Ten Thoughts After Watching a Replay of the Eagles' Win Over the Giants
The film review has been done, and here are 10 thoughts from the Eagles’ playoff-clinching 48-22 win over the New York Giants at MetLife Stadium on Sunday.
SHANE STEICHEN
If the Eagles' offensive coordinator doesn’t get a head coaching job, there should be an investigation.
It’s not just for the work he has put in with helping make Jalen Hurts an MVP candidate – and granted it’s taken a village to do that – but also for the play scripts to open games that he has a big hand in devising.
Once again, the Eagles scored a touchdown on their first offensive possession. It was the sixth time in the last seven games and the eighth time in 13 games they have done that.
Not just that, but the Eagles have scored touchdowns on their first two drives of the game four times.
SACKS
The Eagles have 49 of them a year after getting 29.
There’s a chance they could set a new team record for most in a season, but it won’t be easy. The 1989 team had 62, with Clyde Simmons getting 15.5, Reggie White 11, and Jerome Brown 10.5.
The last time the Eagles had 50 in a season was 2011 when Jason Babin led the way with 18.
FLETCHER COX
Amazing how playing fewer snaps has helped older, veteran players such as Brandon Graham and Fletcher Cox.
Each of them got 29 snaps (45%) on Sunday.
Cox has a sack in three straight games and now has six this season. It’s the most he’s had since getting 6.5 in 2020. His career-high of 10.5 was achieved in 2018.
“When you don’t have the rep count that’s up a lot, it helps drastically,” he said. “You have guys you can roll in and play 35, 40 snaps a game and still feel fresh. They can play 25, 30, however many snaps we get, but I think the less snaps for any of us is better for us.”
HAASON REDDICK
Think he hasn’t made an impact on this pass rush?
He recorded his 10th sack of the season and is just 2.5 away from his career high.
Reddick is also the first player in NFL history to record at least 10 sacks in three consecutive seasons with three different teams since 1982 when the individual sack became an official statistic. He had 11 with Carolina in 2021 and 12.5 with Arizona in 2020.
GM Howie Roseman made sure Reddick won’t do it again for a fourth straight year with a fourth different team after locking down the 28-year-old pass rusher for three years during the offseason.
DALLAS GOEDERT
Remember the concern when the star tight end suffered a shoulder injury and was put on IR?
Well, the Eagles went 4-0 without him, with Jack Stoll and Grant Calcaterra getting better each week, and now the expectation is Goedert will return off IR this week to play against the Bears on Sunday.
They each caught two passes on Sunday, with Calcaterra getting 24 yards and Stoll 20. More importantly, look at their blocking in the run game.
Stoll was always decent at it, but he’s improved. Calcaterra never did it much in college, but he’s gotten a lot better, too.
That’s a tribute to them but also to position coach Jason Michael and, of course, O-line coach and run game coordinator Jeff Stoutland.
LATE HIT
Shame on the broadcasting crew of Joe Davis and Daryl Johnston for not pointing out that punter Arryn Siposs was hit out of bounds after scooping up the punt he just had blocked.
Giants Jason Pinnock hit Siposs well out of bounds and a 15-yard penalty would have given the Eagles the ball rather than New York taking over at Philly’s 15 and scoring a TD from there.
There was no flag thrown.
The late hit, which wasn’t even talked about on the telecast, may leave the Eagles without their punter for the foreseeable future.
PENALTIES
That said, how nice was it not to see flags flying all over the place?
Last week against the Titans, the Eagles had 12 penalties for 80 yards. There were 19 penalties called in total for 162 yards.
This week, the Eagles had just two penalties for nine yards; the Giants had five for 34.
GOOD OR BAD
Is the rest of the NFL just bad or are the Eagles this good?
It’s an easy answer for me. They are this good.
There isn’t a more balanced team in the league.
SPECIAL TEAMS
OK, they surrendered a blocked punt in their own end zone. Not good no matter the circumstances of not much room to operate with the snap coming from the half-yard line.
The special teams answered right back after the Giants capitalized on the short field following the punt block, with Boston Scott taking the ensuing kickoff back 66 yards.
Key blocks on that return were delivered from Zach Pascal and Christian Elliss, who has helped make a difference in the last two games after being elevated from the practice squad.
TURNOVER
It might have been easy to miss since it happened so late in the blowout, but Brandon Graham’s strip-sack fumble, recovered by Patrick Johnson with 5:30 to play in the game grew Philly’s turnover differential to plus-14.
It was the ninth fumble recovery for the Eagles this season.
Ed Kracz is the publisher of SI.com’s Fan Nation Eagles Today and co-host of the Eagles Unfiltered Podcast. Check out the latest Eagles news at www.SI.com/NFL/Eagles or www.eaglesmaven.com and please follow him on Twitter: @kracze.
