October 27, 2024
In Week 8, the Philadelphia Eagles faced the underachieving but talented Cincinnati Bengals, and put together their most complete game of the season. As always, win, lose, or tie, we hand out 10 awards.
Jalen Hurts' day didn't get off to a great start, as the Eagles' first two drives ended with poor throws. The first was a deep ball to A.J. Brown on 3rd and 15 that sailed well over Brown's head and fell harmlessly incomplete. Brown had a one-on-one opportunity, and ideally you'd like to at least give your elite receiver a chance to make a play on the ball.
On the second drive, he threw a ball to the flat to a well-covered Kenny Gainwell, and Gainwell had to transition to being the defender on the play to prevent an interception.
Otherwise, Hurts had a terrific performance on Sunday, completing 16 of 20 passes (80%) for 236 yards (11.8 YPA), and a TD to DeVonta Smith. He also ran for three touchdowns.
After a mistake-plagued start to the season, Hurts has now gone three straight games with no turnovers. He completed his final 12 passes of the day, he ran hard in moments that called for it, he was decisive, he was accurate, and he out-dueled Joe Burrow in a 20-point road win.
It was an odd game in that the Eagles only had eight drives, but they scored on seven of them, including four touchdowns, and only punted once.
It feels like anytime DeVonta Smith has a game where he isn't heavily involved he has a big game the following week. After making 1 catch for -2 yards last Sunday against the Giants, Smith caught 6 passes for 85 yards, and this TD reception:
The Eagles and Bengals both have exceptional wide receiver duos. Smith and A.J. Brown combined for 11 catches for 169 yards. Ja'Marr Chase had 9 catches for 54 yards and a TD, but his counterpart, Tee Higgins (quad injury), did not play.
A season ago, the Eagles had some opportunities to close teams out with their four-minute offense, but failed to do so. That team did not employ Saquon Barkley. This one does.
"Well, we have Saquon," Lane Johnson said, when asked why the Eagles' have been better at closing out opponents late in games this season. "That helps."
Up by 10 with a little over 12 minutes left in the game, the Eagles turned to Barkley, who carried 7 times for 57 yards, including a stellar run in which he broke two tackles, tip-toed down the sideline, eventually stepped out of bounds before hurdling a photographer. That run set up Hurts' third rushing TD of the day.
Barkley finished with 22 carries for 108 yards. He is on pace for 1,860 rushing yards this season.
One of the big moments of the game was a two-play sequence at the end of the third quarter in which the Eagles were only up by 7, and the Bengals were trying to score the equalizer.
On 3rd and 1 from the Cincy 39, Zack Moss ran into a brick wall named Brandon Graham, who threw Moss to the ground for no gain.
"We had a wall, and he ended up just running into my gap," Graham said. "I just played my gap, didn't try to do nothing else, and he came right to me. Man, that was big. Then the next play, Coop came in, made a big play. I feel like that changed the game."
Coop, of course, is Cooper DeJean, who made the following play on Chase when the Bengals went for it on 4th down.
"It was man-to-man," DeJean said. "Once they started motioning him back and forth, I knew they were going to try to go to him. I just had to get through the traffic, play downhill, go make it happen."
Before Sunday, the Eagles hadn't forced a takeaway since Week 3. They finally got one in the fourth quarter against the Bengals, when Isaiah Rodgers volley-balled a Burrow throw to Chauncey Gardner-Johnson.
"I kinda lost it in the sun," Rodgers explained. "I saw it last minute, and once I finally turned around I seen [Gardner-Johnson] in my rear view mirror. So I just patted it and hoped he was right there, and he was right where he needed to be."
On the Bengals' very next series — their next offensive play, actually — Zack Baun forced a fumble after a Mike Gesicki reception, which was recovered by Nakobe Dean.
So to recap, in a span of six defensive plays:
It took a while, but the defense had an explosion of big plays.
The Eagles had an embarrassing tackling performance against the Buccaneers Week 4. Since then, the team's tackling has been drastically better.
"Tackling is the number one thing that makes football what it is," Reed Blankenship said. "Obviously it took us a little bit to get it going, but it's that mindset that we have and we work on it every day."
One of the concerns surrounding the Eagles' offense heading into the season was whether the Brotherly Shove would still be effective after Jason Kelce's retirement.
It's fine.
On Sunday, the Eagles scored two touchdowns and converted a long 4th and 1 on Brotherly Shoves, just as they have all season so far.
(I say this with all due reverence to Kelce, of course. Please nobody egg my house.)
I didn't hear the telecast from the press box, but I'm guessing they didn't often mention Fred Johnson's name today. That's because he did an excellent job on star Bengals edge rusher Trey Hendrickson, who has 60 sacks since the 2020 season, third-most in the NFL during that span, behind only T.J. Watt and Myles Garrett.
The Eagles left Johnson one-on-one against Hendrickson, and he was up to the task in relief of Jordan Mailata. Johnson played for the Bengals from 2019-2021, and he exchanged jerseys with Hendrickson after the game.
The Eagles' Week 9 game will be at home against the Doug Pederson-led 2-6 Jaguars. It will be the final game of a four-game stretch in which the Eagles faced teams with losing records:
The Eagles' three-game winning streak has come against teams with a combined 7-16 record, but they've also collectively outgained them by 465 yards and outscored them by 49 points. After their matchup with the Jags, the Eagles will play back-to-back huge divisional games against the Cowboys and Commanders.
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