Winning Becoming a Habit for Philadelphia Eagles: 'Don't Have a Choice'
LANDOVER, MD - Talk about extremes.
One week, the Philadelphia Eagles can shut down one of the best offenses in the history of football and the next Sean Desai’s defensive unit couldn’t find an answer for a Washington Commanders team that might have trouble blocking a troll on the artist formerly known as Twitter, never mind one of the best pass rushes in football.
The only constant that held true at FedEx Field on Sunday was the Eagles, who were facing their largest deficit of the season at 14-3, but ultimately finding a way to win a 38-31 shootout over the Commanders behind a 319-yard, four-touchdown passing performance from a banged-up Jalen Hurts.
Hurts was 15 of 15 with three scores when targeting his two top receivers, A.J. Brown and DeVonta Smith, and Brown set a new NFL record with a sixth consecutive game of 125 or more receiving yards.
The Eagles needed every bit of that effort because Washington’s Sam Howell had a career day by making an excellent Eric Bieniemy game plan built on the quick passing game come to life.
Howell started 21 for 22 and finished 39 of 52 for 397 yards and four touchdowns. The first-year starter's lone interception, a fourth-quarter miscue that found the hands of Eagles’ safety Reed Blankenship tilted the game toward Philadelphia, which is now a league-best 7-1 and has had either the league’s best record or has been tied for it in the last 26 regular-season weeks the NFL has been playing football.
Translation – the Eagles find ways to win football games.
“You don’t have a choice,” All-Pro center Jason Kelce said. “You can either be all upset and lose focus and then you’re definitely gonna lose or you can keep fighting and just operate the next-play mentality. We’re a very, very confident team. We know we have the firepower to make up deficits.”
In the modern NFL, winning might call for limiting Tua Tagovailoa and Tyreek Hill to 244 yards and 10 points one week or persevering through Howell and Jahan Dotson threatening to crack 500 yards with plus-30 on the scoreboard the next.
“I think obviously there were some circumstances in the game that were not favorable to us,” Hurts said. “We would have not liked for that to happen but I think we overcame it. So, it’s just about the mentality that we have.”
Former Eagles defensive coordinator Jim Schwartz, now the top defensive mind in Cleveland, often notes that games have personalities.
So many in fact, the league might be diagnosed with multiple personality disorder.
No one has handled this Sybil-like irregularity better than Nick Sirianni, Hurts and the Eagles. Sunday was the organization’s 24th triumph in the past 26 regular-season games Hurts has started and the 13th time in their last 15 tries the Eagles have won on the road.
“You know, this week they were successful [with the quick passing game],” Sirianni said. “The team last week, there are some games they are [successful] and some games they aren’t. This week they were. Hats off to them.
“... It wasn’t pretty. It wasn’t pretty at all. This is the National Football League and it’s tough to win games.”
Tougher for everyone else than the Eagles it seems.
