5 winners and losers from the Eagles Week 15 win: THE game ending drive

You always want a game that makes you feel confident about the playoffs. One where the offense has its way with a good defense and the awesome defense has its way with a rocky offense. That’s exactly what the Philadelphia Eagles did in their 27-13 win over the Pittsburgh Steelers.

They heard the criticism throughout the week and said, ‘Cool. Whatever. Wanna see a dead body?’ and then put the Steelers through 60 minutes of hell.

The Eagles passed their last test of the regular season with flying colors

When you think about dominant Eagles wins in the future, this game will be the one that comes to mind. They ran 77 plays compared to the Steelers' 41 plays and outgained them 401 yards to the Steelers’ 163 yards. It was one of The Birds’ best wins in a while, and that’s in a season full of amazing wins.

Winner: Super Bowl Winning drives

There are ‘game-winning drives’ and then there are ‘Game. Winning. Drives.’ The Eagles finished the game with a ‘Game. Winning. Drive.’

The Steelers punted the ball from the Eagles' 46-yard line with 10:40 left in the fourth quarter and they never saw the ball again, which is WILD. The Eagles went on a 21-play drive that ate all of the remaining 10:29 off the clock.

That’s simply unheard of. Teams don’t kill 10 minutes off of a game. That doesn’t happen in the NFL.

When you’re thinking of a team’s potential to win the Super Bowl, it would be hard (and foolish) to ignore that a team can get up two scores and then completely evaporate the vast majority of the fourth quarter. 

That made it so the Steelers only had two drives in the second half. That's ridiculous. Pairing the Eagles' defense with an offense that can not just bleed, not just hemorrhage, but make the clock a hemophiliac, is something that shouldn’t and can't be overlooked.

It was an unbelievably gutting end to the game for the Eagles, and they did that against a top-10 defense. If it comes to an NFC Championship game against a brutally injured Detroit Lions defense, they should be able to completely nullify one of the league’s most lethal offenses. 

It’d be a brutal thing to do to one of the world’s most cursed fanbases… but someone’s got to lose and it sure won’t be the team that can turn a 60-minute game into a 50-minute game.

Loser: Having offensive problems

There was A LOT of chatter for the past (enter the highest number you can think of) weeks about how the Eagles passing game hasn’t been as good as it needs to be. It was all fair criticism. Jalen Hurts and the gang heard that, and literally said, “So that’s what y’all wanted to see, huh?”

In the first half, Jalen went 12-for-13 for 146 yards and two touchdowns. It was awesome, he was wheeling, dealing, and hitting all of his star players. 

It was the kind of performance that puts a warm feeling in your heart, especially coming off a week where there was a bunch of talk about him and A.J. Brown having a rocky relationship. It turns out that couldn’t be anything further from the truth.

It wasn’t just A.J. that feasted because DeVonta Smith also had himself a day. He got the most catches that he ever had in a game (11 catches on 12 targets), which was nothing short of terrific. 

Both A.J. and DeVonta went for over 100 yards and both of them had touchdowns. It was definitely Jalen’s best day throwing the ball this season, and probably his best since Week 8 of the 2023 season (29-for-38 for 319 yards and four touchdowns at Washington). 

Now, you could say this was about the Eagles making a statement when people were doubting them, and maybe it was… but this was also the way that you should attack the Steelers’ defense.

That’s also a nice thing to think about because that means Nick Sirianni and Kellen Moore have the wherewithal to adjust their game plans and take advantage of the weapons they have against a good running defense.

Winner: Breaking records

With their win over the Steelers, the 2024 Eagles became the first team in the franchise to have a 10-game winning streak. Three other Eagles teams have had that opportunity: the 1960, 2003, and 2017 teams.

In 1960, the Eagles lost their first game of the season to the Cleveland Browns but went on to rattle off nine straight, only to lose to the Pittsburgh Steelers in Week 12. They went on to win the NFL Championship.

In 2003, the Eagles started the season with a 2-3 record before they won nine straight games. In Week 16 they lost in overtime to the 49ers. That season they would go on to lose to the Carolina Panthers in the NFC Championship game.

The 2017 Eagles were the epitome of immaculate. After Starting 1-1, they ripped nine games in a row until they lost to the Seattle Seahawks in Week 13. They went on to win the Super Bowl and it was the best thing to ever happen.

Now we’re here. The 2024 Eagles are on a 10-game winning streak and the next three games are against the Washington Commanders, the Dallas Cowboys, and the New York Giants. They will be favorites in every one of those games and there’s no reason they shouldn’t be able to keep the streak going. We are witnessing Philadelphia Eagles history.

Loser: Weeks without drama

Last week, we had to deal with the whole Jalen Hurts, A.J. Brown, and Brandon Graham drama. It sure would be cool if there were a week where the Eagles won and there wasn’t some kind of stupid garbage going on… but here we are.

On the Steelers’ last play of the game, they punted the ball, and Jalen Carter was called for an unnecessary roughness penalty after he Stockton Slapped Connor Heyward and threw him out of the club.

Afterward, the camera cut to the sidelines and we saw Nick Sirianni try to yell at/talk to/ get at Carter while he was held back by Big Dom DiSandro and mondo-sized defensive line coach Clint Hurtt. After the game, Nick was asked about the whole thing and he said:

“...He made a play that is not part of our standard, my job is to correct that regardless of what it is. We’re gonna correct things that we need to do better and praise things that we need to do well… I love Jalen Carter, I love what he brings to this football team. Right there he needs to be smarter in that situation because he could’ve given them the ball back, he didn’t give them the ball back, but he could have…” (2:08 in the video below)

To be fair, Nick is right. Jalen Carter made a boneheaded decision to pop a guy in the side of the head, and luckily the penalty was assessed after the kick. It’s just not a good visual when the head coach is chirping his own player on the sideline. 

This is absolutely a non-story, but the haters will make it one and further their ‘Anti-Nick for Head Coach of the Year’ narrative. 

The fact of the matter is that Nick’s teams have exceeded expectations for four straight years and he’s not getting the recognition he deserves. Has he made some bad decisions? Yes, of course. Is his team winning games at a relatively unprecedented clip? Also, yes. 

It just stinks that in a dominant game by the Eagles, there’s a bad look and that it happened between Nick and one of his best players. It feels like if Thomas Booker socked a guy in the mouth and got yelled at, then this whole thing would never have happened, let alone been a whole public thing.

Winner: Defensive Rookie of the Year

If you don’t hear a cornerback’s name, then it’s a good thing most of the time. Luckily, we only heard Quinyon Mitchell’s name only but one time during the game and it was when he was getting in a little bit of a fight after the Steelers’ 300-pound tight-end blocked Darius Slay through the back of the endzone. 

Regardless, he’s done with 15 weeks of his Defensive Rookie of the Year campaign and it has been nothing short of amazing. 

It’s been a two-horse race for the past two months or so; it’s either going to be the Ram’s Jared Verse or Quinyon Mitchell. Verse played on Thursday this week and was a relative no-show in his game. 

As a defensive tackle, Verse’s path to taking the title is paved through sacks and pressures. It’s a pretty straightforward case for him: Aaron Donald was the best defensive player (maybe) in the history of football, and Verse needs to come in and do a fraction of what Donald did. He hasn’t been doing that lately. 

Q, on the other hand, has been crushing it. In this game, he was only targeted three times and only gave up two catches for less than 30 yards.

As of Monday morning (Dec. 16, 2024), Fanduel has Quinyon as the betting favorite to win DROY at +110 with Jared Verse at +150. It’s crazy that Howie Roseman broke his tendencies of not drafting defensive backs in the first round and drafting players from big-time schools, just for his first defensive back to come from the University of Toledo and light the world on fire.