Eagles Dominate the Titans

The Eagles closed out the month of October with a 35-13 win over the Steelers. That was a dominant performance. Over the ensuing four games, the Eagles were erratic. They would play good on offense or defense, but not both. Special teams went from bad to mediocre. The team went 3-1 in that stretch, but some started to question how good the Eagles were.

On Sunday, they answered emphatically. The Eagles beat the Titans 35-10. The game wasn’t even that close. The Eagles outgained Tennessee 453 to 209. When you factor in sacks, the Titans didn’t gain a yard in the third quarter. The difference in the two teams was obvious.

Going into the game, the big worry was how the Eagles would stop Derrick Henry. That turned out to be a non-issue. Henry had no room to run and finished 11-30. The DL did a good job of clogging the running lanes. The secondary flew up aggressively in run support.

No run game meant the pressure was on Ryan Tannehill and the passing game. Spoiler alert…that didn’t go well. Tannehill made some plays with his legs and that might have stayed an issue, but Brandon Graham sacked him and fell on Tannehill’s ankles. Tannehill wasn’t the same after that. The Eagles DL flew off the ball and ended up sacking him six times.

https://twitter.com/Eaglesfans9/status/1599500070579159040

This was the best defensive performance since the beginning of the year. Amazingly, they did this without taking the ball away. One of the real keys was good tackling. Eagles DBs have been erratic at times this year. James Bradberry thinks run defense is optional. I knew the defense would play well when he came in aggressively on an early run and made a physical tackle. Marcus Epps and Reed Blankenship were strong, physical tacklers.

Last week the Eagles ran for 363 yards and scored 40 points. On Sunday the Eagles only ran for 67 yards. They scored 35 points and played backups for much of the fourth quarter. How? Jalen Hurts led a dynamic passing attack, throwing for 380 yards and 3 TDs. AJ Brown and DeVonta Smith each went for over 100 yards on the day. Why run when you can throw like that?

The @Eagles are the first @NFL team to throw for 350+ yards after rushing for 350+ yards the previous week since the 1987 Los Angeles Raiders (356 rushing on 11/30/87; 360 passing on 12/6/87). #FlyEaglesFly

— John Gonoude (@john_gonoude) December 4, 2022

That is a crazy stat. It shows you how versatile and dynamic the offense is.

Hurts was a little sloppy early on, but then he settled in and shredded the Titans secondary. Smith ran great routes and got open consistently. Brown made some impressive contested catches. This play was wild.

https://twitter.com/NFL/status/1599495473194147840

I’m not sure what was better, the throw or the catch. Brown had no separation. He just put his hands up at the last second and secured the ball. Hurts dropped that one in the bucket, as the saying goes. He gave AJ a chance to make a play and that’s just what happened.

Hurts sliced and diced the Titans in part because he had great protection. The gamebook only shows three QB hits. Hurts did run for a TD, but did very little running. He got the ball to his receivers and let them make plays.

Maybe the most surprising part of the game was the Eagles STs units. They were…good. Britain Covey had punt returns of 20, 16, 27 and 25 yards. He put the offense in good field position a couple of times. Covey got good blocking and that gave him room to run.

LB Christian Elliss played his first game of the year and made an instant impact on STs. He had two tackles, both big hits. That seemed to bring some juice to a unit that desperately needed it. Nakobe Dean also had a big hit on STs. Dean then had to come in the game on defense when Kyzir White got banged up. I thought Dean looked good. He finished with 5 tackles and a TFL.

There weren’t any major injuries. Quez Watkins did hurt his shoulder.

Eagles WR Quez Watkins said “I should be fine” when asked about his shoulder injury.

— Jeff McLane (@Jeff_McLane) December 4, 2022

That is great to hear.

The one negative in this game was penalties. The Eagles were flagged 12 times for 80 yards. A couple of those were questionable, but most were legit. There were a lot of false starts on the OL. I have no idea what was going on, but it was highly frustrating. Luckily the Eagles overcame the festival of flags. In a different game, that might have really hurt them.

Tennessee came into the game at 7-4. Their defense was 7th in points allowed. No team had scored more than 20 points on them since September. The Chiefs scored 20 against them a few weeks back and that game went to overtime.

Seeing the Eagles score 35 and make it look easy at times was crazy. This offense can be special.

The Eagles are now 11-1.

They just keep winning.

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