Author: Marcus Hayes

Here’s a novel thought:

The refs are actually favoring the Eagles.

After decades of paranoia and conspiracy theories that cast the Birds as victims of perceived favoritism shown to such rivals as the Cowboys, Patriots, and Chiefs, consider what happened for the Eagles on Sunday against the Giants. Honestly, no fan base feels persecuted more than the Eagles’, whose owner, Jeffrey Lurie, is still bitter about the obvious defensive holding call by James Bradberry that cost them a Super Bowl win three years ago.

These days, things are skewing Philly.

The NFL continues to allow the Eagles to run the Tush Push, but that play earned another strike against it when the owners meet next spring.

Assuming a team introduces another proposal to ban the controversial short-yardage play — which has been assailed as an injury risk, which is ridiculous, and has been assailed as a penalty magnet, which is legitimate — Sunday’s debacle will add fuel to whatever fire remains from last spring’s 22-10 vote, which was two ballots shy of a ban.

Facing fourth-and-1 at the Giants’ 11 early in the second quarter, Jalen Hurts and his line surged forward and Hurts peeled off slightly to the left. Floating on a sea of humanity, Hurts clearly never stopped moving toward the line to gain, and as he reached the ball forward, Giants linebacker Kayvon Thibodeaux stripped him of the ball and recovered it.

The play was not reviewable because forward progress is not a reviewable issue.

The larger issue here is that officials don’t seem to be able to consistently rule correctly on a number of areas, among them: whether the defense moves too early; whether the defense lines up in the neutral zone; whether the offensive line moves early; or whether the offense lines up in the neutral zone.

Sunday, they didn’t properly gauge forward progress, even with the runner in plain view.

The final was 38-20, but the call was enormous in the context of the game. Instead of losing the ball to a Giants team that had just completed a 52-yard touchdown drive, the Eagles retained possession and scored a touchdown two plays later to make it 14-7.

It was just the first seven-point swing the officials delivered to the home team.

Early in the fourth quarter, with New York facing fourth-and-11 and trailing by 18, Giants receiver Darius Slayton and Eagles cornerback Quinyon Mitchell engaged in routine hand-fighting during Slayton’s route. Slayton disengaged in a normal fashion, caught the pass, and romped for a 68-yard touchdown.

But no.

Slayton was called for offensive pass interference. Brutal call. In fact, a penalty probably should have been called on Mitchell.

Instead of cutting the lead to 11, the Giants had to punt.

The Eagles are tied for 11th in total penalties called, and they’re seventh in total penalty yards, but most of the calls are inarguable, and, objectively, they seem to be getting away with lots of shenanigans. This was true Sunday.

Yes, the Eagles won by 18, and they dominated all day, but they were gifted that 14-point swing. These two were the kinds of crucial calls that the Eagles and other Chiefs opponents lately have claimed gave unfair advantage to Kansas City; the kinds of calls the Patriots under Bill Belichick seemed to get all the time; and the kinds of calls America’s Team has gotten for 50 years in Dallas.

The Eagles are getting those calls now … right?

The Giants agreed, at least for Sunday. Said Thibodeaux:

“They said they called the forward progress before he reached the ball out. Sounds like some [B.S.] to me.”

Me too.

Seeing red with Goedert

Under Nick Sirianni, the Eagles have never finished outside the top 10 in red-zone efficiency. But with the combination of Sirianni and offensive coordinator Kevin Patullo, who had served as Sirianni’s passing-game coordinator the last four years, the Birds have never been better.

The Eagles are 6-2 in large part because they’ve converted 17 of their 20 trips inside the opponents’ 20-yard line into touchdowns. That’s 85%, which is about 11 percentage points better than the Ravens’ rate last season, which is the best conversion rate by any team over an entire season since Sirianni arrived.

Why are they so efficient?

Because the Eagles have a spectacular offensive line; a strong, fast quarterback; a lethal play in the Tush Push; a superstar running back; two star receivers; and, for my money, the most important red-zone weapon: an elite tight end.

Also: superb play-calling. Example:

On second-and-8 from the Giants’ 17-yard line, Patullo called a run-pass option. Hurts kept it. At the same time, tight end Dallas Goedert swung from the left side of the line to the right, broke upfield, and was wide-open for a touchdown.

So many moving parts worked in perfect synchronization. It was the Eagles’ prettiest play of the season.

“Ultimately, Kevin has to call the plays that he feels give us the best chance to win there,” Sirianni said after the Eagles went 3-for-3 in the red zone on Sunday. “I think we’ve done a good job of being efficient down there, though. … We’ve kept the ball moving forward. Jalen’s played really good football down there, and Dallas has obviously been really good down there.”

Goedert had two touchdown catches in Sunday’s win over the Giants. His seven TD catches are first among tight ends and already are a career high.

“They’ve been letting me get the ball and use my big body,” Goedert said. “We can score in a lot of different ways.”

He certainly can. His 35 touchdowncatches (including playoffs) in about 7½ seasons as an Eagle rank second among franchise tight ends behind Zach Ertz, who caught 40 (including playoffs) in about 8½ seasons.

“He’s a hell of a player,“ Hurts said. ”He’s a big-time target and in a sense, he’s due. He’s due. He does a lot of dirty work in this offense.”

It might be tough to call Goedert’s number with Hurts, running back Saquon Barkley, and receivers A.J. Brown and DeVonta Smith, but the Eagles are winning because Goedert is finding the end zone more than anyone else under Patullo.

“KP has a really good feel in the red zone,” said Hurts.

So does DG.

Mixed emotionals

After being embarrassed by owner Woody Johnson, who said, “If we can just complete a pass, it would look good” after seven weeks of bad quarterback play, Jets quarterback Justin Fields played well Sunday in a comeback win over the Bengals.

Fields had been benched at halftime the week before in favor of Tyrod Taylor, but Taylor’s bruised knee sidelined him Sunday and gave Fields another chance. Fields played well enough to win: 21-for-32, 244 yards, one touchdown. Afterward, during an emotional press availability, he admitted that the pressures of his turbulent career, culminating in Johnson’s criticisms, broke him down.

“This week, I found myself in my closet, crying on the ground, laying down,” Fields said.

As you might assume, Johnson, formerly Donald Trump’s ambassador to the United Kingdom, is not a pleasant bloke. In an annual survey conducted by the players’ association, his 2024 team gave his club the league’s only overall “F,” and his franchise has been a punch line for years.

However, if Johnson’s cruel, candid, but ultimately accurate assessment of the quarterback play worked, well …

Extra points

Shane Steichen, in his third year in Indianapolis, continued his romp to Coach of the Year honors when his Colts beat the Titans and moved to 7-1. Since becoming the Eagles’ OC in 2021, Steichen’s teams have been in the top 10 in rushing, with the Eagles finishing No. 1 in 2021. This year, behind league-leading running back Jonathan Taylor, the Colts rank sixth. … Right behind Steichen in the running for COY: Mike Vrabel, whose Patriots reached 6-2 with a win over the Browns. Second-year quarterback Drake Maye leads the NFL with a 118.7 passer rating. … In that game, Browns defensive lineman Myles Garrett recorded five sacks, bringing him to 10 for the season, tied for the league lead. … Aaron Rodgers failed to join Peyton Manning, Tom Brady, Brett Favre, and Drew Brees as quarterbacks who have beaten all 32 teams when his Steelers lost to the Packers, the team that drafted him. … The Cowboys, with their No. 2-ranked offense and second-to-last defense, lost in Denver and fell to 3-4-1. That means the Eagles are the only team in the NFC East with a winning record — remarkable, since the division was considered one of the best before the season began.

It took a few weeks with the new coordinator, but he figured it out, and the offense started producing.

A few months later, the Eagles won Super Bowl LIX.

That was last year.

Kellen Moore introduced a radically new scheme. It took five weeks, give or take, for the Eagles to work out the kinks, and Moore was criticized the entire time. That was with a relatively stable roster, especially along the offensive line. The offense developed a run-first personality, emphasized ball security, beat the Chiefs in the Super Bowl, and earned Moore the head coaching job in New Orleans.

Fast-forward a few months, and no one in the Eagles organization took more heat over the first seven weeks than Kevin Patullo, Moore’s successor and head coach Nick Sirianni’s longtime majordomo.

Patullo has never been a coordinator before and inherited much of Moore’s simple scheme and elite personnel, but that personnel did not practice together even once for the entirety of training camp. Eight games into the season, the same five offensive linemen have not started and finished two games in a row.

“You need continuity,” left tackle Jordan Mailata insisted.

Excuses? Maybe.

Explanations? Definitely.

At any rate, Patullo’s offense averaged 23.6 points in the first six games of the season. After Sunday’s 38-20 win against the Giants, it is averaging 33.0 points in the last two games.

Moore’s offense averaged just 21.2 points through the first five games last season. It takes offenses time to synchronize.

“There’s always a period of trying to figure things out,” said quarterback Jalen Hurts, who has now had five offensive coordinators in six NFL seasons.

“Yeah,” said left guard Landon Dickerson, “remember last year, our start, and everyone wanted Kellen Moore fired?”

Then, Moore’s offense synchronized.

With the Eagles entering the bye week with a 6-2 record, consider Patullo’s offense synchronized. The guys finally get it. He’s a bit scarred, but he’s still standing.

“What Kevin’s done a really good job of is being able to block out anything that can be a distraction to him and working like crazy to put himself in the best position to call the best game that he can each week, regardless of what’s going on,” said Sirianni, himself a weary recipient of the fury of this impatient fan base.

“We knew KP was getting a chunk of the blame, but we knew, as a locker room, it was us,” Mailata said. “KP was just dying on the cross for us.”

He’s been resurrected.

This looks like an offense with a plan and a direction.

Even more significantly, over the last two weeks, incorporating under-center snaps, play-action, and run-pass option, it looks like an unpredictable, diverse offense.

Perhaps most significantly, it scored 38 points and produced four touchdown passes without the services of perpetual malcontent A.J. Brown, the best and least mollified receiver in franchise history. Brown missed the game with a mysterious hamstring injury. (Also, on social media, he repeatedly has hinted that he would like to be traded. The Eagles have a bye next week. The trade deadline is Nov. 4, which means missing Sunday’s game ensured that Brown would not incur further(?) injury by sitting out. But that’s a different discussion.)

It’s foolish to think the offense, despite Sunday’s success, would be better without Brown. It’s wiser to admit that, with Brown, Sunday would have been even better, after seven weeks of twists and tweaks.

“You realize what you’re bad at, what you’re good at, and where you need to help,” Mailata said. “Kevin’s doing a great job of adapting play calling to, you know, guys we have available and teams we’re playing.”

He pointed to the plays on which Fred Johnson reported as an extra tackle, the first two of which resulted in a 65-yard touchdown run for Saquon Barkley, then an 18-yard run for Tank Bigsby. Patullo also called passing plays on two of Johnson’s insertions.

The Eagles also increased their league lead in red-zone efficiency, now at 85% after scoring touchdowns on all three trips inside the Giants’ 20-yard line.

Sunday proved that the offense can be dominant; at least, it can be dominant against a plucky, inconsistent Giants team that fell to 2-6. It clearly built on a similarly competent performance in Minneapolis the previous week against a Vikings club that was 3-2 entering the game.

In that game, Hurts compiled a perfect 158.3 passer rating, with 326 yards, three touchdowns, and no interceptions. It was the best game of his career as a passer.

Sunday, Hurts’ rating was 141.5, with 179 yards, four touchdowns, and no interceptions. It was the second-best day of his career as a passer.

Two weeks ago, the Eagles were concerned that Patullo’s offense might never jell. Now they can breathe easier during their week off.

“Sense of relief, yeah,” Mailata said. “I think it does help with the confidence going into the bye week, that we’ve strung along two great games — one game dominant passing, and then the next game dominant in the run game.”

On Sunday the passing was easier partly because the Giants’ secondary was thinned by injury and partly because the Eagles’ running game erupted.

Barkley’s first touch, the second play of the game, was that 65-yard touchdown run. He finished with 150 rushing yards, more than any other two games combined this season. Barkley suffered a minor groin injury, which gave more touches to Bigsby, who gained 104 yards, the second-best total of his career.

The running game produced a total of 276 yards, almost 120 more yards than the Eagles’ previous season high and the first time in five weeks they broke the 100-yard mark.

Again, they did it without Brown, one of their more potent weapons in history. They did it with Brett Toth starting his first NFL game at center, where he is replacing Pro Bowler Cam Jurgens. They did it against a Giants team that dominated them in East Rutherford just over two weeks ago.

How’d ya’ll do it, Jalen?

Same as every year:

“Just got to be persistent.”

Carson Wentz’s passer rating against the Eagles fell to 68.0 Sunday. That is his worst passer rating against any team that he’s faced at least twice. He has faced the Eagles twice, first as a Commander, Sunday as a Viking.

He is 0-2.

Jalen Hurts was the opposing quarterback in both games.

That should deliver a degree of satisfaction to any Eagles fan who still resents Ginger Jesus for whining his way out of town because, in 2020, the Eagles drafted Hurts to act as his long-term backup, then inserted Hurts for the last four games of the season.

Instead of coming to training camp and winning his job back, thereby justifying the four-year, $128 million contract extension he’d been awarded but had not yet begun earning, Wentz first got coach Doug Pederson fired, then forced GM Howie Roseman to trade him, specifically, to Frank Reich and the Colts, where he then sabotaged Reich’s career.

Things worked out well for the Eagles. Hurts became the better quarterback.

But don’t think that Hurts doesn’t relish these matchups after Wentz treated him with resentment and jealousy during their shared season in Philly.

It’s no coincidence that, in their first meeting on Sept. 25, 2022, Hurts had his best game as a passer to that point: 22-for-35, 340 yards, three touchdowns, no interceptions, and a 123.5 rating.

Nor is it any coincidence that, on Sunday, Hurts had his best game as a passer ever: 19-for-23, 326 yards, three touchdowns, zero interceptions, and a perfect 158.3 passer rating.

The draft capital from the Wentz trade eventually helped the Eagles, often tangentially. It was part of deals that landed DeVonta Smith, A.J. Brown, Jalen Carter, and Cooper DeJean.

At the time, though, what mattered most was that:

1. The Eagles appeared to have lost their long-term franchise quarterback because his feelings were hurt.
2. The Eagles were saddled with about $34 million in dead cap money for the 2021 season, crippling the club and essentially wasting the year.

Since Wentz’s disgraceful departure, the Eagles have gone to two Super Bowls and have won one. If that salves the wound for you, that’s healthy, I guess.

However, if you still feel resentful, you have every right.

‘Just throw me the [bleeping] ball’

On Thursday, after hearing his coaches and teammates swear for six weeks that he’d just have to wait his turn, A.J. Brown, the best receiver in Eagles history, playing at the height of his abilities, watched Ja’Marr Chase catch 16 passes on 23 targets in a Bengals win over the Steelers.

Brown hasn’t had 16 receptions in any three consecutive games this season.

Chase’s quarterback? Forty-year-old Joe Flacco, who’d been benched by the Browns, then traded by the Browns. It was Flacco’s second start with the Bengals.

Imagine if Flacco had been, say, a 27-year-old reigning Super Bowl MVP?

Hurts is a 27-year-old reigning Super Bowl MVP, and on Sunday, Brown watched Hurts hit Eagles teammate DeVonta Smith nine times for 183 yards. That yardage total not only is Smith’s career high, it also would have been Brown’s career high.

Meanwhile, while sitting on the bench, Brown watched Vikings receiver Jordan Addison catch nine passes for 128 yards. His quarterback: five-time retread Carson Wentz.

After the second score, the broadcast caught Brown, unhinged, voicing his ungrammatical validation:

“This is when you throw me the [bleeping] ball. What the [bleep] is that? Just throw the [bleeping] ball.”

Brown caught four passes for 121 yards and two touchdowns. But for about 14 months, Brown has been insisting that he needs more chances to make more catches, because he’s just that good.

And he’s right.

If Joe Flacco and Carson Wentz can force-feed their beasts, why can’t Hurts force-feed his?

Bucking Bronco

The Giants will hit Philly on Sunday nursing a massive hangover after their historic, 19-point, fourth-quarter, mile-high collapse at Denver, a game that featured several weird plays and outcomes.

The craziest scene among the crazy scenes was, just before the Giants’ last touchdown, the spectacle of Broncos coach Sean Payton losing his mind and running into the middle of the field at the goal line to protest a pass interference penalty on his defense. Like, all the way to the 2-yard line. Right in the middle of the action. It was like something out of an awful Oliver Stone football movie.

Payton drew an unsportsmanlike conduct penalty, which was inconsequential, considering the ball was at the 2-yard line and could only be moved one yard. It will be less consequential when he gets that $15,000 fine from the league.

At any rate, the TD gave the Giants a 32-30 lead, but kicker Jude McAtamney — a Northern Irishman with Gaelic football roots whose tortuous journey to Sunday included, while in college, a demotion from Rutgers’ full-time kicker to its kickoff specialist — flubbed the second of two missed PAT tries. The Broncos drove to field-goal range, and kicked the winner.

Payton was happy then.

Shut ’em down. Finally.

Before Sunday, former Eagles coach Andy Reid had 304 NFL wins, including playoffs. He’d won three Super Bowls and he’d coached in three more.

But he’d never had a shutout.

Then on Sunday he faced Pete Carroll and the injury-depleted Raiders in Kansas City and won, 31-0.

This is remarkable, considering the four coaches near Reid’s win total — Don Shula, George Halas, Bill Belichick, who are ahead of him, and Tom Landry, whom he passed two years ago — all have at least a dozen shutouts.

Granted, Shula, Halas, and Landry coached in an era in which scoring was less prolific, but Belichick is a contemporary. And anyway, when you coach teams as successful as the Eagles and Chiefs, you’d expect more than one shutout among 305 wins.

Extra points

Packers edge Micah Parsons, the biggest offseason name to change teams, finally went off Sunday. He delivered the last of his career-high three sacks with 27 seconds to play in Arizona. He’d had just 2½ sacks in his first five games since being traded by the Cowboys just after preseason, then signing a four-year, $186 million extension. … At this point, Shane Steichen is the runaway leader in the Coach of the Year race. The Colts are 6-1, and while all of their wins aren’t impressive — Titans, Raiders, Cardinals, Dolphins — they beat Justin Herbert’s 420-yard effort on the road Sunday against the L.A. Chargers. Steichen also has turned Giants bust Daniel Jones into an MVP candidate.