4 winners and losers from Eagles Week 14 Win: A moral loss

There’s no such thing as a moral victory in the NFL. There is such a thing as a moral loss, and that’s exactly what the Philadelphia Eagles had in their 22-16 win over the Carolina Panthers. Sure, now The Birds have an 11-2 record, but buddy … that one sure felt gross. 

It was against a bottom-tier team, and it felt like almost every playmaker on offense had their worst day, while almost all of their defensive backs had a pretty tough go of things for one reason or another. It all led to an unwanted and uncomfortably necessary defensive stand in the fourth quarter to win the game. That just wasn’t how it was supposed to go.

The Eagles got their worst game out of the way … hopefully

A win is a win. There’s no taking that away, but in a game like this, it’s disingenuous to act like there weren’t just as many losers as there are winners. Some guys on offense rocked, and some didn’t. Some guys on defense rocked, and some didn’t. One guy who kicked the ball rocked, and one didn’t. Let’s start with something good though.

Winner: Physical touch as a love language

Safety C.J. Gardner-Johnson set the defensive tone of this game early. It was third and ten on the Panther’s first drive of the game. Bryce Young threw a pretty easy ball to wide receiver Xavier Legette for what should’ve been an easy conversion … except for the part where C.J.G.J. was on the field.

The human RPG saw the six-foot-three-inch rookie go up for the ball and thought, ‘Well that’s cool. I can annihilate this guy and wreck his confidence later in the game. Oh wow, this is a hospital pass, he’s going to be entirely exposed. Welp … here goes nothing.’

As Jim Ross once said, “GOOD GOD ALMIGHTY, THEY KILLED HIM. AS GOD IS MY WITNESS, HE IS BROKEN IN HALF.” That hit was sick.

C.J. had a good game when he was in the game. He had a couple of injury scares including a chunk of time when he went into the locker room to get evaluated for a concussion, but he came back out and got an interception that directly led to the Eagles scoring a touchdown before the half. 

Loser: Being trustworthy

Jake Elliott missing field goals is a problem. We’ve gone past ‘That was weird’. We’ve gone past ‘he’ll figure it out’. We’ve gone past ‘I hope this doesn’t lose a game at some point’. We’re fully at ‘Jake can’t be on the field’ and the team very clearly feels the same way.

Early in the second half, Jake missed a 52-yarder, which means he has missed all five of his 50+ yard field goals this season. Not-fun-at-all fact, the Eagles are the only team in the league to not make a 50+ yarder this entire season. It’s really, really bad.

With just over three minutes left in the game, the Eagles had a fourth and eight from the Panthers 36-yard line. That would’ve been around a 54-yard field goal. If Jake were to make that field goal, it would’ve given the Eagles a nine-point lead and essentially ended the game. 

Instead of putting Jake on the field for a kick that (in previous years) he could make during a sleep paralysis episode, they decided to take a delay of game penalty and punt. After the game Sirianni’s first question in his press conference was about his decision to punt. He said, “The wind was a little more than people think there …” Yeah. Okay. Sure Nick. That’s it. 

Now, to be fair to him, he can’t outwardly say, ‘Well, have you seen what Jake is doing? We can’t have that and then give the Panthers great field position.’ Just don’t say that it’s the wind. Jake’s been kicking on that field for eight years. He knows how to kick the ball through those uprights. 

As a matter of fact, he kicked a 60-yard field goal through those exact uprights in driving rain and wind a year ago against the Bills. Don’t say that it was a little breezy, say something like, ‘Given the way the game was going, it felt like the right move,’ because then WE all know that YOU know that this is a problem.

The bottom line is that Jake’s not automatic anymore. He might be more of a single-shot dueling pistol from the 1800s.

Winner: Setting yourself up to get paid a whole lot of money

Someone is going to pay Zack Baun in the next four months. Hopefully it’s the Eagles because he has been absolutely delightful. 

In this game alone, he had 11 tackles, six of which were solo tackles, one sack, three tackles for losses, and two quarterback hits. On top of that, he also had a sick-batted pass on a deep shot from Bryce Young. That play won’t show up in the stats sheets because Milton Williams was offsides and it was a free play, but it definitely deserves some shine. 

Baun’s playing at an All-Pro level right now. Typically, the number of tackles a player has doesn’t show their value, but it’s a little different for linebackers and specifically Baun. His 80 solo tackles this season have him tied for second place for the most in the NFL (Buddha Baker is first with 81) and his 129 total tackles put him in third in the NFL. He’s amazing.

Loser: "Passing"

After the game, A.J. Brown was asked about what he thinks the offense needs to improve on. His one-word answer was, “Passing.” That’s not great, and he’s very right. 

The Panthers are a bad team with a bad defense. They don’t get pressure and they allow quarterbacks almost three seconds to throw the ball. Despite this, Jalen Hurts had the fewest passing yards, the fewest yards per attempt, and zero deep throws. 

It looked like he couldn’t see the field well, he was holding onto the ball for WAY too long, and he wouldn’t pull the trigger on throws that were there. It was hideous and gutting. 

Jalen was asked about his opinion on the passing offense and he said, “I think (the Panthers) did a good job. I think we did a bad job. That starts with me. How I execute and ultimately you yearn, and I yearn for better synchronization…” (0:44 in the video below)

It’s not good. If you take away the 25 yards that were lost from the four sacks, the Eagles offense only had 83 passing yards. So far this season, there have been 12 total games where a defense has held a team to 83 or fewer passing yards. Teams that do that have won seven of those games. 

The teams that have lost games where they stop the passing attack are the Panthers, Titans, Giants. and Jets. None of those teams are what you would consider ‘good’ or ‘functional long-term’ or even ‘moderately competitive for a spot in the postseason.’

The point is the Eagles can’t expect to win games where their passing game is this abhorrently pathetic. The Lions and Vikings have too explosive of offenses to counter with anything less than 150 yards through the air, and that’s not asking for a lot. 

Winner: Being the right tackle for 12 seasons

In 2013, LeSean McCoy set the Eagles single-season rushing record at 1,607 yards. That was Lane Johnson’s rookie season. On December 8, 2024, Saquon Barkley set the Eagles single-season rushing record 1,623 yards (so far). Lane Johnson is still the right tackle. 

Challenge: name two right tackles who have gone through three head coaches, countless running backs, and 12 years of starting while blocking for two separate running backs who have set franchise records. Difficulty: Impossible

Saquon is 482 yards away from breaking the NFL’s single-season rushing record of 2,105 yards set by Eric Dickerson in 1984. He has four games to do it, which means he needs to average 121 yards per game. 

Old heads will complain that Saquon has 17 games to do it and Dickerson only had 16 games. If Saquon wants to appease those folks, he’ll need to average 160 yards per game. Those people won’t mention that Dickerson broke the record in 15 games when it was previously set by O.J. Simpson in 14 games.