Many Eagles’ fans got their wish. They got to see Tanner McKee take snaps and move the Eagles’ offense. They got to see Nick Sirianni jump up and down on the sideline like a child.
They got to see Eagles
heading to the Super Bowl again, after righting all the wrong of the past month by beating the Las Vegas Raiders, 31-0, on Sunday at Lincoln Financial Field. It was the first Eagles’ shutout in seven years, since they beat Washington, 24-0, on Dec. 30, 2018, to finish 9-7 and make the last wild card playoff berth.
That game meant something.
This was equivalent to a mercy killing of a team that was dead months ago, with the Eagles pounding the pathetic Raiders for 387 yards of offense, while holding Las Vegas to an inept 75 yards, where at times Raiders’ head coach Pete Carroll may have been looking in the opposite direction of where the ball actually was.
It was the Raiders’ NFL-high eighth-straight loss. The Raiders did not have a play over 10 yards. They entered the game averaging 15 points a game, the lowest in the NFL and the lowest in the NFL since the 2009 1-15 St. Louis Rams. The 75 yards the Eagles gave up on defense is the fewest since allowing 49 yards to the Chicago Cardinals at Connie Mack Stadium in a 27-3 Eagles’ victory on Dec. 4, 1955.
Beating the Raiders was a get-right-for-the-moment game, but not a measuring-stick game. That should come in a few weeks against the Buffalo Bills, who are playing for the best record in the AFC and home field advantage throughout the playoffs.
The 31-0 victory is the Eagles’ largest victory this season. By the fourth quarter, McKee was in the game to the cheers of the Linc crowd.
The defense sacked Raiders’ quarterback Kenny Pickett four times for minus-35 yards, with two coming from old man Brandon Graham, who became the oldest Eagle to ever have a sack.
The victory ended the Eagles’ three-game losing streak, it brought them to 9-5 and a step closer to clinching the NFC East for the second-straight year. It temporarily erased the Eagles’ lowest five-game scoring skid in a decade.
That is all it did.
This team’s identity crisis persists. Real issues surface in real games against real teams. The Las Vegas Raiders are not close to an NFL team right now.
There was a lot of good, a pinch of bad, and hardly any ugly in the Eagles’ 31-0 victory on Sunday against the terrible Las Vegas Raiders.
The Good
Jalen Hurts completing 12 of 15 passes for 175 yards and three touchdowns. He converted two third downs on called running plays. He completed passes of 27, 32 and 44 yards. He came off assured and poised in the pocket, and the times he ran, he was smart and ran to the sideline when defenders converged on him.
Saquon Barkley rushed for a game-high 78 yards on 22 carries, and scoring a touchdown.
A.J. Brown’s 27-yard touchdown pass down the middle of the field on the first play of the fourth quarter. Brownfinished with two catches for 41 yards and a touchdown.
Dallas Goedert’s team-high six receptions on seven targets for 70 yards and two touchdowns, including a 34-yard reception on the first play of the second half. It started a 10-play, 73-yard drive that took up 6:27. It was the only time the Eagles had the ball in the third quarter, and converted two third downs, including a third-and-12. Goedert scored his second TD to conclude the drive.
Zack Baun’s interception to open the second half, on great coverage on a third-and-three from the Eagles’ 35. Baun peeled back into coverage, fronting Raiders’ tight end Brock Bowers, and reached up to snare the ball. It was a great athletic play.
The Eagles’ first half. In what was really a joke of a game, the Eagles outgained woeful Las Vegas, 165-53, with 13 first downs to the Raiders’ five, and owning the ball 18:47 to the Raiders’ 11:13. The Eagles led 17-0 at halftime, and the only real complaint was that it should have been by more, blowing their second possession and settling for a field goal.
The Eagles’ fourth series, an 11-play, 70-yard drive that resulted in a Saquon Barkley two-yard touchdown run with 1:54 left in the first half. Of the 11 plays, the Eagles faced only one third down, which Hurts converted by running eight yards on a third-and-three to the Raiders’ two.
DeVonta Smith’s 44-yard reception for the first play of the Eagles’ second drive, putting the Eagles at the Las Vegas’ 23. Unfortunately, the Eagles did not do anything with the catch, having to settle for a field goal.
The Eagles’ first quarter. They held that juggernaut Raiders’ offense to 26 total yards, while gaining 98, 60 through the air. They held the ball 8:25 to Las Vegas’ 6:35, and did what a good NFL team should do against a bad one.
Defensive tackle Moro Ojomo’s 10-yard sack at the Eagles’ 47 on the Raiders’ first drive. It pushed a first-and-10 into a second-and-20.
Nakobe Dean coming up to take down his former Georgia teammate Brock Bowers for a one-yard loss on the Raiders’ opening drive on a first-and-10 at the Raiders’ 37.
The Eagles’ opening drive. They converted four third downs, one by penalty, and drove 67 yards over 13 plays taking up 7:51 of the clock. Smith, DeVonta Smith’s six-yard reception to the Raiders’ four on third-and-six was a big play, and the Eagles ended with a play that has been highly successful for them in the red zone, when Hurts flicked a shovel pass to Dallas Goedert for high career-high eighth TD this season.
Hurts taking a quarterback draw up the middle for a nine-yard gain on the Eagles’ first drive on a third-and-four to the Raiders’ 25.
The Bad
Right guard Tyler Steen getting flagged for holding on third-and-two at the Raiders’ 17 on the Eagles’ first drive of the second half. It wiped out a Barkley nine-yard gain and a first down, but it was erased when Hurts ran 13 yards on another quarterback draw on a third-and-12.
Tank Bigsby’s drop on a third-and-six on the Eagles’ third drive. He had the whole sideline, and tried running before the ball arrived.
The Eagles third drive, when they went three-and-out for the first time, when Saquon Barkley got swallowed up by Eagles’ castoff Devin White for a four-yard loss on a second-and-two.
The Eagles not scoring a touchdown on their second drive, sitting at the five on a first-and-goal after a Las Vegas interference call. The Eagles sagged against a decent defense, and the Goedert drop at the goal line led to the Maxx Crosby three-yard sack the following play. The Eagles should have gotten more than the disappointing 27-yard Jake Elliott field goal.
The Ugly
Cooper DeJean’s 15-yard unnecessary roughness call on the Raiders’ first drive, wiping out Brandon Graham’s eight-yard sack on a third-and-eight play at the Raiders’ 44.
