The Philadelphia Eagles have moved on to the Divisional round of the NFL playoffs after defeating the Green Bay Packers 22-10 Sunday evening in front of 69,879 fans at Lincoln Financial Field.
The Birds (15-3) will play the winner of the Los Angeles Rams/Minnesota Vikings game being played Monday night at State Farm Stadium, the home of the Arizona Cardinals (8:00 p.m. ET time ESPN, ABC).
The win came with a heavy price for the Eagles.
Nakobe Dean, the Eagles outstanding linebacker, suffered a knee injury in the third quarter and had to be helped off the field.
NBC Sports Philadelphia's John Clark showed Dean leaving the stadium on crutches with a full leg brace.
The photo sparked discussions that the injury could keep the defensive sparkplug sidelined for the remainder of the season.
Quarterback Jalen Hurts was asked at his postgame press conference about Dean getting hurt.
“You hate that,” Hurts said. “I think you asked me a question about what I saw. And I think one thing that I learned was just the bond that those Georgia guys have, and how they play.
“I think that that's had a great influence on our defense, because there's always a confidence, there's always an intensity there and swagger about themselves.
“I think that feeds through the whole defense, and I think it's very similar to all the guys that come from Alabama and the SEC and that have seen each other and played alongside one another, or watch guys play in that conference or in college.
“But I think he's a pivotal piece to our defense and he'll be missed. I'm praying for a speedy recovery.”
Running back Saquon Barkley also talked about Dean, and the impression he made on him while he watched his new teammate fight to come back from a season-ending injury in 2023 to become a key player on the Eagles’ outstanding season
“It definitely hurts,” Barkley said. “I want to give a big shout to [Nakobie], the way he plays....my biggest thing here is how he handled himself (coming back from an injury in 2023).
“I've seen a lot of people in this situation. He wasn't where he wanted to be (last year, injured). I've seen people cry, complain and moan.
“He didn't do that. He came in and said I'm going to show you and he won the job. If that's the case (out of the season), it's unfortunate. But we've got guys that will rally around him and step up. It's part of football to have the next man up mentality...and we have those guys.”
The Eagles offense struggled throughout the game. But Hurts, Barkley and the rest of the unit had just enough moments and impact plays to pull out the win.
HURTS WAS INDEED RUSTY
The thoughts from football observers was Jalen Hurts may be a little rusty...he suffered a concussion early in their December 22 loss to the Washington Commanders. He hadn't played since then.
Next man up? How about next unit up?
The Eagles special teams lent a helping hand to Hurts. On the opening kickoff, they forced a fumble by Packers kick returner Keisean Nixon. Eagles’ linebacker Oren Burks caused the fumble and was recovered by Jeremiah Trotter Jr. on the Packers 28-yard line.
Three plays later, Hurts hit Jahan Dotson for an eleven-yard touchdown and a 7-0 lead. Barkley set up the play with a nifty, fast-twitch 16-yard run.
After the Packers failed to move the ball into scoring position on consecutive drives, the Eagles put together an 11-play, 57-yard drive that stalled at the Packers 13-yard line.
Jack Elliott made the score 10-0 with a 31-yard field goal with 22 seconds left in the first quarter.
On the Packers next drive, Darius Slay intercepted Jordan Love's long pass intended for wide receiver Dontayvion Wicks at Eagles 22-yard line.
The Birds failed to move the ball and had to punt. Braden Mann punted for 54 yards. Jayden Reed returned punt for 21 yards setting up Love and Packers at their own 44-yard line.
The Packers managed to the ball to the Eagles 20-yard line only to have Brandon McManus – a North Penn and Temple graduate miss a 38-yard field goal.
With 3:25 left in the first half, the Eagles offense officially was off to a slow start.
At this point, the defense was now missing Slay (elbow) and Dean (knee injury) and reeling a little bit. The McManus miss was a big break for the Birds.
Slay returned to the field while Dean was ruled out for the game and possibly the season.
The offense did not show any spark in its first possession of the second half.
The Packers did manage to get on the scoreboard with 5:46 left in the third when McManus hit a 26 yard field goal after their first drive stalled at the Eagles eight-yard line.
Eagles Nation’s Super Bowl dreams were saved on the next drive.
The Birds dormant offense exploded for a five-play, 68-yard drive that ended with a 24-yard catch and run from Hurts to Dallas Goedert.
Goedert stiff-armed his way to the end zone.
Elliott missed the extra point. The score was 16-3. The Eagles never looked back.
The Packers (11-7) made the score 16-10 on a one-yard Josh Jacobs run four seconds into the fourth quarter.
The nine-play, 78-yard drive came at a cost for Green Bay.
Ace wide receiver Jayden Reed was injured on the third play of the drive and did not return. Love was already down one of his main weapons in standout wide receiver Christian Watson. Now Reed was out for the game.
The Eagles would tack on two more Elliott field goals to ice the game.
PACKERS HEAD COACH WOULD NOT MAKE EXCUSES
Packers Head Coach Matt LaFleur was asked about how much the injuries piling up contributed to the poor production Sunday.
“It's football. It’s unfortunate,” LaFleur said. “I hate it for our guys that have to battle through that. But it's football. It's ‘next man up’ mentality. There’s a standard of performance that you have to go out there.
“We have to hold that standard no matter who's in. You have to find ways to adjust. It's our job as coaches to try to make the necessary adjustments to put those guys in positions where they can still have success. We obviously didn't do a good enough job of that tonight.”
Love was asked what the Packers need to do to get on par with teams that beat them this year like Philadelphia, Detroit, and Minnesota:
“We lost to some really good teams, and we will look at those games, but we have to find ways to just execute and win those big time games like that,” said Love, who was sacked twice, finished 20 of 33 for 212 yards, three interceptions and no TD passes. “Obviously this year, we weren't able to do that. So there'll be a lot of stuff we'll look at, try to figure out what exactly the root of our problem is and the areas we can get better at.
“It just wasn't good enough against the really good teams in this league. It will be something that we'll focus on this offseason.”
MORE PLAYER QUOTES AND STATS
Eagles safety Reed Blankenship was asked if this was a “survive and advance” game for the Eagles.
“I wouldn't say survive is the term,” Blankenship said at his locker after the game, “There's a lot of stuff we need to work on and that's a good thing. We'll come it to work tomorrow, work out the kinks and keep going.”
Would Blankenship say the defense won the game Sunday? The offense did struggle.
“It's a team sport at the end of the day,” said Blankenship, who finished with led all defenders with 11 total tackles (seven solo) and a forced fumble. “We've got the offense's back, they've got out back. There is still a lot of stuff we left out there. That's a good thing and a bad thing. There's still room for improvement. We're excited to go to work tomorrow.”
The Eagles defense came up with three interceptions, four turnovers overall. Was there anything on film you saw that, with the right strategy, the defense knew going into the game, interceptions were there for the taking?
“Yeah, [we knew] he was going to take his shots,” Blankenship said. “The guys up front played a big part in it. Especially the rush, all levels. We work as a unit. We've got to have that relationship in order to win these games like that. I fell like we did all we could do at our level.”
Last week Lane Johnson talked about keeping emotions in check. He said when you get too excited, you don’t play your best.
The third-year player out of Middle Tennessee State agreed.
“Never too high, never too low,” Blankenship said. “Stay steady. That's what I've always been taught, and always been told. You really can't get too high, you've just got to stay even keeled.”
Hurts finished 13 of 21 for 131 yards, two touchdown passes and QB Rating of 111.4. He was sacked twice.
Love’s QB rating for the game was 41.5.
DeVonta Smith caught four passes for 55 yards. Goedert recorded four receptions for 47 yards.
Jacobs rushed 18 times for 81 yards including a brilliant and physical 31-yard run that set up his TD.
Packers linebacker Quay Walker led the Green Bay defense with eight total tackles (four solo).
Rookie cornerback Quinyon Mitchell recorded six solo tackles, a a defended pass and his his first NFL interception with 1:51 left in the fourth quarter to seal the win.
Nolan Smith may have turned in his best game as an Eagle. The second year edge rusher out of Georgia slashed his way to seven total tackles (three solo) including two sacks and a special teams tackle.
“He’s a skinny BD (Brandon Graham),” Slay said after the game.
PRACTICE?
Barkley was asked about the lack of practice with the stars on the team, especially on offense, over the past month because of injuries was the cause of the sputtering offense on Sunday.
“I hate this term 'practice makes perfect' because you are never going to be perfect,” Barkley said at his locker after the game. “But at the end of the day, I know we have all these stars, all these weapons...the only thing that matters is winning the game.
“I'm going to say that until I'm blue in the face,” continued Barkley, who rushed 25 times for 119 yards. “And I truly believe that. The stat line is over [rated]. It don't matter. What you did in the regular season doesn't carry over. The only stat line is wins.
“I think that's missed about this team. Everyone's gonna talk about 'Oh, we're not doing this, or we should have run this way...at the end of the day...we have all these people, all these stars and these guys who are great....but the only thing we care about is winning.”
Hurts agreed. Check your ego at the door on game day.
“You know that doesn’t matter,” Hurts said. “You know that doesn’t matter. It's all about winning. It's about finding ways to win.”
SIRIANNI ON THE OFFENSE
“As an offense, we struggled a little bit,” Sirianni said. “I don't think we had the game that we wanted to have on offense, but Jalen I think did a lot of good things.
“First of all, Jalen is a winner.” The fourth year head coach continued. “He wins. I mean, no one can argue that. The other thing is we know when we take care of the football, the things that happen when we take care of the football, and Jalen's on this pace of the efficiency that he's played with this year with his quarterback rating, with his yards per attempt, and all those different things, to be able to do that while also taking care of the football is huge.
“Again, do we want plays back that happened today? Yeah. But one thing that I loved about what happened on the offense is that it wasn't going great, and like this was the case for our entire team.
“Like Q (Quinyon Mitchell) gives up a PI on third down, and then Q comes back and has a big third down stop on a four-point play on third-and-nine from the nine.
“That's dawg mentality. Jake misses an extra point, and then Jake puts the game away with two huge field goals after that. That's dawg mentality. The offense isn't going the way we want it to go, but somehow, some way, when they cut the lead to six; we find a way to put it back to two scores.
“Then I think it came back to another possession again, and we found a way to put it up -- actually, whatever it was, but we found a way to score again.
“That's just the ebbs and flows of a game. We're going to go back to work tomorrow. No victory Monday for us. We could play Saturday, too. We don't know. But no victory Monday for us. We're going to go back to work because we do have a lot of things to clean up.”
MORE FROM THE PACKERS SIDE
Packers Head Coach Matt LaFleur on QB Jordan Love’s tendency to take shots instead of throwing underneath:
“I think those are all good questions for this offseason as we sit back and reflect,” LaFleur said at his post game press conference. “And I love Jordan Love and how he competes and the work he puts in and I think he's going to get better and better and better.
“And certainly, there's some lessons along the way, some tough lessons, any time you end up in defeat. I mean, that's hard to deal with, but I think you have to be — he is very critical of himself, and he does such a great job of learning from every experience.
“So, I think through this, we'll all be better for it, although it's tough to go through, but I think there's going to be a lot of learning over the course of the next however many months before next year arrives.” *
The Eagles survived and advanced. That’s all that should matter to Eagles fans. *
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