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Passing Team – 26 Immediate Observations from Eagles 28, Vikings 22
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Remember when the Eagles couldn’t throw the ball? They were a running team that couldn’t pass.
Now they’re passing team that can’t run. Funny how things shift in the National Football League.
Jalen Hurts had his best game of the season in Minnesota on Sunday afternoon, completing 19 of 23 passes for 326 yards and three touchdowns. He finished with a perfect 158.3 quarterback rating in a 28 to 22 road win against the Vikings.
It was not always pretty, and Carson Wentz errors played a big role in this game, the pick-6 the largest of several backbreakers. Several times Minnesota got into the red zone and settled for three after shooting themselves in the foot.
Circumstances being what they are, the Birds ended the losing skid to improve to 5-2 with a revenge game against the Giants looming. So we will consider the glass once again half full after a rough couple of weeks as we go to the observations:
1) Good to see Will Shipley and Xavier Gipson back there on the opening kickoff. Or were they? FOX missed the opening kickoff, which was outrageous. Who’s directing this broadcast?
2) Honestly had no clue Javon Hargrave was with the Vikes.
3) That first tush push was pretty rough. Imagine being the guy laying sideways on the ground and you get smushed by all of those huge bodies. Brutal!
4) We are generally anti-coward’s draw, but that 3rd and 11 call on the opening drive was tolerable since they were in 4-down territory anyway. It was either a Jake Elliott long field goal or… a 4th and 4 scramble play and A.J. Brown. Just like everybody expected.
5) Pretty concerning how many explosives the defense is giving up this year, considering the whole point of the Vic Fangio scheme is to not give up explosives.
6) Good point by Greg Olsen. It is hard to snap the ball over the head of a 6’5″ quarterback. But if kickers are going to hit from 59 yards inside of a climate-controlled stadium, then it is what it is.
7) Eagles second drive – did they have to show tush push on 3rd and 1? It’s gonna be there on 4th and 1 if you throw incomplete. Instead, they false started and put themselves in 3rd and 6, then missed on a sideline shot to DeVonta Smith and had to punt on 4th. Poor decision there, imo.
8) Jalen Carter obliterated Wentz. Holy cow! Patented swat right off the line. He’s so quick with the get off. It’s gotta be one of the best defensive lineman moves in the NFL:
9) Andrew Mukuba with another missed tackle on the sideline. Saw that in the Giants game.
10) 4th and 1 holding call on the Vikings – just like we drew it up! Bend, but don’t break. Seven points becomes three points instead. That was really the story of the first half, the fact that Minnesota had a couple of self-inflicted errors that forced two field goals.
11) Eagles at halftime, before the garbage drive to end the 2nd quarter: 0-5 on third down, 98 total yards. Saquon Barkley 3.8 YPC. Pretty bad.
12) Should the Eagles have used their timeouts after the Hurts sack before halftime? Hard to say! They were on their own 35 yard line and facing 3rd and 13 and decided to mitigate the risk and get into the locker room. Right decision, or wrong decision, it showed how much confidence Nick Sirianni has in the offense right now.
13) Carson bailing out the Birds again with the ole’ shovel pass right into the ground. Awesome. A new type of worm burner that we’ve never seen before. That set up 3rd and 18, and forced another field goal.
14) “There’s been some really questionable plays by Wentz today.”
15) DeVonta Smith with another dagger. Isn’t play action beautiful? They should do it more often! (they came into this game 32nd out 32 NFL teams with a 4% play action rate)
16) Lotta talk about the Eagles letting Isaiah Rodgers walk, but he got cooked like a Thanksgiving turkey on the Smitty TD. Like prime Izel Jenkins.
17) It shouldn’t be lost on anyone that Brett Toth, stepping in for Cam Jurgens, had issues with shotgun snaps in training camp. Ironically, they snap the ball from under center and score a TD. Go figure.
18) Olsen looked like he got a lot of sun recently, like he was golfing on Saturday perhaps.
19) Eight plays, 60 yards, 4:29 off the clock. Not a great response by the Birds defense after going up 21 to 9. Credit to the Vikings though for realizing that you take the ball out of Carson’s hands in the red zone.
20) Tyler Steen just isn’t Mekhi Becton in the run game, but most linemen are not.
21) Jake Elliott’s first field goal miss of the season. Oh man.
22) The third and 5 Saquon run before the Elliott miss… You understand the process there, thinking they get into tush push territory perhaps, but at that point he was averaging what? Less than four yards per run??
23) Hoo boy I’ll tell you what, that 3rd and 13 conversion was the game. Some of Jalen’s best work keeping that play alive and finding A.J. Brown. If that fails, it feels like they go on to lose.
24) Kevin O’Connell with some stones to go on 4th and 2 after the Hockenson overturned touchdown. Should they just have kicked the field goal there instead? They needed two scores regardless. Maybe he felt like they had some momentum going with Wentz, but they ended up taking a bad sack and burning too much clock, just to have to kick anyway. Brutal sequence for them, worked out for the Eagles though.
25) Final drive: Running Saquon three times and then punting wasn’t gonna do anything other than burn timeouts. So they tried to be aggressive and connected on a bomb that put the final nail in the coffin. Bang bang!
26) End of the day, Jalen Hurts threw for a lot of yards and didn’t turn the ball over. Carson Wentz threw for a lot of yards and turned it over twice. That was probably the difference in this game. Protect the ball and you’re always going to be in a position to win.
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