5 winners and losers from Eagles costly Week 12 win over the Rams

The Philadelphia Eagles showed up on Sunday Night Football and punked the Los Angeles Rams to the tune of a 37-20 victory. The Birds have a 9-2 record, have won seven straight games, are done flying to games for the rest of the regular season, and are still in the running for the first seed in the NFC.

Before we move on to the Eagles' potentially most difficult game of the season against the Baltimore Ravens in Week 13, we have to name the winners and losers of the Week 12 game.

The Eagles shined against the Rams despite a massive loss to the defense

It’s tough that despite seeing the best performance by an Eagles running back in the history of the franchise, there is a huge cloud looming over the team with the season-ending injury to one of the best players on the team. Let’s focus on the good stuff first.

Loser: 'iT's A qUaRtErBaCk AwArD'

24 carries for 212 yards and a touchdown… is what Adrian Peterson had his best game during the 2012 season when he was the last non-quarterback to win the NFL MVP. In that season, AP ran for 2,097 yards (6.0 yards per carry) and 12 touchdowns. He also had 40 catches for 212 yards and a touchdown. 

Saquon just had the best game of his career, carrying the ball 26 times for 255 yards and two touchdowns. So far, he’s rushed for 1,392 yards (6.2 yards per carry) and 10 touchdowns. On top of that, he’s had 27 catches (on 33 targets, which is crazy) for 257 yards. THERE ARE SIX GAMES LEFT IN THE SEASON. 

Saquon is 706 yards away from eclipsing AP’s rushing numbers in 2012. If you’re one of those people who does the whole, ‘Well there were 16 games back then. Now there are 17, so it’s different,’ AP was rushing for 131 yards per game and Saquon is at 126.5 yards per game. For him to eclipse the 131 YPG, Saquon needs to average 139.3 YPG over the next six games. That’s entirely possible.

The Eagles single-season rushing record is 1,607 yards, set by LeSean McCoy in 2013. That means Saquon is 215 yards (36 yards per game) away from breaking it. Again, there are six games left. But Saquon’s sights have to be set higher.

They say the NFL MVP is a quarterback award, but man, Saquon Barkley is doing everything he can to win it. What a world that we’re living in.

Loser: Having favorite players

Nothing can ever just be purely good. In this game, Brandon Graham tore his tricep and announced that his season was over. This season was his farewell tour, and what a season it was… hell, what a last game it was. He was living in the backfield with one sack, two tackles for losses, one batted pass, and three QB hits. 

He was playing at a phenomenal level this season, so much so that if he said he wanted to play one more year at the end of it, you wouldn’t have been surprised. If this is it for BG, he’ll go down as one of the best Eagles of all-time, with a career that was highlighted by the most impactful play in Eagles history, when he strip-sacked Tom Brady with 2:14 left in the fourth quarter of Super Bowl LII. 

BG was, is, and always will be amazing. What an amazing career. This one hurts.

Winner: Human dignity and safety

At multiple times throughout the Sunday Night Football game, the refs took it upon themselves to save the millions of viewers the burden of watching disgustingly illegal plays. To that, we as a public, say, ‘Thank you, Land Clark. Thank you and your officiating crew for penalizing the Eagles for their egregious crimes that would’ve otherwise made this game non-competitive and disgustingly violent.’

On the Ram’s first scoring drive, Darius ‘Illegal Play’ Slay was flagged for one of, if not the most, blatant Defensive Pass Interference calls of all time. As Demarcus Robinson was coming free, Slay violently and aggressively grabbed and ripped him away from the ball. Look at this: it’s unfathomable how someone could think this is legal.

Did it stop there? Of course not. The Rams were marching downfield and the Ph-illegal-delphia Eagles’ defensive backs once again struck. Matthew Stafford threw an absolute dime to Puka Nacua, but Isaiah Rodgers was feloniously early at the catch point, making the play virtually impossible for Nacua.

How on Earth can Rodgers sleep at night, knowing that he’s a professional who takes away opportunities from star players? He needs to learn to play the game correctly, at a championship caliber, like this:

That’s how you play good, clean football. That was an unflagged and legitimate play that brought the Rams to a Super Bowl. If the Eagles cannot learn to play like that, and continue to play like the malcontents that they are, they will never make it far in the postseason.

That’s especially true when it comes to their offensive line. After a play, the Eagles’ Landon Dickerson tried to cripple the Rams’ notable standout and future Defensive Rookie of the Year, Jared Verse.

There’s no place in sports for something like that—unabashed aggression. It was disgusting. Landon ought to be ashamed of himself for his actions that could’ve potentially ended a young man’s career. 

The Rams deserved every single one of the 20 points they scored in this game, and the refs were there to make sure the Rams got them. Thank you, Land Clark. Thank you and your officiating crew for keeping football fair and safe.

Loser(ish?): Defensive Rookie of the Year

Quinyon Mitchell had the worst game of his season, but it was in large part due to garbage time. Per Next Gen Stats, Q was targeted twice on the Rams’ final drive and allowed 38 yards and a touchdown. 

Now, going back and watching that, you can see that Avonte Maddox was on the field and predictably confused about where he was supposed to be which allowed some holes in coverage. That certainly didn’t help, but at the end of the day, Quinyon was credited with allowing six catches for 75 yards and a touchdown. 

That being said, the Rams’ rookie, and current favorite to win Defensive Rookie of the Year, Jared Verse also had a bad game.

Going into Week 12, he had 50 quarterback pressures and averaged a quarterback pressure rate of 19.8%. In Week 12, he was held to one single quarterback pressure which resulted in a quarterback pressure rate of 5.3%. To be fair, he had a highlight when he pancaked Jordan Mailata, but who cares?

Going into the game, Jared Verse was a -190 favorite to win DROY and Quinyon was +320. As of Monday morning (November 11, 2024), Fanduel has Verse as a -115 favorite and Quinyon as +260.

What that tells us is that Quinyon’s relatively bad game was not as bad as Verse’s relatively bad game, relatively.

Winner: Vic Fangio

On the Rams’ first two drives, it felt like there was nothing the Eagles could do to stop, let alone stymie, Sean McVay’s offense. They were averaging 8.7 yards per play, and it was looking easy… and then that stopped.

The Rams went from 123 yards in their first two drives to 118 total yards over their next SEVEN drives. Vic saw what the Rams were doing and what they were trying to do, then ripped the plug out of the wall and shut the power off to the entire block. Now, the Rams did score on their final drive of the game, but the Eagles took out most of their starters on defense, so we’re not going to count that (especially since Quinyon Mitchell finally gave up a touchdown, but it was in garbage time). 

One of the crazier things about those first two drives is that the Rams never made it to third down. That’s important because the Rams are second to last in the entire NFL in third-down conversion rate (31.7%). 

After those two drives, the Eagles defense got the Rams to third downs, and it showed. The Rams were never able to convert; they were zero-for-eight on third downs throughout the entire game.

Vic was supposed to just raise the floor of what this defense could be but he turned it into an absolute powerhouse. For reference, in 2023 the Eagles defense allowed teams to convert third downs at the second-highest rate in the NFL (46.4%). This season, they’re allowing teams to convert third downs at the fourth-lowest rate (32.6%).

Vic might physically be the lumpiest defensive coordinator in the league, but man does he run, adjust, and keep running a masterpiece of a defense. He and Jeff Stoutland have to have the best old-man conversations. Oh, to be a fly on the wall…