You\u2019re not going to win a lot of games when you only have 17 net yards in the second half. But when you have this defense? You can do practically anything.<\/p>\n
The Eagles withstood a furious Bills rally Sunday in Orchard Park but hung on for a 13-12 heart-stopping win that kept alive their hopes to improve from the three seed to the two seed.<\/p>\n
Wow. What a game.<\/p>\n
The Eagles improved to 11-5 in a game that wasn\u2019t decided until Josh Allen threw incomplete to Khalil Shakir on a potential game-winning two-point conversion with five seconds left.<\/p>\n
This was another defensive masterpiece for Vic Fangio\u2019s group. The offense? We\u2019ll get into that later. It wasn\u2019t pretty.<\/p>\n
Here\u2019s our 10 Observations from a win over a team that was 26-2 in its last 28 home games.<\/p>\n
1. They didn\u2019t get the shutout, but just to put the defense\u2019s performance in context, the Bills are third in the NFL with 29 points per game, and the Eagles held them to a season-low 12 points, their fewest at home since the last day of the 2022 season and a 27-10 loss to the Bengals. This was a monster game for everyone on defense but in particular the Eagles\u2019 rejuvenated pass rush was just huge. It\u2019s tough to pressure the quarterback on a wet field, but the Eagles sacked Josh Allen five times and they were all from the d-line \u2013 Jalyx Hunt had two and Moro Ojomo, Jaelan Phillips and Jalen Carter had one each. Allen was under pressure just about every time he dropped back and other than the 50-yarder to Brandin Cooks he never had time to get the ball down the field. The d-line had five sacks in the Eagles\u2019 first seven games but 17 in the last nine. They\u2019re rushing as a group and playing off each other really well. And they don\u2019t have any one guy with a ton of sacks, but they have seven guys with at least three. And when they need pressure, they\u2019re getting it. This is the heart of the football team right now.<\/p>\n
2. The Eagles\u2019 second half offense was a nightmare. After scoring 13 points and netting 174 yards in the first half, they were blanked and netted 17 yards in the second half … Seventeen yards? This is what their 2nd-half drives looked like: 13 yards punt, no yards punt, two yards punt, four yards punt, minus two yards punt. They had terrible field position that entire half, starting their drives at their own 22, 16, 1, 20 and 30 and they just never got anything going. One first down in the half. No completed passes. Yeah, the conditions were awful, but they were awful also for the Bills, and they scored 12 points and netted 140 yards after halftime. The Eagles were tentative after halftime, and they looked like they were playing not to lose and just waiting for the clock to run down to all 0’s. It seemed like they were content to go three-and-out, punt the ball to the Bills and put the game in the hands of the defense. It worked. But it\u2019s not going to work very often.<\/p>\n
3. How about that Dallas Goedert? He just keeps getting into the end zone. His 1st-quarter TD catch on a 2nd-and-goal from the 1 was his 11th this year and that\u2019s tied for 5th-most in franchise history, behind T.O. (14 in 2004), Tommy McDonald (13 in 1960 and 1961) and Mike Quick (13 in 1983). That\u2019s elite company. It\u2019s also tied for 17th-most in NFL history by a tight end. Goedert had 15 touchdowns in 62 games from 2020 through 2024, and he\u2019s got 11 in 14 games since Week 3. Of those 11 TDs, 10 have come in the red zone. Only Davante Adams, with 12, has more red-zone TDs this year than Goedert. His 10 red-zone TD catches are the most ever by an Eagle Cris Carter in 1989 and Calvin Williams in 1993 each had nine. Amazing.<\/p>\n
4. They weren\u2019t long field goals, but just seeing Jake Elliott get the ball through the uprights twice in terrible conditions was encouraging. He\u2019s been so bad lately that making 28- and 47-yarders in the rain and wind was big. Elliott had missed seven field goals in the Eagles\u2019 last nine games, something no other Eagles kicker had done in 38 years \u2013 since Paul McFadden in 1987. So going 2-for-2 has to help his confidence.<\/p>\n
5. Let\u2019s talk about Jalyx Hunt. He is beasting out there lately, and I think he\u2019s got a 15-sack season in him. He\u2019s that good. Hunt had two sacks the first 12 games and with two Sunday now has 4 \u00bd in his last four games for a team-high 6 \u00bd sacks with one game left. You\u2019d like to see a little more consistency, but when he\u2019s going well he\u2019s unstoppable. Hunt\u2019s 19-yard sack of Allen on a 3rd-and-8 with the Bills at the Eagles\u2019 27 was a masterpiece of discipline and pursuit. That knocked the Bills out of field goal range and forced a punt, which in a one-point game is enormous. There were times earlier this year where you got the sense Hunt was underachieving. Not lately.<\/p>\n
6. Wow, was it good to get Jalen Carter back. He was all over the field Sunday in his first game in a month. Carter blocked a PAT and how enormous is that in a one-point win? If he doesn\u2019t block that PAT, it\u2019s a 13-13 game and the Bills are kicking a PAT on the last play of the game instead of going for two. Carter also had his third sack, a tackle for loss, a pass knockdown and a quarterback hit. Their other interior linemen played lights out while Carter was out, but he\u2019s just such a playmaker when he\u2019s healthy and available and we all saw Sunday in Orchard Park just how much of a difference maker he is. They don\u2019t win this game without Carter.<\/p>\n
7. What an remarkable goal-line stand by the Eagles\u2019 defense late in the the third quarter. The Bills had a 1st-and-goal at the 7 after a couple terrible calls and non-calls on the Eagles. First down, Adoree Jackson had great coverage on Gabe Davis on a short incomplete pass, second down Marcus Epps stopped Khalil Shakir for five yards after a short pass, third down Epps stuffed James Cook for a loss of one, setting up 4th-and-goal on the 3. Josh Allen scrambled around, eluded pressure, danced around some more, then tried to will himself into the end zone. But Zack Baun got enough of him to get him down about six inches short of the goal line. That was just tremendous team defense. Smart, tough, physical, relentless. Man, this defense is fun to watch.<\/p>\n
8. Last three games, the Eagles have allowed 30 points. Think about that for a moment. The Bills average 29 on their own. There have only been two other three-game spans in the last 20 years where the Eagles have allowed 30 or few points. First three games of 2016 \u2013 which were the first three games of Doug Pederson\u2019s coaching career and the first three starts of Carson Wentz\u2019s career – they allowed 27, and the last three weeks of 2008 they allowed 26. If the offense can just play OK, this team is going to be very tough to beat.<\/p>\n
9. Maybe my favorite play in this game was Jihaad Campbell\u2019s madcap hustle down the field to pounce on Josh Allen\u2019s fumble before O\u2019Cyrus Torrence could get there. Now, Torrence is a 345-pound guard, but he also had a pretty big head start. He and Campbell got to the ball around the same time, but Campbell \u2013 getting the start in place of injured Nakobe Dean \u2013 just out-muscled him for the ball. Including Jaelan Phillips\u2019 six-yard strip sack, that was a net loss of 26 yards on one play for the Bills. The Bills had some momentum after Allen\u2019s 50-yard pass to Brandin Cooks down to the Eagles\u2019 30 two players earlier, and the Eagles snagged the momentum right back, thanks to Phillips and Campbell. That gave the Eagles a short field and set up Jalen Hurts\u2019 TD pass to Dallas Goedert, the Eagles\u2019 only touchdown of the game.<\/p>\n
10. Jalen Hurts\u2019 stats were a mess and nobody wants to go 0-for-8 in a half, but one thing Hurts did Sunday \u2013 and this was huge \u2013 was protect the football. Playing in awful conditions, ball security is paramount, and no interceptions and no fumbles from the quarterback gave the Eagles a chance to win. Josh Allen fumbled twice and lost one and it led to the Eagles\u2019 only touchdown. Hurts didn\u2019t. And the Bills are a team that gets a lot of takeaways \u2013 they were ninth with 20 coming into Week 17. Allen put up some pretty big numbers, but Hurts had the biggest number of all: No turnovers.<\/p>\n
10A. Obviously, the offense was a disaster in the second half, I get that. But my biggest takeaway from this game is a win over an MVP, a win on the road in a very tough place to win, a win against one of the best teams to play. If this is a final tuneup before the playoffs it\u2019s a damn good one. I don\u2019t care about the score. I don\u2019t care about style points. I don\u2019t care about total yards. Yeah, the offense has to play better, we all know that. But I believe they will. They just won in a building where the Bills don\u2019t lose. Think about 26-2 in their last 28 games. And then factor in the conditions? If you beat the Bills in Orchard Park, that\u2019s a performance to celebrate. It wasn\u2019t perfect. It wasn\u2019t pretty. But there\u2019s no way you go into Highmark Stadium and leave with a win and don\u2019t feel great about it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"You\u2019re not going to win a lot of games when you only have 17 net yards in the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":74828,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[69,71,70,6444],"class_list":["post-74827","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-philadelphia","tag-philadelphia","tag-philadelphia-headlines","tag-philadelphia-news","tag-roobs-observations"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/74827","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=74827"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/74827\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/74828"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=74827"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=74827"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=74827"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}