The Eagles played a mostly terrible, ugly game on Sunday — and they still won by 24 points.
And as a result, if the season ended today, the Eagles would be in the playoffs.
The Eagles overcame an ugly start on Sunday to runaway with a 34-10 win over the New York Giants, and when combined with a Minnesota Vikings loss, they now own the final Wild Card spot in the NFC East.
For as ugly as it was to watch on Sunday, to their credit, the Eagles had the game pretty much put away before the fourth quarter started.
That is impressive from a team compromised of mostly young players at key positions on the field and on the coaching staff. Growing pains and low started are to be expected. The fact that can experience they growing pains while still winning convincingly is a very positive sign, even if it can be hard to watch and did come against a bad team.
Jonathan Gannon and the Eagles’ defense turned in yet another dominating performance keeping the Eagles in the game just long enough for the offense to recover and squeeze out enough points to win the game.
There will be plenty to talk about from this one, but for now, let’s take a look at the day Jalen Hurts and Nick Siranni had:
Jalen Hurts: To say Hurts’ first half was ugly would be an understatement.
Hurts looked off from the jump, throwing an ugly near-interception on the first drive of the game, forcing the ball on 3rd-and-3 to Dallas Goedert. The call on the field was initially an interception, but it was overruled after review. Regardless, the pass was poor and reckless and nearly put the Eagles’ defense in a terrible spot right away.
Things got worse from there.
Hurts had the ball knocked out of his hands on second down on the second drive of the game, putting the Eagles into a 3rd-and-15 situation. He missed a wide-open Dallas Goedert on a 3rd-and-goal play from the four-yard line with just over two minutes to play in the first half for what should have been a touchdown. He under threw Devonta Smith on what should have been a touchdown down the right sideline, but instead resulted in a 46-yard gain because Smith adjusted to the ball and made a great catch.
Hurts did have one positive moment — a 23-yard completion to Devonta Smith on 3rd-and-5 with just under 10 minutes to play in the second quarter —but overall, Hurts was 7/17 for just 94 yards in the first half.
To his credit, Hurts did improve in the second half.
He had a 39-yard completion to Quez Watkins midway through the third quarter to set the Eagles up on the Giants 8-yard line. He finished the drive with a touchdown pass to Smith, who did an excellent job getting both feet in along the sideline to complete the catch. The two plays, combined with another touchdown pass to Lane Johnson on a trick play, were enough to pretty much put the game away.
Give Hurts credit for bouncing back from a bad first half. That is important for his development. If he played the same way in the second half he did in the first half, the Eagles still might have won the game, but it certainly would have been closer.
Overall, however, Hurts wasn’t great on Sunday if you hold him to the standard of a franchise quarterback. He has to play better to start games, and if the Eagles are going to hold onto the playoff spot they currently own he is going to have to be much better in the final two games of the season.
Grade: C-
Nick Sirianni: The Eagles came out incredibly sloppy on Sunday, with two fumbles and one near interception in the first few minutes of the game.
How much blame falls on Sirianni for the Eagles’ extremely ugly start to the game depends on how you look at it.
On one hand, he did come out pass happy for the second-straight game against the Giants. Sirianni called three passes on the first three plays of the game, which resulted in a three-and-out by the offense.
Sirianni remained committed to the pass as opposed to the run, and his offense gained just 15 yards on their first 10 plays. Considering how well they been running the ball it is certainly fair to question why Sirianni didn’t just run the ball early-and-often against the Giants.
The incompletions, however, were on the players. Dallas Goedert dropped a pass. Hurts made a bad decision. The play calls were good ones — they were just executed poorly.
Sirianni, however, can’t be expected to just run the ball all the time. It is Week 16. He has to be able to call passing plays at this point in the season and get positive results from there. The calls on the passing plays were good. Receivers were open. The issue is the passes were poor and balls were dropped. It was the execution, not the play calls, that hurt the Eagles.
That was clear in the second half, when the players (Hurts) improved and the ball started to move.
Where Sirianni does deserve blame is the sloppy start for the second game in a row. The Eagles can get away with it against teams like Washington and New York. The odd week, with two games in six days, might be to blame too.
Just like Hurts needs to be better, however, Sirianni has to make sure his players clean up the sloppy play that has started to creep up the last two weeks. The standard is no longer the 4-win team many projected them to be. The standard is now the playoffs.
Grade: B-