Packer Central

Eagles Run Packers’ Defense Into Oblivion

The Philadelphia Eagles’ Jalen Hurts and Miles Sanders combined for 300 rushing yards in thoroughly dominating the Green Bay Packers on Sunday.

Bill Huber

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GREEN BAY, Wis. – Miles Sanders ran for miles. Jalen Hurts delivered the hurt.

Those are some bad puns, but nowhere near as bad as the Green Bay Packers’ run defense performed on Sunday night against the Philadelphia Eagles.

Hurts, the MVP-caliber quarterback, and Sanders, the underrated running back, combined for 300 rushing yards as the Eagles ran roughshod over the Packers for 363 yards in a 40-33 victory.

Between regular season and playoffs, this was the 1,474th game in Packers history. Only twice have they allowed more rushing yards. The Chicago Bears in 1955 ran for 406 yards. Led by Walter Payton’s 205 yards, the Bears ran for 375 yards in 1977.

Not even the Packers teams that were trounced by the San Francisco 49ers in the 2012 playoffs and 2019 conference championship game were embarrassed at this level.

While the Packers stopped indomitable Titans running back Derrick Henry in his tracks last week, their run defense has been horrible for most of the season. It entered the night having allowed 150-plus rushing yards in six games this season – worst in the league. The Eagles had 183 rushing yards in the first half.

The Packers had limited opposing quarterbacks to 112 rushing yards all season. Hurts had a career-high 126 in the first half. He topped 100 yards in the first quarter.

“I ran and they couldn’t get me,” Hurts said.

By the end of the night, Hurts had 157 rushing yards. He had big gains on scrambles and designed runs. On the bright side, the Packers prevented him from setting the single-game rushing record by a quarterback. San Francisco’s Colin Kaepernick rushed for 181 yards against Green Bay in the 2012 playoffs.

Sanders added a career-high 143 rushing yards and two touchdowns.

What happened?

“That’s a great question,” Packers coach Matt LaFleur said. It’s a question he’ll no doubt be asking his embattled defensive coordinator, Joe Barry.

LaFleur’s staff counted 15 missed tackles. On the opening third-and-10, Hurts broke three on a 24-yard run that highlighted the Eagles’ first touchdown drive.

“It’s tough to stop anything if you have 15 missed tackles,” LaFleur said. “They have a great scheme. They’ve got great players. We knew this was one of the best offensive lines in the National Football League coming into the game. When you go out there and you’ve got a great scheme with great players that can go out there and execute, it makes it difficult.”

The Packers thought they had good players, too. Even with Rashan Gary and De’Vondre Campbell out with knee injuries, Sunday night’s performance was in excusable. With absolutely no answers, the Packers resorted to faking injuries – at least in the opinion of the Eagles and their fans – to catch their breath.

“When you are going fast and things like that, guys are going to [cramp],” Eagles coach Nick Sirianni said. “It was hotter out there, too, it was way hotter, so cramps are going to happen. Injures are going to happen. I get it.”

The Packers had a slim chance when backup quarterback Jordan Love led them to a field goal to make it 40-33 with about a minute to go. Armed with all three timeouts, the Packers would have gotten the ball back with one stop. Instead, and predictably, Sanders ran three consecutive times for the clinching first down.

“Execution fuels emotion,” Hurts said. “We do all of this stuff together. We go to work every day together, we lift together, we run together, we feel pain together, we feel these joyous moments together and we go through all of this stuff together. I know in a profession where things change all the time, we really want to appreciate the time we are having now and just take advantage of our moments, take advantage of the opportunities when they present themselves and just play ball the way we want to play ball.”

This was not the way LaFleur wanted to play ball. Up next is a game against the Chicago Bears. Three weeks ago, their quarterback, Justin Fields, rushed for 178 yards. That was the most yards ever by a quarterback in a regular-season play.

Fields was inactive for Sunday’s loss against the Jets because of an injured left shoulder. If he watched the Packers get manhandled by the Eagles, his shoulder probably feels as good as new.

“We’ve got to be better,” LaFleur said, spouting a line he’s used too often this year. “We’ve got to have a better plan and we’ve got to go out there and execute better. We’ve got to tackle better because that can’t happen in this league.”

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Bill Huber
BILL HUBER

Bill Huber, who has covered the Green Bay Packers since 2008, is the publisher of Packers On SI, a Sports Illustrated channel. E-mail: packwriter2002@yahoo.com History: Huber took over Packer Central in August 2019. Twitter: https://twitter.com/BillHuberNFL Background: Huber graduated from the University of Wisconsin-Whitewater, where he played on the football team, in 1995. He worked in newspapers in Reedsburg, Wisconsin Dells and Shawano before working at The Green Bay News-Chronicle and Green Bay Press-Gazette from 1998 through 2008. With The News-Chronicle, he won several awards for his commentaries and page design. In 2008, he took over as editor of Packer Report Magazine, which was founded by Hall of Fame linebacker Ray Nitschke, and PackerReport.com. In 2019, he took over the new Sports Illustrated site Packer Central, which he has grown into one of the largest sites in the Sports Illustrated Media Group.

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