Eagles Had Sunday Off, But Won Anyway
A look around the NFL on an Eagles Sunday off…
The Eagles have lost four of their last five games with an RPO-heavy offense that simply is not working and a defense that has given up points in five of the six games they have played on opponents' first possessions, with two field goals (Falcons, Panthers) and three touchdowns (Cowboys, Chiefs, and Buccaneers).
That said, the Eagles notched a pair of wins despite not playing on Sunday.
Carson Wentz led the Colts to victory and his snap counts are on pace to give the Eagles their first-round pick next spring.
More importantly, the Colts keep winning. That means if Wentz stays healthy, Indianapolis should stay in the AFC South race, which isn’t really a race but a slow slog to be mediocre, and that means Wentz will play the required number of snaps for the Eagles to turn the conditional second-round pick into a first-rounder.
And so what if Indy’s pick is in the lower teens or early 20s, because the Eagles had another win on Sunday, with the Miami Dolphins losing their fifth straight game.
The Eagles, of course, have Miami’s first-round pick in 2022 after dealing with the Dolphins to move down from No. 6 to No. 12 in the 2021 draft.
It’s time to start looking at the top five players in the draft because Miami’s pick may very well be in that range after they fell to 1-5 with a loss to the Jacksonville Jaguars, who snapped their 20-game losing streak with the win.
RAIDERS ROLL
Las Vegas really missed Jon Gruden, huh?
Anybody who thought the Eagles had stumbled into some good fortune and would play a team in disarray once Gruden resigned for embarrassing emails, think again.
Vegas looked pretty united in a 34-24 win over the Denver Broncos on the road, holding a 31-10 lead entering the final quarter.
QB Derek Carr needed to complete just 18 passes to secure 341 yards passing with two touchdowns. The Raiders’ secondary picked off three Teddy Bridgewater passes.
The Eagles (2-4) head to the Nevada desert for the first time in franchise history to meet the Raiders (4-2) on Sunday (4:05 EDT, FOX).
COWBOYS CRUISIN’
The Cowboys are good, real good.
At 5-1 after a 35-29 overtime win in New England, they are running away with the division and by the time they play the Eagles again on Jan. 9, may be playing their backups with a playoff spot wrapped up and the No. 1 seed decided. Not saying Dallas will have the top seed, but they certainly have the offense to challenge for it.
Dallas has as many wins as the rest of the NFC East combined.
While the Eagles flounder away at picking receivers, the Cowboys have excelled in building perhaps the best group of pass-catchers in the NFL from top to bottom.
CeeDee Lamb (nine catches, 149 yards, and two touchdowns, including the game-winner in OT) and Amari Cooper get the recognition, but Michael Gallup has been out with an injury and Cedric Wilson (sixth-round pick, 2018) has stepped up and, to a lesser extent so has 2017 seventh-round pick Noah Brown.
Their tight ends are solid, too – Blake Jarwin and Dalton Schultz.
The defense is better, too, led by second-year cornerback Trevon Diggs, who has his seventh interception of the season on Sunday and second pick-6. His first came against the Eagles.
Diggs went two picks before the Eagles picked Jalen Hurts.
ZACH ERTZ PUMPED
At least we assume so. The former Eagles' tight end is heading to a Cardinals team that made quick work of the Cleveland Browns, 37-14, to reach 6-0 for the first time since 1974.
NFC EAST SPIN
Yep, Washington and New York lost again, both in a lopsided manner, with the Football Team losing 31-13 to Kansas City and the Giants bowing meekly, 38-11, to the Rams.
Makes you wonder if the Giants head coach Joe Judge will still have a job by the time the Eagles play them for the first time on Nov. 28. If not, then maybe in the rematch on Dec. 26.
If Washington didn’t know it already, they need to draft a quarterback in the first round. Tyler Heinicke isn’t the answer, and it didn’t take long for veteran Ryan Fitzpatrick to get hurt this season.
WFT is 2-4, the Giants are 1-5.
BAMA QBS
Hurts lost. Mac Jones lost. Tua Tagovailoa lost.
The three Alabama quarterbacks, and yeah, throw Hurts in that mix even though he finished at Oklahoma, have a combined five wins after six weeks. Tagovailoa has one; Hurts and Jones two each.
Right now, it would appear that Richard Todd will remain the last Crimson Tide QB to win at least seven games in a season, and that happened in 1983 with the New York Jets.
Ed Kracz is the publisher of SI.com’s Eagle Maven and co-host of the Eagles Unfiltered Podcast. Check out the latest Eagles news at www.SI.com/NFL/Eagles or www.eaglemaven.com and please follow him on Twitter: @kracze.
