PHILADELPHIA — The wind howled Sunday evening at Lincoln Financial Field. By night’s end, there even were a few snow flurries. It wasn’t January-type chill just yet. But it was sufficiently blustery to give the feel that the games are beginning to ramp up in significance for the Super Bowl hopefuls. The Philadelphia Eagles knew just how to respond.
It wasn’t perfect. It wasn’t neat or crisp or tidy. There were tush pushes gone wrong. There was more discussion about melodrama. There were cheers merely for passes being directed at wide receiver A.J. Brown by quarterback Jalen Hurts. And there was, again, an offense that spent far too much of its time going nowhere despite a list of standouts that includes tailback Saquon Barkley, Hurts, Brown and fellow wideout DeVonta Smith.
No matter. The Eagles made the fourth-down bravado of Coach Dan Campbell backfire on the Detroit Lions. They churned out a workmanlike 16-9 triumph over the Lions. And they reinforced that until someone proves otherwise, they are the team to beat in the NFC as they attempt to win their second straight Super Bowl title.
“The defense is playing lights out,” Barkley said as the celebratory music played in the Eagles’ postgame locker room. “It’s easy to win football games when your defense is playing like that.”
The Eagles turnover the Lions on downs for the FOURTH time tonight
DETvsPHI on NBC
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The Eagles got a first-half touchdown by Hurts on a tush push and a trio of field goals by kicker Jake Elliott. And the defense took it from there, forcing the Lions to fail on all five of their fourth-down attempts. The Eagles upped their record to 8-2. They have beaten the NFC’s other 8-2 team, the Los Angeles Rams. They have beaten the Green Bay Packers and the Lions in their past two games by a combined margin of 26-16.
“It’s hard to win football games,” Barkley said. “I think sometimes people lose sight of that. And I think we’re doing a really good job of not losing sight of that. … The defense played amazing. The special teams played amazing. And we got the win. We just want to continue to keep going like this.”
The Eagles were coming off a 10-7 victory at Green Bay last Monday night in what amounted to the tush push grudge match. It was the Packers, remember, who proposed the ban last offseason on the Eagles’ signature short-yardage play that fell only two votes shy of being ratified at the May owners’ meeting.
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But even such a gratifying triumph was followed by a week of high drama. Video surfaced Wednesday of Brown playing a video game with a streamer and saying that his family was good but “everything else” was “a s— show.” Later that day, Brown told reporters that he was “not apologizing” for those comments. The Eagles’ offense needed to start doing its share and “can’t just keep slapping a Band-Aid over the defense doing their job and getting us out of trouble,” Brown said Wednesday.
Coach Nick Sirianni said that day it was “business as usual” with Brown but he was “close to being done answering these questions with this.” According to multiple reports, Eagles owner Jeffrey Lurie met with Brown on the practice field Thursday. The two reportedly concluded their approximately 10-minute conversation with a hug after Brown initially was waved over to join Lurie on the sideline by Dom DiSandro, the team’s chief security officer.
Eagles stuff the Lions on 4th & 1
DETvsPHI on NBC
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The Eagles certainly made a concerted effort in this game to get the ball to Brown. The home crowd cheered loudly when he made a 12-yard catch on the Eagles’ third offensive play. Brown was targeted eight times on Hurts’s 18 first-half throws, finishing the half with six catches for 43 yards. He ended the night with seven catches for 49 yards on 11 targets.
“It wasn’t about targets last week or the week before,” Brown said in the postgame locker room Sunday. “It wasn’t about that at all. It was me trying to help contribute.”
But the Eagles failed to get their offense jump-started.
“I think you’ve got to look yourself in the mirror,” Barkley said. “Where’s the frustration going to come at? Like, it’s easy to point the finger. But we didn’t play good enough. You can go by each group, each position. We all had plays we could have made. We all make mistakes. We had a lot of penalties. You’re got to give credit to [opposing] defenses. They’re doing a great job. But at the same time, we’ve got to do a better job. … You’ve got to learn from it. You’ve got to move on. You’ve got to continue to get better and continue to win football games.”
The Eagles managed only a field goal after taking possession at the Detroit 11-yard line when cornerback Cooper DeJean grabbed a first-quarter interception on a tipped pass. They got a second-quarter field goal after getting the ball at the Detroit 43-yard line following a failed fake punt by the Lions. The Eagles finally reached the end zone 16 seconds before halftime on a one-yard sneak by Hurts on the tush push, just after Barkley had scored an apparent touchdown but was ruled down just shy of the goal line on a replay review.
The Lions fake punt gets stopped!
DETvsPHI on NBC
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Again, the defense led the way.
“I think guys are just getting more comfortable in the defense, getting more comfortable playing with each other,” DeJean said. “I think that’s the biggest difference. We just continue to improve. That’s the name of the game is improvement. And I feel like we’ve done that each and every week.”
The Lions scored a second-quarter touchdown on a 40-yard completion from quarterback Jared Goff to speedy wideout Jameson Williams. But Williams was called for unsportsman like conduct for leaping onto the goalpost during his celebration, and Lions kicker Jake Bates missed the extra-long extra point.
The Eagles had to play without stalwart right tackle Lane Johnson, who was ruled out during the game because of a foot injury. They were called for a false start on a third-quarter tush push, much to the dismay of Sirianni and the home fans, then committed another false start on a fourth-quarter push play. But the Lions just kept failing on fourth-down tries.
Lions stuff the tush push on 4th down
DETvsPHI on NBC
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“We knew that’s what they were going to do coming in, run the ball on third and medium to try to set up fourth down,” DeJean said. “And our guys did a good job of staying focused through all four downs. Being able to get off the field was huge.”
The Eagles failed to get a first-down on a fourth-down tush push with 2 minutes 57 seconds to play, leading to 54-yard field goal by Bates that got the Lions to within seven points with 1:58 left. But the Eagles, aided by a questionable pass interference penalty against the Lions, managed to hold on to the ball and run out the clock.
“We didn’t have the production we would have liked,” Barkley said. “But the most important thing was finishing the game right there. I don’t think we’ve been great in that situation recently. We were good in that situation right there.”
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