Let’s get to the Philadelphia Eagles news and links …
NFL Week 11: Biggest questions, takeaways for every game – ESPN
What’s the ceiling for this Eagles’ defense? Vic Fangio’s group is rounding into 2024 form, when it was the No. 1 defense in the league. The addition of Jaelan Phillips at the Nov. 4 trade deadline was huge. He finished with six QB pressures and a sack and was part of a defensive line attack that kept Jared Goff off-balance all night. It was a similar deal last week against Jordan Love and the Green Bay Packers. And the Eagles seemed to save their best for money downs — Detroit was 0-for-5 on fourth down Sunday. The offense remains a work in progress, but this defense is starting to look championship-caliber.
Philadelphia Eagles’ defensive line returning to championship form with EDGE Jaelan Phillips – PFF
In two games as an Eagle — against two potent offenses in the Packers and Lions — Phillips has played above the third-round price tag surrendered to add him. Among the 47 edge defenders to see 75 or more snaps over Weeks 10-11, Phillips’ 73.7 overall PFF grade (pending final review) ranks 11th, placing in the top 10 in both PFF run-defense mark (74.5) and pass-rushing grade (68.3). The former Dolphin has been particularly tremendous against the run. In his two contests with Philadelphia, Phillips has produced four run stops — tied for the second-most among any edge defender — while netting a positive grade on 24.1% of his run plays. Phillips made his presence felt again on Sunday night in a victory against Detroit, registering four pressures to stymie Jared Goff and the elite Lions offense. Indeed, Philadelphia held the Lions to -0.410 EPA per play, the team’s worst mark since Week 5, 2022. Detroit was limited to a 26.7% success rate, staying behind the sticks all evening while flatlining on late downs — converting just three of 18 tries (16.7%).
Roob’s Instant Observations as Eagles’ defense dominates in win over Lions – NBCSP
I keep thinking this is an unsustainable way to win, playing really great football on one side of the football and escaping by the skin of your teeth with a win. Week after week. Game after game. But that’s exactly what the Eagles are doing. It’s insane. They’ve won games by 7, 4, 3, 6, 6, 3 and 7 points and now they’ve won back-to-back defensive battles over very good teams from the NFC North and here we are at 8-2 with seven games left, and with the Rams beating the Seahawks the Eagles somehow have a pretty clear path to the No. 1 seed in the conference. Six days after holding the Packers to seven points, the Eagles held the explosive Lions with all their weapons to nine points, and if you didn’t think Vic Fangio was a genius before these two games you have no choice now. On a day where the offense was just abysmal, the defense held the Lions to 3-for-13 on third down in addition to that record-setting 0-for-5 on fourth down, limited those explosive Detroit running backs to 3.5 yards per carry, pressured Jared Goff – a 74 percent passer – to 14-for-37, which is 38 percent. This was a defensive masterpiece. Another defensive masterpiece. No defense in the NFL is playing better right now.
Lane Johnson injury update: Eagles tackle could miss 4 to 6 weeks – BGN
Early in the Philadelphia Eagles’ Week 11 game against the Detroit Lions, All-Pro right tackle Lane Johnson slowly made his way to the locker room with a foot injury. On Monday, it was reported that Johnson suffered a Lisfranc injury and could miss 4-6 weeks — while that wouldn’t make the injury season-ending, it would likely land him on injured reserve through most of the back-half of the regular season.
Eagles’ Defensive Master Class Defeats Detroit! Takeaways With BLG! – The Ringer’s Philly Special
The Eagles defeated the Detroit Lions 16-9 on Sunday thanks to an outstanding effort on the defensive side of the ball. Sheil is joined by Brandon Lee Gowton of Bleeding Green Nation to discuss the victory. How were the Eagles defense and Vic Fangio able to hold Detroit’s high-powered offense to just one touchdown? Why has the offense struggled to put up points since the bye week?
Eagles Offense: One Key Stat that Makes Me Want to Jump Off the Walt Whitman Bridge – Crossing Broad
Focusing, though, on one singular thing, this is the stat it boils down to: On third downs, the Eagles have to go 7.96 yards on average for a first down. That is dead last in the NFL. Naturally, there’s a lot of cause and effect that goes into this. This Eagles offense has 34 negative rushing attempts, which is tied with Seattle for most in the league. They’ve lost a league-high 125 yards on failed run attempts this season. That’s one of the primary reasons why their first down success rate is 20th overall and their 2nd down success rate is 29th, which means only the Raiders, Browns, and Titans are picking up fewer yards towards the marker before getting to third down.
Handing out 10 awards from the Eagles-Lions game – PhillyVoice
6) The ‘Alarming’ Award: The Eagles’ offense. For as dominant as the defense was, the game was still in question until the final seconds because the offense couldn’t get anything going whatsoever. They couldn’t run, they couldn’t pass, and they couldn’t catch. The only positive was that they didn’t turn it over. Jalen Hurts completed 14 of 28 passes for 135 yards (4.8 YPA), and the offense as a whole gained a paltry 3.9 yards per play. And that was despite the Lions being without three defensive back starters in Terrion Arnold, D.J. Reed, and Kerby Joseph. Hurts force-fed 11 targets to A.J. Brown, who had 7 catches for 49 yards, and who just doesn’t look like the same player he was his first three years in Philly.
D Dominates Detroit – Iggles Blitz
This is the second week in a row that he simply ran over the blocking back. When Dean blitzes, dudes better be ready. He goes full speed and isn’t going to be blocked easily. It is great to see him playing better than ever after last year’s injury. I know the offense is frustrating. I get it. They deserve a lot of criticism for their performance over the past two weeks. At the same time, you need to celebrate just how good the defense is. They faced a pair of good offenses and limited them to a total of 16 points…combined. Detroit played really good defense and made things tough on the Eagles. Hurts was able to do just enough to lead his team to a win. The Eagles are now 8-2. They are atop the NFC standings. They have beaten the Rams, Bucs, Lions, Packers, Vikings and Chiefs. That’s a lot of contenders, or teams we thought would be contenders. The offense must get better, but this team is starting to look like it will be in the Super Bowl hunt once again.
Week 11 NFL Takeaways: Why the Rams Don’t ‘Have Any Ceiling’ – SI
Speaking of sustainable, here are the Eagles again, winning in a different way, but at the same clip they always have. Philly is 8–2 after beating the Lions on Sunday Night Football, and in possession of the NFC’s No. 1 seed, over the Rams on tiebreakers. Do they have drama? Yup. Is the run game dramatically different? Sure. Will any of that matter? That’s the million-dollar question. For now, though, the Eagles look more than O.K., winning these games behind Vic Fangio’s defense, which throttled the Packers and Lions in consecutive weeks. Philly held Detroit to 317 total yards and nine points, six days after holding the Packers to 261 yards and seven points. And Fangio can take a bow for all that, too. He lost five starters from last year’s unit, and his ability to develop young guys like rookie Jihaad Campbell and integrate new pieces like Jaelan Phillips have transformed the group, and raised the ceiling significantly. That isn’t, for what it’s worth, to say that the Eagles don’t need Saquon Barkley. Or that Jalen Hurts won’t have to make big plays in January. But it does mean they have to keep chasing their 2024 form, while knowing they might not need quite as much this time.
NFL Week 11 aftermath: Six loudest statements from Sunday’s blockbuster slate – NFL.com
3) Eagles have stolen a page from 2024 Chiefs. Remember all the cynicism around Kansas City last season? The popular belief was that the 2024 Chiefs weren’t as good as their record suggested because they were surviving one-score games at a record pace and failing to dominate in ways that had become their trademark. It sure feels like the Eagles are doing the same thing one year after winning the Super Bowl. They just won a 16-9 game over the Lions on Sunday night that was emblematic of most of their wins this year. The offense sputtered along. The defense delivered some big plays. Yeah, wide receiver A.J. Brown caught more passes, but there really wasn’t much else that stood out. But here’s the important thing about Philadelphia that connects it to last year’s group in Kansas City: These Eagles keep finding ways to beat good teams. They have beaten the Chiefs, Rams, Buccaneers, Packers and Lions so far this season. Philadelphia also has prevailed by one score in seven of its eight wins (and the Chiefs were 11-0 last year in that category). Now, is there a point where some of the Eagles’ issues might catch up to them? Possibly. The Chiefs returned to a third straight Super Bowl last year, only to be blown out by Philadelphia. It’s fair to think the Eagles aren’t winning two or three playoff games this season without more consistent production from stars like Brown and running back Saquon Barkley. It’s also a safe bet that they’ll keep winning most of these games. No matter how it looks, the Eagles are 24-3 in their last 27 games. You don’t win that often without understanding some important lessons about what it takes to avoid losses in this league.
Eagles coach ‘second-guessing’ another late-game gamble vs. Lions – NJ.com
Sirianni, of course, was asked about his puzzling decision. And unlike earlier in the week, when he vehemently defended the decision to take a deep shot on fourth-and-6 at Lambeau, Sirianni admitted that he’ll be “second-guessing” his choice to go for it vs. Detroit. “Obviously, I’m going to be second-guessing myself about the fourth-and-1 in our own territory there,” Sirianni said. “We got about half of it the play before. I thought we could get the other half right there. But hey, we didn’t. I have to live with that. … I had a lot of confidence, and it didn’t work. So any time it doesn’t work in a fourth-down situation, I’m always going to be hyper-critical of myself. Because it’s on me making that decision. I’ll go back and look at it. Obviously when I’m sitting here right now, I’m like, ‘Oh, I should’ve punted it there.’ If it works, you’re either able to drain their timeouts there or take another two minutes off the clock. But in that case, it didn’t work and gave them a short field. So that’s 100% on me.”
The Early Bird | Five thoughts from Eagles’ 16-9 to the Detroit Lions – PHLY
The Davis … Deflect? After the game, Eagles coach Nick Sirianni likened the impact Jordan Davis and Jalen Carter had on Sunday’s win to the years he spent coaching against former Texans defensive lineman J.J. Watt as an assistant coach for the Indianapolis Colts. Davis had three batted passes Sunday while Carter finished with two. In addition to stymying the Lions run game — Detroit had just 74 rushing yards — Sirianni said the pair of defensive tackles helped demoralize the Lions pass game with the well-timed swats. Goff, who dealt with steady pressure throughout the game as well, went 14-for-37 for 255 yards, one touchdown and one interception. “J.J. Watt, he had a knack for that,” Sirianni said. “He had a knack for that and it was always demoralizing when he got it. … It always was like, ‘Man, we had a play there and it didn’t happen.’ The play stopped before it even got going. So, it can be super demoralizing, but an awesome job by our guys.”
Eagles show ‘knack’ for knowing how to win vs. another playoff-worthy opponent – The Athletic
“There’s something to be said for knowing how to win,” Sirianni said, “and knowing how to figure out ways to win.” That’s what the Eagles do. Sirianni said the Eagles have a “knack” for finding ways to win. This is the fourth consecutive season the Eagles started 8-2 or better. In two of those previous three seasons, the Eagles made the Super Bowl. They’re atop the NFC with victories over four of the other eight NFC teams with winning records, a legitimate Super Bowl contender, no matter their point differential or their offensive rankings. Their ability to figure out how to win has never been more evident than these past two weeks, outlasting playoff-caliber opponents in playoff-like atmospheres. “It’s something that you feel, it’s something you sense as a team that you’re being tested on these things,” Hurts said. “So, we went out there and found a way to win a lot of those games like that.”
A.J. Brown was right. The Eagles offense is still a bleep show. They need to fix it soon. – Inquirer
A.J. Brown was wrong about one thing. The Eagles offense isn’t a bleep show. It isn’t any kind of show at all. At this point, it’s just plain ol’ bleep. If that sounds harsh, well, harsh is a pretty good word to describe the experience of watching the Eagles offense right now. The play-calling lacks imagination. The run-blocking lacks the dominance that was once its hallmark. The quarterback has always lacked aggression. Now, he lacks accuracy, too. That’s not an ideal formula. There are all kinds of ways you can shrug off the staggering ineptitude the Eagles displayed while muddling their way to a 16-9 win over the Detroit Lions on Sunday night. It’s an easy thing to do when your defense consistently forces opponents to play bleepier than you. The Eagles are 8-2, with the best Super Bowl odds in the NFC, and victories over four of the five teams whose odds are just behind theirs. That stuff matters. But you can’t shrug off the one question that every team with Super Bowl aspirations must constantly ask itself.
Spadaro: 10 observations from another dominant defensive performance – PE.com
This front four (and five) is dominant. Adding Jaelan Phillips, getting Nolan Smith back from injury, and having Brandon Graham unretire has totally transformed the defensive front. Going against one of the very best offensive lines in football, the Eagles dominated. The numbers tell a lot, but there was more. Jordan Davis batted three passes, one on Detroit’s first possession that Cooper DeJean intercepted and led to three points. Jalen Carter had two passes tipped at the line of scrimmage. Crazy good. “I thought we did a great job of playing together,” said Phillips, who had five total tackles, six pressures, one of the two quarterback sacks the Eagles registered, and two quarterback hits. “Played really good complementary football. Definitely got after Goff, got after other key players, definitely were physical. It was a great game. It was like the grittiest defensive performance I’ve ever been a part of.”
The Winners and Losers of the NFL Week 11 – The Ringer
Loser: Jared Goff Vs. the Elements. The new Dan Campbell–led offense flunked its first major stress test in the Sunday nightcap, with the Lions mustering only nine points in a loss to the defending Super Bowl champs. The Eagles offense seemed to have little interest in winning the game, but the defense stopped the run and pressured Lions quarterback Jared Goff—which is usually enough to cause Detroit’s offense to spiral. You throw in some brisk weather and gusts of wind in Philadelphia, and Goff didn’t really stand a chance. Per TruMedia, he was off-target on a comical 32 percent of his throws Sunday night. That’s the highest mark in a single game this season and 3 full percentage points clear of the field. It’s never good when Goff runs out of the tunnel with those white gloves on. Goff seemed to get worse as the game went along. He completed only two of his final 18 attempts in a failed comeback attempt.
Referee Alex Kemp defends “absolutely terrible” pass interference call in Lions-Eagles – PFT
With 1:51 to play on Sunday night in Philadelphia, the Lions had a chance to force an Eagles punt and potentially score a late touchdown, in a 16-9 game. Detroit made the stop. Until the Men in Black (and White) got involved, flagging Detroit cornerback Rock Ya-Sin for interfering with receiver A.J. Brown. NBC’s Cris Collinsworth pulled no punches, calling the penalty “absolutely terrible.” After the game, referee Alex Kemp was made available to pool reporter Zach Berman. “Why the pass interference on that play?” Berman asked. “The official observed the receiver’s arm getting grabbed and restricting him from going up to make the catch,” Kemp said. “So, the ball was in the air, there was a grab at the arm, restricted him and he called defensive pass interference.”
3 winners, 6 losers from the Detroit Lions’ loss to the Philadelphia Eagles – Pride Of Detroit
Loser: Dan Campbell, HC. John Morton is owed an apology. A week after a dominant offensive outing against the Commanders, the Lions were riding high. The change of play caller from Morton to Dan Campbell clearly sparked something, and the offense looked rekindled. That optimism barely lasted one drive, as it was downhill for the Lions from the get-go. The Lions’ offense was so ineffective, you can almost count the number of successful plays on one hand: a few screen plays to Jahmyr Gibbs, a crossing route touchdown to Jameson Williams, and a 34-yard reception by Amon-Ra St. Brown on the prior play. On nearly every other play, the Lions were mediocre at best and horrendous at worst. The biggest knock on Campbell’s play calling is the fourth down conversions—or utter lack thereof. The Lions turned the ball over on downs a whopping five times against the Eagles. None of the plays were particularly competitive either. They were stuffed on a fourth-and-1, ran a failed fake punt, and had incompletions on back-to-back-to-back drives. When you factor in their third-down inefficiency (just three conversions on 13 attempts), it was an utterly awful performance from the Lions in the clutch—you cannot blame this solely on the absence of Sam LaPorta. Campbell looked completely out of his element on Sunday night, and the toothless aggression cost them this game. In hindsight, the Washington game looks like a complete fluke against an awful opponent. This offense still has significant issues at its core—and outside of simply playing better, I’m not sure there is an obvious solution.
Cowboys Point/Counterpoint: How realistic is a playoff run? – Blogging The Boys
Two consecutive blowout losses dropped the Cowboys to 3-5-1 before they went into their bye week. They now have a 7% chance of reaching the postseason, per the projection model from The Athletic’s Austin Mock. That didn’t stop Jerry and Stephen Jones from making multiple deals at the trade deadline, though. Bengals linebacker Logan Wilson was had for nearly free, while Jets stud Quinnen Williams came at a rather hefty price. Between those two and impending returns of DeMarvion Overshown and rookie Shavon Revel, the Cowboys are feeling confident that a defensive turnaround can also turn around their season. Should they feel confident, though? Our own David Howman and Tom Ryle have their own thoughts.
Commanders Vs. Dolphins (Madrid) – Studs and Duds – Hogs Haven
DUDS — Zach Ertz: I’m really starting to get annoyed with Ertz’s antics. The constant going down before contact stuff is unacceptable. I know players slip on the field from time to time, but it seems to happen to him more often than others (see his slip on the angle route at the goal line). This man offers literally NO run-after-catch ability.
NFL Draft order 2026: At No. 2, New York Giants could trade down – Big Blue View
The top players in the draft — edge defenders Rueben Bane Jr. and Arvell Reese — are not at positions of need for the Giants. Likewise, it’s tough to argue for safety Caleb Downs in the Top 5, even if he’s the single best player in the draft. Only two safeties have been drafted in the Top 5, Sean Taylor and Eric Berry, and expecting Downs to be among the very best to ever play his position to avoid being labeled a “bust” is a lot to put on a young man. Trading down would allow the Giants to gain draft capital while also getting access to the best players available at positions of need at more acceptable values. Losing is tough, and fans are frustrated. But if competitive losses make the Giants’ head coaching job that much more attractive and sets them up for future success, some good can come out of the losses.
NFL winners and losers: J.J. McCarthy is a PROBLEM (in a bad way) – SB Nation
Winner: Ben Johnson Do the Bears have a comically easy schedule? Yes. Are they winning convincingly? No. Does any of this matter because winning three in a row has been a rarity in Chicago? You bet your ass. The Bears are soaring at 7-3 and right now have a lock on a playoff spot. Things are set to get much more difficult with two games against the Packers, the Eagles, and Lions left on the schedule — but things still look good for Johnson’s team. The biggest shift has been in accepting outcomes. The Bears of the past would have thrown up their hands while behind and just coasted to the finish, but Johnson has added an element of fight that Chicago hasn’t had in the past. Realistically this team still needs more pieces on defense and the offensive line to truly become a force, but the building blocks are there.
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