The Wide World of Dirt

Another week in the 2022 season in the books, and another Eagles win.

With a 25-20 victory over the Chicago Bears, the Birds are now 13-1 on the season; it’s actually crazy.

They have tied the franchise record for number of wins in a single season, and they have three more games to try and break it.

I dunno about you, but I think that’s a pretty safe bet to happen.

They also punched their ticket to the postseason, have a chance to clinch the NFC East, and the number 1 seed in the NFC with a win against the Dallas Cowboys, but more on that after this recap.

Worst game in a while.

This game definitely wasn’t pretty.

This clearly looked like a trap game, and it almost was. Coming to Chicago was an Eagles team with everything to lose while the Bears were a team with nothing to lose.

It was an ugly fight the whole 60 minutes. The weather was freezing, as it usually is in Chicago this time of the year, and the Eagles felt it. Even after the game many Eagles players said how crazy cold it was.

Usually in these types of environments, teams like to run the football. It also helps if the team you are facing is a terrible team against the run.

To add more to this equation, it really helps if you have a running back with over 1,000 yards on the ground.

So, the Eagles totally utilized Miles Sanders and cruised to another historic rushing day like their game against Green Bay, right?

Yeah not at all.

I don’t know what it is, but as I have said before back with Doug Pederson, his Eagles teams would sometimes neglect to run the football.

So far, there has been deja vu with the Nick Sirianni-led teams. Sunday was one of those instances. For whatever reason, Sirianni and Steichan’s game plan was to throw it all over the field.

Now, if you look at the stats, it looked like Jalen Hurts had the worst performance of the year. He finished 22/37 for 315 yards and 2 INTS while carrying the ball 17 times for 61 yards and 3 TDs.

It was the first multi-interception game for Hurts all season. Both of those picks were balls that probably should have been caught, but balls Hurts probably shouldn’t have thrown.

What is truly mind-boggling is that Miles Sanders had 11 carries for 42 yards. Hurts, the QUARTERBACK had more carries than the RUNNING BACK.

Now look, I get that we run an RPO (run-pass-option) heavy offense, and Sirianni said after the game a lot of those Hurts runs were cause of the RPO, but that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t run the ball with your running back (who is having a career year) only 11 times.

You have pound-for-pound the best offensive line in the game; use them when needed.

It also doesn’t help that the Eagles lost the turnover battle 3-1 as well as the fight for time of possession. They shot themselves in the foot many times in this game.

Against a more competent team they probably lose this one. However, all that matters is that they didn’t.

That Hurts

The biggest story to come out of this week was with Jalen Hurts, and not for his play.

As of writing this, it has been officially announced that Hurts will miss this week’s matchup with the Cowboys due to a sprained shoulder. The injury occurred when Hurts was driven to the ground right on his throwing shoulder in the third quarter.

All is over! See ya next year, right? Wrong.

Thankfully, it is not a long-term injury nor should it end Hurts’ season. I, for one, think that benching Jalen is the smart move this week.

Does this hurt Jalen’s MVP case? Yeah probably. Should that matter? No, but goddamn if I don’t want a Philadelphia athlete to win the award so damn much.

(Embiid should have won at least one during the past two seasons, debate a wall, but it was really cool to see Harper winning it though.)

I just want Jalen to be ok, so I can watch him come back and continue to make defenses look overmatched. Enter Minshew Mania.

HOW BOUT ‘DEM FRAUDS

Even though Jalen is not playing, I still am sensing an Eagles win over the Dallas Frauds… I mean Cowboys.

Seriously, what is it about this Cowboys team that has people STILL believing them to be Super Bowl contenders?

They are the EXACT same team from last year, but worse, and that team lost in the wild card (again!)

At this point, the Cowboys should not be remembered as America’s team. Since 1996 the Cowboys have won 4 playoff games…FOUR. The Eagles have 14 (and a Super Bowl!)

All I’m seeing over Twitter is how the Eagles are going to lose. Why? Because they don’t have Jalen Hurts?

Oh but wait, I thought Jalen was a “system quarterback” according to Micah Parsons. Shouldn’t that mean any arbitrary quarterback can find success?

Let’s not forget, backup quarterbacks can find success in Philadelphia. Back in 2006, a very similar situation lined up.

The Eagles traveled to Dallas in a winner-take-all matchup for a Christmas showdown; however, the Eagles were armed with backup Jeff Garcia. Easy win for the Cowboys right?

Wrong, the Eagles left with a 23-7 victory, and let’s also not forget that Nick Foles won a Super Bowl as a backup. All-in-all, I am not worried about the Dallas Cowboys.

Gardner Minshew is going to do his thing, and the “system” will still be operational enough to beat the Cowboys. It’s leading up to a very Merry Christmas.

As always, Dallas sucks… Go Birds.