Crossing Broad
Well that was gross. They choked away a three-touchdown lead in Dallas after looking like they were gonna run away with it.
The offense looked unstoppable early, then couldn’t do anything at all in the second half. Saquon Barkley fumbled the ball, Xavier Gipson fumbled the ball, Zack Baun dropped an interception, and Jake Elliott missed a long field goal. Throw in one hundred penalties for one hundred million yards (actually 14 for 96), and you have all of the required ingredients for a crap sundae.
Other than that, it was great!
Jokes aside, it’s one of those games that either lights a fire under these guys, or kicks off a 2023-like skid. Negadelphians have been manifesting the latter for much of this season, so we’ll see if that ends up being true moving forward, or whether the Birds rally and get it together.
To the observations we go:
1) It was good to see Jalen Carter chasing down Dak on the first drive. No spitting incidents this time around. No cheap ejections. No DAK TUAH to dominate the headlines, though maybe it would have served as a nice distraction.
2) After the Cowboys’ opening turnover on downs, that was six out of six times in the last five quarters that the defense has held on 4th down attempts. They extended it to 7 for 7 over eight quarters by the end of this game. They left some plays out there, but don’t get the blame for the loss. Those injuries to Reed Blankenship and Adoree’ Jackson were really unfortunate, but they certainly did enough to win the game, the D.
3) Two snaps for the Eagles, two targets for A.J. Brown. Coincidence? Of course not. The touchdown was the cherry on top of a great opening drive. Jalen Hurts put this right over the top of the linebacker, who didn’t get enough depth:
4) There’s a Fox producer who plays The War on Drugs at least once during every Eagles game. You’ve heard that, right? The song is “Under the Pressure.”
5) The start of the Eagles’ second drive was as bad as the first drive was good. That’s to be expected at this point. On first down, they lose a yard on a negative rushing play, then Fred Johnson false starts and they punt after throwing short on 3rd and 14. Thankfully the Cowboys’ replay guys were snoozing and didn’t challenge Ryan Flournoy tipping the ball on the roughing the passer penalty, which gave the Birds a lifeline. Bottom line, running Saquon through the middle on 2nd and 16 is pointless. You don’t pick up enough yardage with that play to make 3rd down any more manageable.
6) Likewise, you probably gulped when they handed it to Barkley on 3rd and 3 later in the drive. He turned a loss into a first down, but the difference there is that they were in 4th down territory and would have tush pushed on fourth if they hadn’t gotten...
