December 12, 2022
EAST RUTHERFORD, NJ - The pearl-clutching hit a breakneck pace after Washington’s Brian Robinson gashed the Eagles for 3.1 yards per carry and a long run of 11 yards in Philadelphia’s only loss of the season back on Nov. 14.
Sarcasm set aside, Robinson did just enough to move the chains on a consistent basis, something when coupled with unforced Eagles’ errors and too much unsuccessful tempo resulted in the perfect storm needed for an inferior opponent to get the dub, to date the Eagles’ only blemish.
The feeling at the NovaCare Complex, however, was that the Eagles beat the Eagles, not the Commanders.
On Sunday at MetLife Stadium, on paper at least, that same scenario seemed like the only one for a talent-deficient Giants team, further hampered by significant attrition due to injury.
To say that played out would be an understatement as it was three possessions and three TDs for the Eagles en route to a 48-22 rout, a 12-1 record, and the status of the first NFL team to clinch a playoff berth.
Rewinding back to Robinson and the Commanders, which sparked the narrative of how in the world would you stop Jonathan Taylor, Aaron Jones, Derrick Henry, and Saquon Barkley if you couldn’t deal with the Alabama rookie?
Turns out the answer was yawning and perhaps thanking the football gods for providing opponents who struggled to pass the football. Taylor had the only solid performance with 84 yards on 22 rushes, while Barkley capped it by managing just 28 yards on nine carries Sunday.
The big-name backs turned out to be nothing more than a respite for an Eagles’ back end trying to play four corners until Avonte Maddox and C.J. Gardner-Johnson returned from injuries.
The former came Sunday at MetLife Stadium and the latter could come as early as Jan. 1 against Garnder-Johnson’s former team, the New Orleans Saints.
In their stead, Josiah Scott was workmanlike in the slot in relief of Maddox and undrafted rookie Reed Blankenship was a revelation while tagging in for Gardner-Johnson, a nod to secondary coach Dennard Wilson and his assistant D.K. McDonald, who correctly ascertained behind the scenes that Blankenship had passed the higher pedigreed K’Von Wallace on the meritocracy chart behind the scenes.
Early concerns are that Blankenship may have torn his ACL on the terrible MetLife Stadium turf, however, further stressing the back end if that’s the case.
“We’ve got way bigger goals than this, it’s onto the next one,” Nick Sirianni said after clinching the playoff berth.
To reach those bigger goals, at some point it will likely be Patrick Mahomes, Josh Allen, or Joe Burrow the Eagles have to go through so that's where the hand-wringing should be directed.
Justin Fields in Chicago next week is an outlier, not a measuring stick.
Meanwhile, hindsight says Taylor, Jones, Henry, and Barkley, the fearsome-ist foursome since Deacon Jones and Co. combined for 54 carries and 185 yards against Jonathan Gannon’s “soft defense” with the light boxes, an average of 46.25 yards per game.
Phil Ford and Dean Smith couldn’t have circumvented that stretch more deftly than Gannon.
The real tests still lie ahead, a stark reminder of why the Eagles play defense the way they do.
John McMullen is a contributor to PhillyVoice.com and covers the Eagles and the NFL for Sports Illustrated and JAKIB Sports. He’s also the co-host of “Birds 365,” a daily streaming show covering the Eagles and the NFL, and the host of “Extending the Play” on AM1490 in South Jersey. You can reach him at jmcmullen44@gmail.com.
