Finally
Posted: November 13th, 2016 | Author: Tommy Lawlor | Filed under: Philadelphia Eagles | 147 Comments »The Eagles trailed in the 4th quarter…and won.
The Eagles held a tight lead in the 4th quarter…and won.
The team was 0 for the season in those categories prior to today. This was not the prettiest win, but the Eagles made a few clutch plays and finally came out on top in a tight contest. There were times it felt like they tried to give it away. There were times it felt like the officials were trying to give it away. But in the end the Eagles got the job done and it was the Falcons who made some crucial mistakes.
The final score of 24-15 makes it look like great defense. This was a combination of ball control offense and very good defense. The Eagles were on the field for 38 minutes. That meant Matt Ryan and Julio Jones were on the sideline discussing last night’s episode of SNL or who the hottest chicks in the stands were. Last week Atlanta scored 43 points. Today they had 48 snaps.
When the Falcons were on the field, the Eagles did a fantastic job of making life miserable for them. They could not run the ball very well. Ryan was only sacked twice, but he had enough pressure that he wasn’t as deadly accurate as he usually is. The Eagles did a really good job in coverage. There was one breakdown. Leodis McKelvin bit on a double move and that resulted in a 76-yard TD pass to Taylor Gabriel. Ryan only had 191 yards outside of that play. He completed less than 55 percent of his throws today. For the year, he’s up at 70 percent.
Beyond covering well, the Eagles did a great job of tackling. There were very few RAC yards. When the Falcons had 3rd/long situations, Ryan threw underneath quite a bit. The Eagles rallied to the ball and got the receiver down short of the chains.
The real star of the game was…Ryan Mathews. That may sound crazy, but if you read my preview (posted late), I said this:
Who is the RB – Darren Sproles has been the key RB in recent weeks. The Falcons have speedy LBs. I don’t know if Sproles is the ideal matchup against LBs that can run. This might be a week to give more touches to Ryan Mathews.
Seems like Doug Pederson and I were on the same page in this regard. Mathews was outstanding, going 19-109-2. He ran hard. He showed patience on some plays and let the hole develop. He covered the football in traffic. He ran through initial contact and made the Falcons work hard to get him to the ground.
The Eagles have been too quick to abandon the running game in recent weeks. It was good to see Pederson stick to it and let the Eagles pound on the smaller Falcons. The Eagles ran for 208 yards, easily a season high.
There is still a lot of work to be done. The Eagles had some amazingly dumb moments. Carson Wentz threw the ball away late in the 1st half on 4th down. He needed to throw the ball 50 yards downfield and out of bounds to eat up the final few seconds on the clock. That mistake didn’t hurt the Eagles, but it was just flat out dumb. Najee Goode hit a Falcon out of bounds on a punt that went out of bounds. That was the dumbest moment of the whole year. It made zero sense. The Falcons weren’t returning the punt. The ball was dead. Hitting the guy handed Atlanta 15 yards at a time when they were down 6 points late in the game. Ugh. I was ready to cut Goode on the spot. I’ve calmed down now, but Dave Fipp should dream up some high quality punishment for him this week. Can’t let role players do stupid things like that.
Getting to 5-4 is huge. That gives the team some fudge room as they navigate a tough schedule. Once you fall below .500, getting back above it feels like an overwhelming task. The Eagles still have 4 games left at home, where they are undefeated. Still plenty of optimism for this season.
_
Nelson Agholor
5 targets
2 catches
7 yards
2 drops
Trey Burton
0 targets
Bryce Treggs
O targets
It makes no sense.
To boot, he plays no special teams as he cannot block or tackle either.
So between DGB and Ag they only had 7 more yards than Alshon got us !
Can we please usher Agholor to the exit. I don’t want to see him on the field again! I’d rather play with 3 TE’s than have him in at WR. At least those guys can block as well as usually catch the ball! How many passes have to hit him right in the hands and drop to the ground before they just sit him?
Its time to bench him, at least.
But he runs faster than Paul turner, so..
Especially in the red zone… He goes from useless to utterly useless in those situations
[…] Tommy Lawlor The Eagles trailed in the 4th quarter…and won. The Eagles held a tight lead in the 4th […]
Agholor is truly awful. There’s no other way to say it. Wentz is bound to make some passes behind players or around their ankles. Nevertheless, receivers are there to catch the ball. Do your job!!
Hes so bad that we actually have to blame the qb for not throwing a perfect ball.
I couldn’t give the offense more than a C given the multitude of mistakes they made. Three drops and maybe six illegal procedures, a fumble and a botched handoff. You don’t usually win those games.
Funny the only letter I could give them was a W
Can we talk about how important Bennie logan is to the defensive line? He seems to be vital for cox’s success
You’re saying Cox wasn’t successful when Bennie was injured?
I think he’s more disruptive with logan in there. Also the run defense seems to be more consistent with Bennie in there
Cox is successful regardless who is in the lineup. I think what you see with Bennie in the lineup is the result of a large dropoff in talent from him to Beau Allen.
This is a game we normally find a way to lose. Today we found a way to win. I’m happy.
This. Having two games basically won (Detroit and Dallas), then giving them away with plays (and playcalls) which just shouldn’t happen, was extremely frustrating. Switch those two, and we are 7-2 and have a much different outlook.
This game was not without its frustrating moments — we really need to be able to punch the ball into the end zone better, and that penalty on Goode was infuriating — but we did enough to win.
Demarco Murray threw more touchdowns today than Carson Wentz.
Yeah but he’s still a crybaby.
It’s hard to soar like an Eagle when your receivers are Turkeys.
A win is a win. Wr’s are not good, but we knew that. Pedersen still struggles with play calling in the red zone; we also knew that. The O line dominated a smaller D line and ground out a much needed win. Go Steelers.
We might get the trifecta today, Eagles win, Cowboys loss, and Vikings loss.
So, I was at the game. Enjoyed it thoroughly. Great day for it. Missed all the witty repartee in here, but I’ll get over that.
Defense came to play. Great stuff from Schwartz’s unit all around.
In any case, I see everyone here reached the same conclusion I have. If we can’t trade Agholor for a carton of sour milk, cut him and resign trashcan. Biggest 1st round bust ever. The Marcus Smith pick looks good by comparison.
“The Marcus Smith pick looks good by comparison.”
So sad, but true. I doubt he’ll ever play a regular season game again after this year.
We noticed you were absent and made an effort not to say anything clever.
Unfortunately, we’ve had bigger busts.
Here we go Steelers here we go!
Yeah it was a smaller defensive front 7 but did this team finally find an offensive identity today for the first time all year?
With maybe the exception of Kelce, this group of offensive personnel seemed better suited to running the ball especially Vaitai & Wisniewski. Also seem like they are going to keep 4 RBs active each week moving ahead forward since Barner will be a KR now.
Basically keep a 50/50 mix, not try to have Wentz throw more than 30 times a game, and take the matchups teams give them. Means a lot of rotating the RB & seeing who has more mojo that day (Mathew/Smallwood/maybe even Barner), using Sproles as a reciever, and mix in their share of 2 TE packages & Seumalo as a 6 OL/psuedo FB.
It is old-school football and they’ll have to obtain it if they get down 13-14 pts. This defense though has shown they can play with just anybody & it is realistic to expect them to hold opposing teams to 20-21 pts or less.
I think we’re shaping up to be that team with the so-so record that everyone doesn’t want to see make the playoffs.
Why is that? The Eagles are grinding right now. Its a really tough schedule and they are being forged into a possible playoff team. If they make it in, its deserved.
Think you nailed it. We wont make it either.
Please limited the amount of bubble screens moving ahead forward Pederson. None of the WR on this team have the speed or agility to make guys miss on it and they all have shaky hands to boot.
Called at least 4 of them today and I’d be happy to see if removed from the playbook for the foreseeable future or maybe one a game just to vary up their screen attack.
NA does. He has dropped all the attempts of them thisnyear though.
Enough talking about Romo. He is irrelevant unless Prescott gets hurt.
I’m just hoping they pull Dak. I dont want to get into the whole Dak vs. Romo debacle, but i just can’t imagine it working out well pulling him now, seems like the surefire way to crush all momentum that team has.
Best case scenario: Cowboys lose to the Steelers and the blame gets laid on Dak. Romo starts next couple of game, doing pretty well, before he gets injured again. After a lead up to the game with insufferable Dallas fans about how Daks got this, he goes in an fucking stinks it up.
Romo would turbocharge that mutha, IMO
Good job birds. The good birds. Falcons are cool but Eagles are much better. Fuck the cowboys. Here’s hoping Dak tears his ACL.
Fuccckkkkk OFF Ever rooting for any player ACL tear!! Wrecks college & pro careers far too much as it is. Id be ecstatic if no player ever acl, tear, concussed, go broke etc ever again
Here here. I heard Larry Fitzgerald might be out with a concussion a little bit ago and was happy since im in an important ffb match against him. Then I heard he fell on his neck and was immediately hoping he was ok…looks like he is.
Byron Maxwell just had the easiest pick of his life.
Caught on camera digging his nose?
Watching various NFL games and you realize that the NFL officiating seems to vary a fair amount from crew to crew even though there isn’t a huge variation necessary in the amount of penalties called.
Love to see an official breakdown by crew, type of penalties called, and how that compares to the normal types of penalties called vs that team.
Pretty sure that info is out there available somewhere. Don’t know where I saw it.
AC has provided several excellent posts on referee stats over the past month.
Who has the definitive list of people we could’ve drafted instead of Agholor?
DGB at pick 40
It’s Just a list of every single other player in college football draft eligible at that pick.
I wanted Byron Jones so bad, but would have settled for the less sexy OL pick and then taking Ronald Darby with the Rowe pick.
I also liked Jalen Collins, but hated Marcus Peters, so i pretty much still suck. I just really loved Jones and bought into the hype about him looking like our pick. I didn’t hate the Agholor pick, but Jones going to the fucking Cowboys hurt a little bit.
Marcus Peters is pretty much Asante 2.0.
Meh, from my limited view Peters tackles and thus isn’t a liability.
Besides, Asante gets to much discredit from some Eagles fans. People talk like he couldn’t cover and gave up both big plays and consistent first downs like Bradley Fletcher, when in reality he was a very good coverage corner, who sometimes got burned when going for a big play, but also made a shit ton of them. The dude fell off, the dude wouldn’t tackle and the dude gave up plays, but his 3 first seasons with us was good, as frustrating as he could be at times, especially in the end.
Still a coverage liability. If he’s not jumping routes then he’s just an average CB.
I wanted Byron Jones and Ali Marpet. But I would have never taken Hicks.
Byron Jones
Shane Ray
Eric Kendricks
Ronald Darby
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2015_NFL_Draft#Player_selections
See #20? It’s everyone and anyone past him.
I wanted Byron Jones that year at #20… felt sooo certain he was the pick.
It is pretty safe to identify who the Eagles are at this point. They are a pretty good team. Their offense is extreamly mediocre at best, in my view. Their defense is close to really good, but makes enough mistakes to keep themselves out of any elite conversations.
The good thing about this team is that instead of regressing as we go, as Chip’s teams seemed to, they have improved. The penalties are decreasing, stupid mistakes are slowly becoming less frequent. The only unfortunate part is that the ceiling on this year’s offense appears pretty capped by lack of game breaking talent. Going to be hard to ignore your outside receivers every game.
My favorite part about today was the control the defense played with. In games vs the Skins and Cowboys, it felt like they bought to much into Jim’s attack mindset. They got really sloppy. Today looked like such a well coached unit. It really gave me goosebumps a few times seeing guya stay in their lanes on trick plays and such.
Stupid mistakes like botched handoff/fumbles, hitting return man when they’re out of bounds, like that?
They may have the best defense in football this year.
Are you arguing with any of my points?
Kikooo
And now Kiko with a pick 6.
Things that haven’t been said in a while: Kendricks looked like he had a pretty good game.
Dallas is going to win the Super Bowl aren’t they?
That would be Deplorable.
seriously, it would fit with what a shitshow 2016 has been so far. And somehow Ringo Starr and Paul McCartney will bite it during the halftime show, too.
Pats vs Cowboys? Who do you root for in the SB?
You root for Giant Meteor as champion.
Jerry getting smart in the draft he last couple years and correctly building in the trenches hasn’t been fun.
I am supremely disappointed that we haven’t gotten to see Sanchez start games this year.
woooowwww.
PIITTTTSSSBURRGGGHHHH wahat a perfect drive!!!
left too much time tho
that was dope
Would love a play by play for anyone watching the Dallas game
http://sports.yahoo.com/nfl/dallas-cowboys-pittsburgh-steelers-20161113023/
that is the game
ya think?
wtf was that?
Wow, did Pittsburgh just lose?
Man…and we thought we couldn’t close out games.
Oh Schit
. Cowboys never down for long
Also, why the hell was Tomlin trying for so many 2 point conversions? That’s just dumb.
If they score first, he goes for 2 every time. It’s an immediate psychological thing. After that, it just made sense to go for it based on the score differences.
Elliott making a good case for MVP so far. Just is really impressive and notably better than Smith as a rookie.
He at least deserves OROY. He’s been very impressive.
He doesn’t deserve anything after 10 games
The only thing that is going to derail him is injury. There hasn’t been a team that has stopped him yet.
As long as Prescott doesn’t get it. Elliott might actually deserve it.
One of the few times taking a running back that high in the draft turned out to be the correct decision.
hey now, it’s only been one year.
excuse me while I curse the living shit out of him now.
Pitt Def choked on D
lol Pitt
This might be helpful on Sunday:
https://twitter.com/SheilKapadia/status/797956840021639169
Their offensive line is kind of terrible too.
And Wilson looks hurt. Still really fucking good, but slower and less agile than before. Makes for a good combo with the OL.
Also, that defense in phenomenal, but their CB2 is still a place you can target and hasn’t been the same since Byron Maxwell was good for them. I believe Chancellor and Bennett could be out as well.
Its gonna be rough, especially away, but theres an opportunity.
Man, I used to think of the Steelers as a tough organization. They’re one of the softest teams in the league.
Sometimes, as a man, you need to acknowledge that there are not words in the English language to describe the magnitude of failure on an individual level. Clusterfuck does not do it justice, nor does fiasco, or train wreck, or gross incompetence… I need to invent a new word to describe that facemask penalty on Witten, and to describe the mental abilities of the person who committed it.
might I suggest “omnishambles”?
It’s a good start, we need more.
Oopsie!
Stuporfuckulicious.
trumpsih?
Asstaculous
Holy Crap! You guys should have gone through that crap with a group of Falcons fans in the house. Rough!!! Thinking I lost a couple of friends after that game unfortunately.
If they were Falcon fans, they weren’t real friends anyway.
Falcons really are a lesser bird. For a franchise that literally never done anything the seem very arrogant
i hate dallas.
More dallas slobbering for a week
It’ll just make that December crash all the sweeter.
That’s not an all-timer stupid penalty, but it’s in the running for top 10 of the season.
We had Dak exposed, throwing terrible passes and making him look bad, and we let him off the hook. Now the Steelers let the Cowboys off the hook.
It just feels like this season is meant to be the one where the Cowboys get their knobs slobbered. I can’t wait to get them again at home.
I live in Dallas. Sucks
Meh. We had Dallas tied up and they won the coin toss and beat us. We stomped the Steelers and Dallas almost lost that one. Let them slobber.
Just to get back to the Eagles, I thought the game plan for today was excellent. Running the ball as well as we did really helped Wentz out I think. He looked sharp and probably would have looked even better had the receivers held on to more passes (as usual). I also liked the carry distribution with Mathews getting the bulk of them and Smallwood getting a large number as well.
People who complained about Doug’s decision to run outside on the goal line should be embarrassed. First of all, the interior got completely blown up on that play. Second, almost all of our great running on the day came on off tackle runs rather than inside runs. It was a good play call, but you’ll never satisfy the “call the play that works” group when a play gets blown up.
I dont hate the call. All of the NS runs are wherre we had success though. Eastwest wasnt working.
Watch the replays. Running off tackle is how we got our chunk yardage on rushes today.
Off tackle, perhaps, but up field.
Off tackle runs require going east-west in order to go outside of said tackle.
I think you can decent the difference between a NS run that goes off tackle and one that is designed to stretch the field. I don’t pretend to be a great football mind but even my flag football team has both types of runs.
Yea there’s a big difference in an off tackle power run that can be bounced further outside and a pitch/stretch play that is designed to start out E/W vs the more N/S power type runs that just aim at the tackles outside shoulder.
Careful using logic with Philly fans…
https://twitter.com/JoshPaunil/status/797925056991084544
Seahawks look very beatable imo, that OL is not going hold up against us. It’s going to be a battle of the defenses… I just worry our receivers will be hopelessly overmatched vs. their secondary.
Yea but I felt the same against the giants and that didn’t happen
I hated to do it but betting on Dallas as 3-2 underdogs was easy money. Also, McGregor only a 2-3 favorite was easy money. Finally, +13 for the 49ers? That’s insane even for a garbage team like them. Good weekend overall. The 4-1 payout I got on Tuesday wasn’t bad either.
If I was Dallas, I’d trade Romo next year and go on with Dak.
If Dallas wins the Super Bowl, I won’t be upset. My emotions would pale in comparison to how I felt last Tuesday.
Upvote for your second sentence but to your first – and who exactly would trade for romo? I mean Joe Namath, Montana, Marino, they are also technically available…
Yea I can’t see anyone taking on that ridiculous contract for a guy whose back is held together by duck tape and chicken wire and hasn’t been able to stay healthy for 2 years. He’ll get a job for sure, just not sure anyone would be willing to trade for him considering the $20mil cap hit or whatever it will be next year.
NFL has to hope that more games end up like being the Boys-Steelers game and that the Boys stay hot.
Like them or not, they are a ratings grabber nationally. The only other team in the NFL that is the case for right now nationally is the Pats.
I’m sure Mr. Blandino can take care of that.
I have to hope the Cowboys bus catches on fire. Hopefully no one will be hurt, I’m not a monster.
What if Jerry is on the bus?
Burn baby burn.
Haha, Russell Wilson made a stupid. He doesn’t have his usual escapability… I think we’re going to tee off on him.
That pourous oline vs our dline is the key to the game this week. Let’s hope the big guys up front, Cox who has been a little too quite for my liking recently and Graham who I’m sure would love to quite all the “You took him over Earl Thomas?” detractors, show up really big. Going to be an awesome defensive battle this sunday!
Man the Cleveland Browns… I find so much solace in how terrible they are. Just looking at their stats, team wide and individually, it stirs my schadenfreude.
I enjoy even more the loser 49ers because of the guy who is their Head Coach.
What a money throw to Edelman. Brady still amazes me at 39.
Come on man, that wasn’t that amazing. I’ve seen Wentz make half a dozen better throws this year.
He hit him stride for stride over the shoulder. That’s a touch pass and Wentz has generally struggled to make that kind of accurate touch throw especially downfield like that.
If Brady’s limitations showed up tonight, it is just how immobile he has become and on a few throws throwing in space. He don’t have the zip anymore on it.
Glad SEA won hope they are over looking us now and we can beat them at home
Reuben Frank @RoobCSN
58m
With 7 receiving yards, Nelson Agholor’s streak of consecutive games with more than 10 yards ended today at two.
Funniest tweet of today.
I am glad the Eagles won today! Winning gives us continued hope for this season and allows us to enjoy the week instead of having that losing feeling which just stinks. I just wish we had some players that could make plays for their QB. Just imagine what Wentz will be like when he has real playmakers around him.
There were Eagles making plays all day!
Defense did a great job but this team has very good/great special teams even without Huff on KR.
Helps to commensate for their anemic offense and makes them a tough matchup every week.