Please don’t give up on this team. Please don’t quit this team. Don’t go to bed early just because you’re trailing by 10 points against a team that has never lost at home and has a Hall of Fame coach and quarterback.
The Eagles never give up. Until now.
A national television audience watched the Eagles fight back from a 10-point deficit late in the third quarter to defeat the powerhouse Chiefs at Arrowhead Stadium.
The 21-17 victory didn’t avenge the Super Bowl loss, but it certainly solidified the Eagles’ status as the NFL’s best team and once again a legitimate Super Bowl contender.
They couldn’t do anything right. That way they could do nothing wrong. And now they’re 9-1, 2-0 in a six-game stretch, and we all know this will define their season.
Bring on the Bills. Bring on the 49ers. Bring on the Cowboys. Bring it all. The Eagles aren’t going away.
1. This victory is very meaningful in many ways. The most obvious way would be for the Eagles to make him 9-1 on a weekend in which his legitimate NFC challengers, the Cowboys, 49ers and Lions, all won. And that means the Eagles are 2-0 in the six-game murder streak that everyone circled on their calendars when the schedule was released in April. But most of all, this is a game the Eagles have played in the NFL’s loudest outdoor stadium, on the road against a team that has appeared in three of the past four Super Bowls and for which Hall is the coach and quarterback. This is a statement that he has no intention of declining to play. They were selected by the Famers and defeated the Eagles in the Super Bowl just nine months ago. There was a lot of intrigue going into Monday night’s game against the Eagles at Arrowhead, but the Eagles faced it all and came away with a historic victory. This is the second straight game in which the Eagles have found a way to beat an elite team that has been giving them nightmares lately. They haven’t beaten Dak Prescott since 2019 and haven’t beaten the Chiefs since 2009. It’s one thing to be 9-1; it’s another to be 9-1 with back-to-back wins against composite teams. 13-4. Things aren’t going to be easy, with the Bills, 49ers, Cowboys again, and now the Seahawks, but the last few weeks have confirmed what many of us have believed: that the Eagles are the best team in the NFL. That’s it. It has been proven. It doesn’t guarantee anything, but if they can beat the Cowboys and Chiefs, they can beat anyone, and that’s a good thing.
2. This win really highlighted what the Eagles do best. It’s not about throwing the ball, stopping the run, putting pressure on the quarterback, or covering the wide receivers. You’re winning. They’ve been doing it all year, and they’ve done it again. No matter how ugly the game is, no matter how bad the early play, no matter what goes wrong, no matter what the situation looks like, this team will never stop fighting, this team will never stop trying, that locker room. There’s a very deep trust in that from Nick Sirianni and Jalen Hurts that allows them to win games they probably don’t need to win. They were 62-6 against Andy Reid’s Chiefs team on Monday night in Kansas City when they led by at least 10 points at halftime, leading into the fourth quarter. Then they did it again with a Chiefs team that went 65-8 under Coach Reid. Honestly, I don’t know how they did it. It didn’t hurt that the Chiefs had a few drops in the final minutes. But this was all Eagles personality. The one thing that will never let them down.
3. Two weeks after holding the Cowboys to a six-point lead in the second half, the much-maligned defense neutralized the Chiefs in the second half on Monday night. Sean Desai knows what he’s doing. The Cowboys scored 17 points before halftime and six after halftime. The Chiefs scored 17 points before halftime, but were scoreless after halftime. That’s against two of the most potent offenses in the NFL. It’s amazing to blank Patrick Mahomes and Andy Reid and the Chiefs in their own stadium in the second half. I know this isn’t the Chiefs offense of old, but this is his 29th-ranked pass defense in the NFL, coming off a second-half shutout win against Mahomes. unrealistic. The Eagles got a big boost from Bradley Roby, playing for the first time since against the Jets, who was outstanding, and Kevin Byard, another rookie in the secondary, was much better than he was in the first two games. Mahomes scored two TDs in the first half and threw 22 times for 99 yards after halftime. He held Travis Kelce to 44 yards, didn’t allow a pass play longer than 17 yards, and allowed just four first downs after halftime. A great performance from the defense, especially the secondary, which has shown some promise this year.
Four. This offense deserves a lot of credit for bouncing back from an almost unbelievably bad first half. The Chiefs had five sacks in the first half, including four over six plays in the second quarter. The Eagles had just 78 net yards and just 20 net passing yards through halftime. But with Jeff Stoutland on your side, you can have it all. After some adjustments and falling behind 17-7, the Eagles put together TD drives of 61 and 80 yards to take the lead and guess how many sacks they allowed on those two drives. That is correct. none. Zip. zero. none. In other words, the Chiefs were destroying the Eagles’ offensive line, and things got so bad that for a while, the Eagles stopped throwing, especially on third down. They didn’t make a formal third-down pass attempt until midway through the fourth quarter, but by then the O-line had settled down and really started to dominate the Chiefs. Football is an interesting game. Even if it doesn’t look good for a long time, as long as you keep playing hard while you have time, strange things will happen. The Eagles had 78 total yards, 20 net passing yards, and seven points before halftime, and after halftime they had 160 total yards, 104 net passing yards, and 14 points. Keep fighting. Keep sharpening.
Five. It was certainly encouraging to see D’Andre Swift resemble the D’Andre Swift of the first month of the season. Swift’s production dropped from 108 yards per game and 5.8 yards per carry from Weeks 2 through 5 to 45 yards per carry and 3.1 yards per carry over the final four games. But the Chiefs have the fourth-worst defense in the NFL at 4.6 yards per carry, and on a cold, windy, and rainy night, Swift took advantage of that, gaining 76 yards on 12 carries and leading the way in the third. It was his best performance since last week, he added. 31 receiving yards. It certainly helped that Cam Jurgens returned and Jalen Hurts was healthier than before and showed the ability to run early. However, Swift looked sharper than in recent weeks at reading defenders and cutting back, and ran with authority. He went 5-of-33 on the Eagles’ first-quarter touchdown drive. That was about the same as his average yards per game since Week 6. The Eagles need to be able to run the ball better than them if they want to win. This was a great start.
6. A few special teams performances that weren’t worth mentioning: With three minutes left and the Eagles leading 21-17, Josh Jobe made a great play in punt coverage and tackled Kadarius Toney for no gain at the 9-yard line. Did. Toney made the punt return for the Eagles – his longest career punt return was his third against the Eagles – but Jobe’s play forced the Chiefs to go 91 yards for the winning touchdown, rather than 34 yards. It never came close. About the career of the biggest play job. And how about punter Braden Mann putting together another big game? He got off to a slow start, but has been performing well of late since replacing Alin Sipos. On Monday night, he averaged 47.7 points on seven punts, which was extremely clutch because giving Patrick Mahomes a short field only invites trouble. So what about Britten Covey? That little guy just keeps acting up. In a game where field position plays a big role, he averaged 17.7 returns to three. Great work by Michael Clay’s group.
7. On a day when AJ Brown caught just one pass for 8 yards, DeVonta Smith was a big hit. Smith caught six passes for 99 yards, including a 41-yarder down the right sideline for the game-winning touchdown with 6 1/2 minutes remaining. Smith is often overlooked as he plays against the top three WRs in the league, but he is sure to make a big impact when given the opportunity.
8. It was on October 27, 2021, that Sirianni gave an underground speech that was widely ridiculed. If you search for “Fire Sirianni” on Google, you’ll see a ton of social media results for October 27, 2021. At that point, the Eagles were 2-5 and heading to Detroit. They won in Detroit and finished the season 7-2 in a meaningful game. Last year we had 14 wins and 3 losses. And this year, they have 9 wins and 1 loss. Mathematics is a mess. Since that discussion with the team, the Eagles are 30-6 in meaningful regular season games. Think about it for a while. It’s literally unbelievable.