Bleeding Green Nation
Highlight performances from Philadelphia’s Wild Card win.
The Philadelphia Eagles are through to the Divisional Round after beating the Green Bay Packers!
That wasn’t the prettiest win for the Birds. But, hey, that might not really matter. The Eagles won ugly against the Atlanta Falcons in January 2018 en route to winning Super Bowl LII.
The Eagles didn’t play their A-game in this one and yet they still won by two touchdowns. Perhaps the best is still yet to come?
Time to hand out some winners, losers, and IDKs.
The Packers were held to 10 points and 302 yards. That’s their lowest scoring output and fourth-lowest yardage output this season.
Jordan Love was held to 20/33, 212 yards (6.4 average), 0 TD, 3 INT, and a 41.5 passer rating. That’s the second-lowest passer rating performance of Love’s career.
In the first half, the Packers gained just 76 yards on 31 plays. As has often been the case, the Eagles’ defense did a really good job of buying time for the offense to finally get going.
Fangio has more than earned the benefit of the doubt. His defense is so legit. And the Eagles might be able to ride it all the way to a Super Bowl win.
Smith’s development over the course of this season has been so impressive.
He went from playing a concerning amount in the third preseason game to being the team’s top edge rusher in terms of playing time.
Smith stuffed the stat sheet with eight total tackles, four solo tackles, two tackles for loss, and two sacks.
The two sacks are especially impressive considering 1) he was going up against Packers right tackle Zach Tom, who made Pro Football Focus’s All-Pro team and 2) Jordan Love is very hard to sack.
Smith is up to 8.5 sacks over his last 13 games. There are just nine NFL players who have more than 8.5 sacks in their last 13 games.
The energy and effort Smith plays with is admirable. He’s becoming a real nuisance for other teams to deal with.
Big Play Slay’s interception was a really great rep by him ...
... if he does say so himself:
That was Slay’s first career playoff interception.
First-team All-Pro linebacker Zack Baun makes big plays every week. His interception was aided by Love making a terrible decision ... but there’s something to be said for Baun always being in position to make an impact.
Dean was having a pretty great game before going down with what seems like it might be a season-ending knee injury that might linger into next season. Despite only playing 35% of the Eagles’ defensive snaps, Dean logged two of the team’s four TFLs.
The Eagles will miss Dean.
Q finally got his first career interception! And the pick killed off any unlikely Packers comeback attempt.
Outside of getting flagged for pass interference...
