Huge Win

Some will argue that the Eagles saved their season by beating the Jaguars. I didn’t think we were at that point yet, but it was certainly close.

The 24-18 win gets the Eagles to 4-4. They have the bye week on Sunday and then the final eight games of the season. This isn’t the start anyone wanted, but things could be a lot worse. Jacksonville is now 3-5. They’re banged up and there is a lot of internal finger-pointing going on.

The win wasn’t pretty or smooth. That doesn’t matter. The Eagles needed a W more than style points.

Carson Wentz was fantastic, going 21-30-286. He threw for 3 TDs. Wentz did have a bad INT and a fumble in the first half. Wentz made some terrific throws. He scrambled 3 times for 31 yards. And he did all of this while dealing with pressure from the Jaguars.

Jason Peters got hurt and missed part of the first half. Lane Johnson got hurt and missed most of the game. Jason Kelce got hurt and missed one play early on. That meant the Eagles used a variety of OL combinations.

Peters – Seumalo – Kelce – Brooks – Johnson

Peters – Seumalo – Wisniewski – Brooks – Johnson

Vaitai – Seumalo – Kelce – Brooks – Johnson

Vaitai – Wisniewski – Kelce – Brooks – Seumalo

Peters – Seumalo – Kelce – Brooks – Vaitai

I don’t think I left any combinations out, but I haven’t studied the tape yet to make sure. Despite all of that chaos, the Eagles gained 395 yards and scored 24 points. There were blocking breakdowns, but the group got the job done most of the time. When they didn’t, Wentz bailed them out with his feet.

Josh Adams brought some life to the run game. He was 9-61 on the ground and caught one pass for six yards. Adams ran well between the tackles. He showed vision and burst. There was an almost-fumble that scared us, but his butt was down so the call got overturned.

Multiple players delivered big plays in the passing game. Nelson Agholor had a 39-yard catch and run. Jordan Matthews had a 36-yard reception on his way to a 4-93 day. Dallas Goedert had a 32-yard TD catch. Wendell Smallwood had a 36-yard TD catch.

Those last two were huge. The Eagles have not been good in the Red Zone this year. The team needed some TDs that didn’t come on long, methodical drives. Both were great play-calls by Doug Pederson and both were perfectly executed.

The defense was up and down, again. They had 4 sacks, a key takeaway and limited the Jags to 18 points. Jaguars RBs were 9-27 on the ground. That all sounds good.

The Eagles took a 17-6 lead in the third quarter. The Jags then marched right down the field for a TD to make it 17-12. They added a FG to make it 17-15. The Eagles responded with a TD to extend the lead to 24-15. The Jags had another FG drive to get the score to 24-18.

After taking an 11-point lead, the Eagles let the Jaguars score three times. That’s an issue.

The defense didn’t fold like they did last week. Jacksonville had a final drive and the Eagles had an answer this time, stopping them on downs. Fletcher Cox batted a pass down on third down. He then pushed the pocket on fourth down and Blake Bortles had to rush a throw. The pass was off target.

The Eagles still have plenty of issues to work on, but they won a tough game against a desperate team. That gets them back to .500 and gives the hope for the second half of the season.

*****

Eagles' OT Lane Johnson suffered a Grade 2 sprained MCL, as @MikeGarafolo and @Jeff_McLane reported. Johnson also had been playing with an ankle injury. Now could be sidelined about a month.

— Adam Schefter (@AdamSchefter) October 28, 2018

We were hoping the Eagles would start getting healthier.

This just might be one of those years where that never happens.

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