Make it eight in a row for the Birds, who beat their Mid-Atlantic ornithological brethren Sunday in Baltimore to get to 10-2, although Donovan McNabb joked in his weekly visit with Ike, Spike, and Fritz that we shouldn’t get TOO excited about that streak.
“A little bit at a time, a little bit at a time, fellas! But it’s going well, and I love what I’m seeing on both sides of the ball,” McNabb said Monday. “I think we confused Lamar a little bit with our coverage and our blitz game, and then offensively, started out a little bit shaky early on, but our running game started to open up a little bit more and Jalen did a good job of being efficient and creating some big plays.”
That second part was important, as the Birds were down 9-0 early but then outscored the Ravens 24-3 until the final garbage time TD drive, just completely dominating in all facets.
“It’s more of self-evaluation; as you sit and you're watching your defense giving you great opportunities to get things back rolling, individual players kind of look at themselves and say, hey, it's time we have to do our job, and that's what I've seen,” McNabb said, going into some of the big offensive plays he saw. “You feel like your rhythm is going and as your rhythm’s going, I think more of the result of it all is when you can come out with points. And so now, you get back on the sideline after scoring and see your defense still playing at that elite level, you feel like now is your time to take the game over. What I've seen from an offensive standpoint was balance, great flow in chemistry, and timely calls.”
It’s Barkley getting started, it’s Goedert and Brown making big catches…but McNabb agreed with a topic the guys were discussing earlier in the show: it might be time to talk about how important QB1 is.
“When it comes to the Philadelphia Eagles, because we get enamored about the statistics of Saquon Barkley and the exciting plays, let's not forget about how Jalen has played,” McNabb said. “I know a lot of people want to see 300 yards passing and this and that, but Jalen has been efficient enough where we might need to put him in the MVP voting as well. When it comes down to it, that was kind of a game where it was highlighted by the running backs, but the two quarterbacks were the two main characters in this game, and Jalen was the one that was able to prevail by being efficient and moving the ball downfield and collecting first downs, more than what we've seen from Lamar Jackson.”
Baltimore’s defense has allowed the third-least rushing yards in the league but the most passing yards, and to McNabb, the game plan was solid: establish the pass, unload the box, and let Saquon cook.
“That’s 100 percent of the scouting report – we are definitely looking at that and we're looking at who we're going after; there were a few guys that you can definitely go after in the passing game and they did that,” McNabb said. “Big shout out to those guys that they have, but sometimes you gotta be the circled player, and we gotta get you, and that's exactly what happened. They went after those corners, made those safeties cover, which that's something that they're not very good at, and then we were able to open up the run game once we showed the passing game was there.”
So now, after an eighth straight win, the Birds have a 2 ½ game division lead and can clinch as soon as Dec. 15, and the No. 2 seed or better can be clinched at the same time…but beware of what happened last year as we come down the stretch.
“For me, it’s about first and second down, where I would like to see us establish things. We're getting in the third and medium a lot, where we're starting to question if we're gonna do the tush push or not, and I think for our offense, it's not predicated off of creating those big explosive plays where we're getting shots downfield,” McNabb said. “It's about methodically moving the ball down field to hopefully get ourselves in short situations, but a lot of times we’ve been starting with 2nd and 10, third and six or seven instead of that third and two or three where we can do a lot of different things.”
Take a listen to McNabb’s entire call-in above, as he discusses what he’s seeing out of the defense and much more!