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The Philadelphia Eagles did it. They closed out the regular season with a 22-16 win to secure the NFC East title and homefield advantage throughout the playoffs. Yes, the Eagles are the No. 1 seed in the conference which includes a first-round bye.
That means an extra week of rest of Jalen Hurts’ injured right shoulder. That means an extra week of healing for Lane Johnson’s groin. And that means an extra week of self-scouting for Nick Sirianni. Philadelphia is preparing for a legitimate Super Bowl run after posting the best record in franchise history at 14-3.
“I’m not going to get into our next goal is the Super Bowl. It’s not,” Sirianni said. “The next goal is the next day.”
Hurts went 20-of-35 for 229 yards and 1 interception while rushing 8 times for 13 yards. It wasn’t pretty as the dual-threat quarterback fought off a pesky blitz from the New York Giants virtually all afternoon. The Eagles’ gameplan was vanilla – one where Sirianni admitted to holding back so as not to show too much – and RPOs were few and far between. The team didn’t want to expose Hurts to unnecessary hits by letting him run wild. Instead, they played it safe and lived to fight another day.
When asked how he felt during his post-game press conference, Hurts replied: “Good enough.”
Then, while elaborating on what it meant to win the NFC East, he added: “It comes through Philly. Job’s not done.”
Darius Slay Throws Shade at New York Giants
Eagles cornerback James Bradberry had a monster day on defense against his former team. He finished with 4 tackles and 2 pass breakups, including a beautiful one in the slot to stop the Giants on third down. Slay himself was beat for a touchdown by Kenny Golladay who made a spectacular one-handed catch in the back of the end zone.
But Bradberry was everywhere, a fact that didn’t go unnoticed by teammate Darius Slay. He made sure to send a reminder note to New York about Bradberry. Remember, the Giants intentionally released the one-time Pro Bowler this offseason. Slay shared a “thank ya” message of sorts:
Context is important, of course. Slay took it personally when the Giants let Bradberry walk and keeps throwing in their faces. He took aim at them when the move first happened, then got emotional in Week 14 talking about how fun it was to “whoop” New York. The NFC East rivalry is thriving once again.
Winning Doesn’t Always Have to Be Pretty
Sirianni had one task left on his checklist heading into Week 18. He needed to beat the Giants. Mission accomplished, despite it being one of the team’s ugliest wins of the year. The Eagles racked up 342 yards of offense on 72 plays. It was from the smooth performances of the team’s 13-1 start, although some of that was by design.
Sirianni was intent on keeping his guys off the injury report and went extra conservative with his play-calling. Jake Elliott stole the show by booting 5 field goals, including a 54-yarder straight down Broad Street. They went 1-of-5 in the red zone.
“Where I thought the offense wasn’t good today was in the red zone,” Sirianni said. “Winning pretty isn’t always a priority. We know that the last two weeks just wasn’t up to our standard. And, even today, there were parts that weren’t up to our standard.”
More telling was Sirianni’s revelation that Hurts was still sore upon arriving at the stadium in the morning. He went out there and gutted it out because that’s the kind of leader and that’s the kind of person he is. No matter what.
“He was hurting bad,” Sirianni said. “He’s still sore.”
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