November 11, 2021
Kate Frese/for PhillyVoice
Eagles quarterback Jalen Hurts scrambles against the 49ers.
On Sunday, the Eagles will travel to Denver to take on the 5-4 Broncos, who are fresh off snapping a four-game losing streak with two straight wins over NFC East opponents, including a surprise win over the Cowboys last weekend in Dallas.
On the season, they're 3-0 against the Eagles' division and will be going for the sweep on Sunday against Philly.
The Birds, meanwhile, are coming off their third loss of the season against the rest of the Broncos' division and will be looking to avoid a getting swept by the AFC West this season after already falling to the Chiefs, Raiders and most recently the Chargers.
Despite all that losing this season, the Eagles have looked better over the last two weeks, the first of which saw them demolish the winless Lions while the second saw them carry over a lot of things that worked against Detroit and put up a real fight against a good Chargers team, ultimately falling short on a last-second field goal after trading blows throughout the second half.
Now, Nick Sirianni's team will travel to the Mile High City to face Teddy Bridgewater and Vic Fangio's Broncos, who boast one of the NFL's better defenses. Each of the last five meetings between these two teams featured at least 57 total points — and the last two combined for 146 points, with the winning team in each scoring at least 50 points on their own. However, with Denver allowing just 17 points per game this season, that's not likely to be the case on Sunday.
Will the Eagles keep with what's been working the last few weeks, or will Sirianni abandon the run if his offense hits a snag? Will Bridgewater become the latest QB to complete 80% of his passes against the Birds? Or will Jonathan Gannon get his defense back on track for at least one week? We'll find out on Sunday. In the meantime, here's a look at how our writers see this Eagles vs. Broncos matchup playing out...
TV: CBS (Greg Gumbel and Adam Archuleta)
RADIO: 94.1 WIP (Merrill Reese and Mike Quick)
| Book | Spread | Money Line | Total |
| DraftKings | DEN -3 | PHI +140 DEN -159 | 44.5 |
| FanDuel | DEN -3 | PHI +128 DEN -152 | 44.5 |
| UniBet | DEN -3 | PHI +125 DEN -143 | 44.5 |
| BetMGM | DEN -2.5 | PHI +125 DEN -149 | 45 |
Will the Eagles' defensive line show up? That's the question in this game. As we noted in our five matchups to watch, the Broncos are very banged-up along their offensive line, and the Eagles should win in the trenches defensively. Sometimes they dominate, like they did Week 1 in Atlanta or Week 8 in Detroit. More often, they have disappointed this season, most notably last week when they didn't so much as breathe on Justin Herbert.
Teddy Bridgewater is completing more than 70 percent of his passes this season, and as we are all aware, the Eagles are allowing opposing quarterbacks to complete passes against them at a historic clip. However, Bridgewater also holds onto the ball for a long time, so if the Eagles are going to force some passes to hit the ground on Sunday, they'll have to ensure that Bridgewater hits the ground on occasion, too.
Javon Hargrave got out to an All-Pro-level start this season, but he has cooled off. Josh Sweat has had some nice moments, but they've been few and far between, partially because Jonathan Gannon's defense isn't putting him in enough situations to succeed. Meanwhile, Fletcher Cox, Derek Barnett, and Ryan Kerrigan have been disinterested, dumb, and invisible, respectively.
I'm not ready to bet on this D-line.
I picked against the Eagles last week at home against a team that is probably similar in skill level to the Broncos (in the Chargers). So why would I pick them to win, away from home against another AFC West team this week?
Well, what I saw at the Linc last weekend may have resulted in a loss in the ledger but it was one of the more reassuring performances I have seen in a while. The offense appears to be turning a corner with Nick Sirianni starting to figure out how to handle his personnel. The run-pass mix has been very good and the playbook is showing off Jalen Hurts' strengths.
And while Denver's defense is better than the Chargers' D, the Broncos offense is worse, and I think the Birds' defense will do enough to keep them in this game. I see Philly winning this time, putting it all together and keeping the Broncos from doing too much with the football.
The Eagles offense has looked better the last couple of weeks, showing far more balance and in fact going so far that they went from the most pass-heavy team in the NFL to the most run-heavy team in just a couple of weeks. The question, however, remains how long Nick Sirianni will keep that up and if the change is a permanent one or more of a reaction to the last two opponents, the first being the worst team in the NFL and the second boasting the league's worst run defense.
This weekend, the Eagles will face a team on the opposite end of the spectrum, as the Broncos are one of the toughest defenses in the NFL — 6th in yards allowed and 2nd in points against — and are 11th in rushing yards allowed per attempt. Offensively, they aren't that great, but the Eagles defense has been letting quarterbacks go wild against them this season, and they'll have to at least work to keep Teddy Bridgewater in check. If they don't it could be another long Sunday for Philly.
The Eagles will put up a fight in this one, as their new-look offense will help keep them in games — assuming they stay committed to it. Denver's average offense should help allow Sirianni to stick with the run game rather than playing catchup all afternoon, but ultimately the Broncos defense will prove too much for the Birds, who fall just short at Mile High.
Until the Eagles prove capable of preventing quarterbacks from completing 80 percent of their passes on a routine basis, I don’t know how anyone can pick them to win games with any level of confidence. They’re not putting pressure on quarterbacks right now, and with Teddy Bridgewater completing over 70 percent of his passes for the season so far, this could be a classic death by 1000 cuts game.
Then there are the recent performances to point to — the Broncos just beat a Cowboys team that has proven themselves far superior to the Eagles this year, while the Eagles are mostly just holding onto moral victories and signs of progress. Give me Denver.
Points of reference:
• Denver's win in Dallas.
• The Eagles' loss to the Chargers.
The Eagles have an identity crisis. They want to throw the football but they’ve settled for running the ball the past two weeks. It’s worked. I applaud the offense for being prepared against Detroit and adjusting right away against the Chargers. As much heat as we put on the offense, at least they are trying. The defense is not. And by defense I mean Gannon, and by “not” I mean he can’t coach. I don’t trust the defense to do the right thing, ever. It’s a surprise when something good happens as it’s usually just the result of a player making a football play.
Somewhere along the road of winning a Super Bowl, someone in this organization forgot it’s players who make plays, not some 24-year-old punching numbers fresh out of Gettysburg. The Broncos are good. They throw the ball and have a deadly accurate QB without the Eagles D making it much easier. Take the Broncos, hope for the best with Fletch, and let’s see if the offense learned anything.
How Nick Sirianni plays this game is a little more interesting than the result honestly.
The Eagles morphed from a read-option, spread offense to a more conventional play-action setup when the dregs of run defense showed up on the schedule — Las Vegas, Detroit, and the Los Angeles Chargers. Now, they are facing a Vic Fangio defensive team that is top 10 in virtually all the major defensive categories and coming off the game of the year to date, an upset win of the talented Cowboys in Dallas. And the Broncos are accomplishing all that without Von Miller, who was recently traded, Bradley Chubb and most of their top linebackers, including tackling machine Alexander Johnson.
If Sirianni believes he's found the formula to competitiveness, he'll continue to try to pound the ball even though Denver is ranked No. 6 overall when it comes to stopping the run. The conundrum is that the Broncos are nearly as good against the pass (No. 8 overall) and have much more talent in the secondary, including two very good safeties in Justin Simmons and Kareem Jackson, as well as a talented rookie corner in Patrick Surtain that the Eagles were very interested in back in April.
Call it a hunch but this could be a trap game for the Broncos, who are coming off their most impressive win in which a number of their young players stepped up in a big way. A week of getting pats on the back plus the bye week looming could have those young Denver players looking past an Eagles team that only wins on the road.
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