I've long said that September needs to be about two things: winning and staying healthy. Mission accomplished! Philly has plenty of experience with these sorts of close wins (seven last season), but this one is a little different in a couple key ways; we'll talk about that in a bit.
I want to talk about three players in particular:
Jalen Hurts looks like he's back to his old tricks, both good and bad. The good was mostly seen on the final drive, where his ability to break arm tackles was critical. He did a better job overall dealing with the blitz than he did down the stretch last season, and I noted he made an effort to hit the middle of the field more. On the bad side, two AWFUL picks (and two more dropped), two fumbles (one that wasn't really his fault and one that thankfully Saquan jumped on). I had him at one-for-three on Brotherly Shoves (thankfully GB bailed him out with a penalty following the first failure and Saquan recovered his fumble on the last). At this point it's obviously too early to tell if this is going to be the trend or if this was a one time thing, but it was too much like last season to feel great.
On a positive side, Saquan Barkley showed why Howie paid him that money back in March. 132 total yards and three scores? Affected both the rushing and passing games? He came within inches of a fourth TD at the end of the game, and as mentioned bailed out the team by grabbing the fumble. His OPOY campaign is off to a good start.
Finally, I was concerned once I understood that Isaiah Rogers and Cooper DeJean wouldn't play, leaving us a little thin against that deep Green Bay WR group. I shouldn't have worried, Quinyon Mitchell looks like the real deal. He wasn't perfect, but in his first NFL game, against this offense, he looked like he belonged.
A few more quick hitter thoughts on tonight's game:
Philly has a long time track record of doing well on opening day; this was their 14th win in seventeen seasons.
No complaints about the team's performance as a whole. Green Bay is a really good team on both sides of the ball, and this game was tough. I fully expect the Packers to be in the thick of the NFC playoff picture in four months, as long as Jordan Love's injury isn't too serious. Still, Philly had decisive box score advantages until the largely meaningless final drive (410-381 yards, 25-17 first downs, 32-27 ToP).
Philly ended up -2 in turnover margin but pulled it out. Some of that was bad luck (Green Bay recovered the first two fumbles, and of course Nakobe Dean dropped a surefire pick six in the third quarter), but Philly needs to get that cleaned up fast.
When that final Eagles drive began, I wrote "need one of the patented long clock killing Philly drives" in my notebook; got it! 16 plays, 67 yards, 7:25 off the clock.
I imagine we'll hear some howling about the penalties that kept that drive going for Philly; I'm not interested. It wasn't until that point that I believed the Packers had gotten the more favorable officiating. That is of course a matter of opinion, but I think both teams got some good and bad officiating and it weirdly balanced itself out by the end. I really can't stand how the officials keep injecting themselves into these games.
This was a SLOPPY game. Four combined turnovers (and several more that easily could have been, on both sides), 17 combined accepted penalties, players slipping and falling and dropping the ball everywhere and some bad tackling. Considering that both teams struggled that way, I'm not too worried about Philly on the whole. The league has moved into a posture of not playing starters in the preseason and severely limiting offseason practice. Add to that lack of preparation the intercontinental travel and unusual environment (and soccer turf), and you have a recipe for a really messy game, which we got.
The defense had its struggles but really kept this team afloat after the offense did everything it could to bury the Eagles early.
The new linebackers (Baun and Dean) showed enough promise that we may be able to breath easy about that unit for a little while.
I ragged on Jalen tonight, and with good reason, but anyone that watched Mahomes and Jackson last night saw a few opening night struggles as well. Not nearly as bad, to be sure, but don't get too bent about September, up or down.
This was, by any measure, the Eagles' toughest game until at least the end of October. I'm certainly not calling for the Eagles to necessarily get off to a third straight monster start, but there's an opportunity here now to get an early lead in the divisional race.
FLY EAGLES FLY!
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