The Eagles have won nine, I repeat NINE (9) games in a row!
But man oh man, did the Panthers make them work for it. I called that game from a mile away, didn’t I? Last week I wrote:
After a tough win in Baltimore, they welcome the 3-9 Panthers who are showing signs of life under former 1st overall pick Bryce Young. Trap game potential? I don’t believe so, but I think this game is closer than we’d like it to be especially with cross-state foe Steelers on the docket the following week.
If you just looked at the 22-16 final score, you would think the same thing. But watching it? It was exactly as I thought, but even worse?Don’t get me started about the unnecessary drama following the game (more on that later.)
An ugly game (that the Birds won, mind you) + local media stirring up drama = a pretty miserable week.
Seriously, with all the news and headlines coming out of Philadelphia right now, you’d think the Eagles were the New York Giants.
My point being that the media is treating our 11-2 squad like a team that is in contention for the first overall pick and most certainly drafting a quarterback.
I want to start this off by saying that it was a solid though extremely unimpressive day for Jalen Hurts.
Solid in the sense that he accumulated three total touchdowns and didn’t turn the football over.
Unimpressive and worrisome that he yielded just 108 yards against a Panthers’ defense that has been in the bottom half of the league all year long.
It also doesn’t help when your star wideout was visibly frustrated, and when asked about his issues, he says “Passing.”
Obviously, this wasn’t a good look but not entirely off-base.
The Eagles have a fantastic offensive line and the best one-two punch at WR in all of professional football. Sure, they were without TE Dallas Goedert, but in a vacuum, that should not be a problem.
If you have AJ Brown and DeVonta Smith, you should not have an issue throwing the football.
You also should not have a problem when you have a good offensive coordinator in Kellen Moore. The counter to this (and the argument I used the past few weeks to defend the passing game) is that the Eagles’ strength is the run game.
This is a running team. It is clear that they have a formula to win, especially with the emergence of this young defense: Get the ball, run it with the superstar RB, run designed QB runs, play-action chunk throws, score, get the defense to shut down the opposing offense, wash, rinse and repeat.
It was a formula thought to be extinct in this day and age, yet here are the 2024 Philadelphia Eagles utilizing it very well.
I also noted the past few weeks that the Eagles’ passing game did enough when it was asked and needed.
Jalen Hurts and the passing attack have not been asked to be relied on since their blowout week 4 loss to the Tampa Bay Buccaneers when they were played without AJ Brown, DeVonta Smith, and Lane Johnson in 100°F heat.
The issue with this performance against the Panthers is that the passing offense was almost a hindrance; they couldn’t get it going.
Could it be that I am overreacting and I shouldn’t be worried? Possibly, and I definitely hope so. However, the opposite could also be the case, which worries me and the rest of Eagles’ faithful.
I still believe in Jalen Hurts; I want that to be clear. I am a Hurts fan, this team can win with Hurts. He holds a 45-19 record as a starter, and on the biggest stage in the sport, he put on a show and outplayed Patrick Mahomes.
He also, in my opinion, is behind the tier one elite signal callers such as: Mahomes, Lamar Jackson, Josh Allen, Joe Burrow, & Justin Herbert.
Yet, I still think he is in that 6-12 range…which is a quarterback you can absolutely win with in the postseason.
The discourse that suggests that the Eagles would have the same record if they replaced Hurts with a quarterback like Jameis Winston is ridiculous and off-base.
Hurts and Kellen Moore have to get this passing attack together in order for the Eagles to get to where they want to go, and they have four weeks until the playoffs begin to get there.
I believe that it will get there, but until I (and everyone else) sees it, the discourse around Hurts’ and the Eagles’ true ceiling this season will remain.
My lord this week has felt like the abyss that was the end of last season.
AND THE EAGLES WON THE GAME MIND YOU.
To catch you up, it was AJ Brown being upset with the passing game, then Jalen said it wasn’t good enough.
Brandon Graham went on his weekly talk show segment on a local radio station after all of that and stirred things up then walked back the comments.
As if that wasn’t enough, ESPN and major outlets caught wind, and of course, now everyone has an opinion.
Honestly, Nick Sirianni — who I have criticized all season — has done a great job sticking up for his players this week, clarifying the intent of his players’ discontent, and shooting down comparisons to last season.
Do I think this season is going to end up as miserable as last year? No, I do not. Are the vibes right now as great as they were in 2022? No, because it felt like it was fun literally every week that year.
Truthfully, every Eagles fan is so scarred from last year that they are expecting everything to go wrong — we aren’t called Negladelphia for nothing!
Until the Eagles can prove that they have a way to block out the noise while calming everyone down, this is just going to be the case.
The solution to that? Win…convincingly.
They have it in them, and I refuse to believe this week is going to make them crash and burn like last season.
This team has showed they have a backbone, no reason to doubt them until they give you a reason to do so.
It’s a intrastate battle this Sunday against the Steelers! It’s a weird game because the Steelers haven’t won in Philadelphia since 1965, and the Eagles have never won against Russell Wilson. Something’s got to give.
It’s also the first time I remember both of these teams being this good entering a game with the Steelers at 10-3 and the Eagles at 11-2.
This will be a hard-earned victory for either team; if the Eagles want to get their passing attack going, it’ll be a tough week to do so.
Conversely, the Steelers’ offense will have their hands full against this great Vic Fangio-led Eagles’ defense.
This is for bragging rights for the State of Pennsylvania. Eastern and Western PA could not be any more different from one another, but we’re all part of the Commonwealth just the same.
Also WAWA > Sheetz, debate a wall.
Go Birds
(Top Photo Credit: The Adventures of Tintin/incorrecttintin on Tumblr)
The Wide World of Dirt 
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