ORCHARD PARK, N.Y. — Jalen Hurts sat at his locker stall and nodded as Nick Sirianni spoke. The quarterback listened intently to his coach until he ended the conversation with an adage that summed up the Eagles’ defensive-minded 13-12 victory over the Buffalo Bills on Sunday.
“Hey,” Hurts said to a parting Sirianni, “a win’s a win.”
They mostly have defensive coordinator Vic Fangio’s unit to thank. Special teams should get kudos as well. And lastly, they should give gratitude to Bills coach Sean McDermott, who shockingly went for two and the win despite the ineptitude of the Eagles offense in the second half.
For more than three quarters, Buffalo quarterback Josh Allen was rendered mortal by the Eagles defense. But he flipped a switch and drove the Bills to two touchdowns in the final frame as Hurts and Co. kept going three-and-out.
McDermott’s team would have had all the momentum going into overtime. But Fangio’s group answered the bell once more and hurried Allen into throwing his two-point conversion attempt wide of receiver Khalil Shakir.
It might have been the wind that followed a steady rain at Highmark Stadium, but a collective sigh of relief seemed to release from an Eagles sideline full of offensive players holding their breath. Namely, Sirianni, Hurts, and offensive coordinator Kevin Patullo.
The second half was that bad, especially when you consider the Bills’ suspect run defense. The Eagles ran 17 plays and gained just 17 yards before Hurts knelt in the victory formation. They produced one first down. Hurts didn’t complete any of his seven pass attempts.
In the first half, the offense seemed to build off the improvements shown in the previous two games. The offense wasn’t exactly high-powered, but it was effective as the Eagles took a 13-0 lead into halftime. But Sirianni and Patullo seemingly took their foot off the pedal.
“We weren’t in a mode of saying, ‘Hey, 13-0 is enough,” Sirianni said. “Not against this quarterback, not against this offense. And so I don’t think our mindset was ever that. But I’ve got to do a better job there in that scenario. I’ll put that on myself.”
This wasn’t the first time this season that the Eagles have watched a double-digit lead evaporate, or the first time the offense has had disparate halves, or the first time the coach’s conservatism has come under question.
Sirianni can add another victory to a remarkable 43-2 record when the Eagles win the turnover margin during his five years at the helm. The offense didn’t give the ball away once, while the defense forced an Allen fumble.
But Hurts seems to be coached into doing anything to avoid turnovers. He had four throwaways and gave himself up for one sack on his eight drop backs in the second half.
“I don’t think it’s a conservative thing to have good ball security and be mindful that the turnover margin directly correlates with winning,” Hurts said. “That’s a truth of the game, and that’s a well-known fact of what we’ve been able to do and how we’ve been able to play over the last five years collectively.”
But how can an offense that gained 174 yards — 110 of them through the air — look almost the polar opposite after a 15-minute break? The Bills made some adjustments in their run defense, according to guard Landon Dickerson. Tackle Fred Johnson said their defense became more “exotic.”
The Eagles ran on first and second down on four of five drives, though. Hurts threw from under center only once — after Saquon Barkley ran for 5 and 10 yards on the first two plays of the second half. On the Eagles’ next 15 plays, they picked up just 2 yards.
Barkley kept running into heavy lines and stacked boxes. Certain Eagles, notably center Cam Jurgens and tight end Dallas Goedert, couldn’t sustain blocks with Bills defenders flying downhill. This was a unit ranked 31st in run defense.
“I don’t know if they had a bead on it, but we just didn’t take advantage of our situations well enough,” Jurgens said. “We can put that on our shoulders and do a little better, especially do better when we’re calling these runs, and we need to make things work.
“And I know I missed a couple blocks I want back.”
There were good moments on the ground through Barkley’s first two carries of the second half. He had 66 yards on 13 rushes up until that point. But he gained just 2 yards on his final six rushes. The Eagles just don’t have consistent enough blocking to run at will and there seemed to be times when Hurts needed to check out of calls against bad looks.
“We kind of went back to a consistent theme of playing really well one half and not well the other half, not putting a full game together,” Barkley said. “And, obviously, we know we’ve got to get better at that. Easier to get better from it when it’s a win.
“But, personally, I feel like when it’s like six minutes left, you want to end the game with the ball in your hands and we didn’t do that, I didn’t do that. I take responsibility for that.”
Barkley shouldn’t. He’s the least of the problems. But for all the positives in that realm since the Chargers game, the Eagles seem to be back to square one on the ground. And there’s obvious concern that the offense has regressed heading into the postseason.
“We’ve got to mix in some of the play-action things that we’ve done so well in the last couple weeks and not wait there again. That’s on me,” Sirianni said. “You know, I know what the first play is going into every series.”
Patullo’s first-half play calling had some rhythm. Receiver A.J. Brown was getting open and Hurts was finding him. The Eagles turned Allen’s fumble into seven points with another red zone conversion and a touchdown pass to Goedert.
But there were some head-scratching moments as well, like the third-and-9 draw to Will Shipley or the third-and-8 screen to Goedert at the Bills’ 13-yard line. As Sirianni noted, Buffalo wasn’t going away. The Eagles needed to pounce when they had chances.
And they needed to double down in the second half. How often was the defense expected to save the offense? Predictably, Fangio’s group relented — until it didn’t, thanks in part to McDermott, one of La Salle High School’s most esteemed alums, throwing caution to the wind.
Wins don’t get asterisks, of course. That was a solid team the Eagles beat, a sort of litmus test for how they stack up against one of the AFC’s best. The Eagles have a defense that can match almost any offense, and a decent special teams.
But the Sirianni-Patullo-Hurts offense has been a running (pun intended) joke. After 16 games, it would be ridiculous to think it’ll finally find its way in the postseason. The Eagles can scrape by as long as they don’t turn the ball over, and that may be enough.
“You’ve got to feel pretty good, right?” Sirianni said when asked about the state of the Eagles. “Three-game winning streak. In this league, three-game winning streaks are hard. Winning 11 games is hard. Winning the division is hard. And so, you feel really good about some of the things, but there’s also an opportunity to self-scout yourself and do some different things there.
“We’ll see what we do this upcoming week. I think there’s still an opportunity for us to get the [No.] 2 seed.”
There was at the time Sirianni spoke, and that possibility held up later in the evening, after the Chicago Bears lost to the San Francisco 49ers. The Eagles’ only path to the No. 2 seed is to defeat the Washington Commanders while the Bears lose to the Detroit Lions. Both games will be played at 4:25 p.m. next Sunday. Sirianni may also want to play his starters to give his offense another outing against the Commanders’ subpar defense.
But it seems like some issues won’t ever be properly resolved until the offseason.
