Eagles win a wild one in New Orleans – NBC Sports Philadelphia

Sunday 22nd September 2024 09:31 PM

They were missing 40 percent of their offensive line, including all-pro Lane Johnson. DeVonta Smith was out of the game along with AJ Brown. Nick Sirianni was making weird call after weird call.

And then Saquon Barkley and Dallas Goedert – really, the Eagles’ only remaining weapons – refused to let the Eagles lose.

Barkley’s 65-yard touchdown run early in the fourth quarter and Dallas Goedert’s 61-yard catch down to the 4-yard-line late in the fourth quarter helped the Eagles beat the Saints 15-12 after the Saints took the lead moments earlier.

They haven’t played a complete game yet, but the Eagles are somehow 2-1.

Wow.

It’s never easy with this team, is it?

Here’s our 10 Instant Observations on a huge road win in the conference:

1. The turnovers remain a concern, but Jalen Hurts really came up huge Sunday and helped the Eagles win a game they very easily could have lost. And he did it with almost half the offense missing. Hurts completed 76 percent of his passes for 311 yards and on a day when he didn’t throw a touchdown, he made some clutch throws under pressure and he did it all behind an offensive line missing Mekhi Becton and Lane Johnson, with both Smith and Brown both out of the game, as well as Britain Covey. He was out there with Fred Johnson and Tyler Steen blocking and Parris Campbell, Johnny Wilson and Jahan Dotson running routes. The Superdome is a loud, difficult place to play, and this was a game the Eagles really needed to win and a game that Hurts needed. I still believe he’s an elite quarterback but it was natural to wonder about him after the first two games and I get the doubts. He wasn’t very good in some key moments. But this was vintage Jalen Hurts, making key throws at important times, staying confident in the face of adversity and rallying the Eagles to a win when things looked really bleak. If this Jalen Hurts keeps showing up, the Eagles are going to win a lot of games.

2. OK, how freaking good is Saquon Barkley? My goodness. And you’ve got to love the way he responded six days after that devastating drop that cost the Eagles a win over the Falcons. He’s a total pro. The dude has this crazy combination of speed, power, balance and vision, and any questions about the way the last few years with the Giants went have been sufficiently answered as far as I’m concerned. Three games in, he’s a flat-out beast. He ran 17 times Sunday for 147 more yards, and three games in he’s got 63 carries for 351 rushing yards with three touchdowns and 10 catches for 53 more yards and another TD. That’s 404 scrimmage yards in three games, most by any Eagle through Week 3 since 2013, when LeSean McCoy had 514. Other than Shady, the only other Eagles running backs with at least 400 scrimmage yards through three games are Timmy Brown, Wilbert Montgomery, Duce Staley and Brian Westbrook. What I really love about Saquon is how tough he is late in games. He’s so physically strong that he’s just as good on his 25th touch as his first. And that’s rare. Keep feeding him, and he’s going to make a huge play, and on Sunday he made a bunch of them.

3. Jordan Davis and Jalen Carter coming into today: No sacks, no tackles for losses, no pass breakups, no quarterback hits. Jordan Davis and Jalen Carter vs. the Saints: One sack, two tackles for loss, two pass breakups, one quarterback hit. It was sure encouraging to see monster performances out of both Georgia interior linemen. Especially Davis, who hasn’t had a game like this since very early last year. This defense can’t be elite without Davis and Carter both playing at a high level, and it’s something we haven’t seen in quite a while. But when they play like this? When they dominate the line of scrimmage? When they play like the beasts the Eagles expected when they drafted them in the first half of the first round? We all saw Sunday what kind of defense this can be when Davis and Carter play inspired football. The Eagles held the No. 1 offense in the NFL to just 219 yards, 12 first downs and 4.0 yards per play, and everyone contributed but Davis and Carter were at the heart of everything. Now they just have to keep it up.

5. We’ve all been wondering when we’ll start to see Dallas Goedert become a big part of the offense, and, wow, 10 catches for 170 yards isn’t too shabby. Goedert was a big focus of the offense early, but once DeVonta Smith went out and joined AJ Brown on the sidelines, he was just huge. He had catches of 22, 30, 43 and 61 yards and that’s insane. He’s been in the league eight years and had two of the four-longest catches of his career Sunday. Those 170 yards are most by any Eagles tight end in 59 years – since Pete Retzlaff had 204 in a game in 1965 at Franklin Field. Even Zach Ertz never had a 170-yard game. That was such a big-time performance by a guy the Eagles desperately needed. The key thing is when the Eagles are back at full strength, Goedert needs to remain a big part of this offense. He had 69 yards the first two games and he’s just too good to play such a small role on this team. He’s still a stud, and when he had to make plays he made plays. Huge clutch performance.

6. Reed Blankenship is such a ballhawk, and on a team that doesn’t force very many turnovers, if he’s around the ball, he’s going to find a way to make a play. And these aren’t easy interceptions. He’s making circus INTs, diving INTs like the one Sunday, high-leverage INTs at key moments in games. It started in his first game, when he picked off Aaron Rodgers, and he’s now the first Eagles defensive back with six interceptions in his first 28 career games since Eric Allen, who had 12 of them over his first 28 games in 1988 and 1989. And this is a kid who wasn’t drafted. Blankenship is the first undrafted Eagle with six INTs in his first 28 games since Brenard Wilson in 1979 and 1980. The Eagles have 11 interceptions since opening day 2023. Blankenship has five of them. Playmaker.

7. Nakobe Dean stuffed Alvin Kamara for no gain on the first play of the game, and just like that, the Eagles’ run defense looked better than it did in either of the first two games. The Saints kept trying to get Kamara going. That was the game plan. And you can’t blame them after the Eagles allowed 6 ½ yards per carry the first two games. But the Eagles did a tremendous job shutting down Kamara. There wasn’t anything new scheme-wise, although we certainly saw a lot less Bryce Huff on running downs (or any downs). They were just more disciplined, more physical, more gap sound and got numbers to the ball. In the first two games, backs were slipping past the first level and then the Eagles were missing tackles in the second level. Sunday, the D-line only let a few runs get past the first level, and when they did, the Eagles’ linebackers and D-backs tackled really well. Honestly, they looked like a completely different defense and to play that way against a back like Kamara – who brought an NFL-best 5.7 rushing average into the game – was remarkable. He finished with 26 carries for 87 yards for a 3.3 average with a long gainer of 16 yards, and he really just wasn’t a factor. The Saints kept hammering it, and the Eagles kept stuffing him.

8. When you’re a CEO head coach like Nick Sirianni, one of your biggest challenges is guiding your team through adversity. Blown leads. Bad games. Big deficits. And Sirianni was really good at that his first two years. This team showed so much character when they had to deal with adversity. You think of the 2021 season and how that 2-5 start turned into a playoff berth. And what Sirianni was able to do in 2022. He seemed to lose that magic touch last year as those blowout losses and blown leads turned a promising season into a nightmare. And then came another late loss Monday night against the Falcons. So it was fair to wonder if Sirianni’s ability to really get through to his players and guide them through the bad times had run his course. But this was a win without so many key players – both starting receivers, the right side of the offensive line, their best cornerback – and a game where the Eagles gave up the lead in the fourth quarter. But this was the type of game the Eagles would not have won last year. Maybe Sirianni hasn’t lost this team yet.

9. The Eagles’ bizarre streak of consecutive games without winning the giveaway-takeaway margin is up to 11, which is 3rd-longest in franchise history behind a 15-game streak over the 1967 and 1968 seasons and a 12-game streak in 2012. They ‘ve gotten away with two wins this year losing the turnover battle, but you can’t have sustained success this way. You just can’t. They’re minus-13 over those last 11 games, minus-4 already this year and minus-19 since Week 6 of last year. This is a critical stat because it measures both offense and defense with ball protection and playmaking. If this team can ever find a way to stop turning the ball over – and that’s mainly Jalen – and pick up some more turnovers, they’re going to be tough to beat.

10. Gotta give credit to guys like Fred Johnson, Tyler Steen, Parris Campbell, Johnny Wilson, Jahan Dotson and Kelee Ringo, who have all been forced into bigger roles than anticipated. The Eagles, already without AJ Brown, lost Lane Johnson, Mekhi Becton, DeVonta Smith and Darius Slay along the way Sunday, and every one of their backups hung in there. I thought Johnson and Steen in particular – at right tackle and right guard – were huge. Both played outstanding football and these are two guys that haven’t played a lot of football in their careers. Campbell isn’t even on the roster. After getting cut and landing on the practice squad, he was game-day call-up and caught a couple passes. Wilson caught the first pass of his career and got a first down on it. Those guys deserve a ton of credit, but so do their position coaches for them preparing so if they do have to play they’re ready. The Eagles don’t win this game if those backups didn’t come in and hold their own. True team win.