. The Eagles had been throwing the ball well. Conversely, the defense had just made two stops in a row. Tough one.
25) DaVante Adams drops a touchdown catch and then Jalen Carter blocks a kick. LA left a LOT of points out there. Missed opportunities in both halves to let the Eagles hang around. This sums it up pretty much:
26) Nice to see the Birds get Verse with a zone read pull in the 4th quarter. It’s something they’ve had plenty of success with in the past. They ran a few more designed runs on a drive that looked Shane Steichen-esque.
27) The film guys identified Emmanuel Forbes as a player to target going into this game. Sure enough, he was in coverage on two of the three passing TDs that the Eagles scored.
28) There’s gonna be a lot of talk about Jakorian Bennett covering Nacua on the final drive. Legitimate talk, of course. They kept Quinyon Mitchell on Adams, and the Birds got dinked and dunked in what could have been a disaster ending.
29) A.J. Brown: 10 targets, six receptions for 109 yards and a score. There was never anything to worry about.
30) Jordan Davis, you are the man!
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