5 winners and losers from the Eagles Week 9 win: Backward Hurdles, wild catches, and coaching blunders

The Philadelphia Eagles won in Week 9. It was really pretty, then it was ugly, then it was gorgeous, then it was ugly, and then it was beautiful. Typically, when you’re at home and playing the Jacksonville Jaguars, you’d want it to be gorgeous from wire to wire. That just wasn’t the case.

The Eagles scored in the first quarter, then they punted, kicked a field goal, turned the ball over, and scored some more. Then the defense came out a little wonky in the second half, there was a very controversial scoop and score, and then the game was closer than anyone imagined. Luckily, DeVonta Smith is a hero, and Nakobe Dean got his first career interception to close the game. 

The Eagles won with highlight plays and low-light game decisions

Nothing can ever just be perfect. There were a couple of weeks there where Nick Sirianni didn’t get put in a spot to make dumb decisions, but this week he more than made up for them. Let’s focus on some of the positives first.

Forgotten yet impactful Winner: Sydney Brown

On the Eagles’ first drive of the game, they went a cool 14 yards before they punted. That means they had at least one first down and that’s better than the majority of their first drives of games this season, but the result was still the same: a punt.

Fortunately, the Eagles have this hammerhead shark on their punt team named Sydney Brown. He had the second-best special teams play of the season when he smashed punt returner Austin Trammell and forced a fumble that went straight to Kelee Ringo.

That play singularly caused the Eagles to break their nine-game streak of not scoring a single point in the first quarter. It resulted in the offense having a first-and-10 on the Jaguars' 20-yard line, and they scored two plays later on a pass to Saquon Barkley. It was all due to Sydney Brown becoming a human Bullett Bill, and knocking the shoes off of a punt returner.

Unintentional Loser: Lumbar vertebrae

Saquon Barkley had the move of the year, if not the play of the year, he hit a soul-stealing spin move on Jaguars linebacker Devin Lloyd, then IMMEDIATELY did a backward hurdle. No one does a backward hurdle. 

If you do a backward hurdle, you end up on SportCenter’s Not Top-10 because you’re taking a facemask either through your tailbone or eight inches up your rectum into the Sigmoid colon. You simply do not get vertical enough to clear another human being… unless you’re Saquon Barkley.

In his post-game press conference, Sirianni said, “What I think is so cool: There’s gonna be kids all over the country and all over Philadelphia… trying to make that play, and talking about that play, and simulating that play as they play backyard football or peewee football. They ain’t gonna be able to make it, because he’s the only one in the world that can do that…” (2:45 in the video below)

He might be right. When Odell Beckham Jr. made the one-handed catch, it was awesome and everyone tried to emulate it. If people start trying to do backward hurdles, we’re going to see a catastrophic uptick in broken lumbar vertebrae.

To be fair to those people, it’s worth it. The ‘Rule of Cool’ states, ‘If you get hurt doing something sick, your insurance not only has to cover it but has to give you a high five and a 12-pack of whatever beer you want. If you’re too young to have beer, you get a 24-pack of Mountain Dew Live Wire and a lifetime supply of Bubble Tape.’

Regardless, now is the time to encourage your kids to become spinal surgeons or proctologists. Business is about to boomin’.

Loser: Contact

The most impactful play of the game was the Saquon Barkley fumble. The Jaguars had just cruised 61 yards down the field in about four minutes, and on the Eagles’ first play of their next drive, Saquon hit the ground with his elbow, causing the ball to come loose, and the Jaguars grabbed it for a scoop and score. 

Depending on who you ask, Saquon was down by contact. 99.9% of the human population would tell you that his foot was touched, and it made his steps wonky which is why he bumped into Landon Dickson before he hit the ground.

The only other person who would tell you differently is the ref, and he said that Saquon was stumbling and apparently went down on his own accord.

The same ref who thinks Saquon is capable of stumbling is the ref who saw Saquon’s hurdle earlier and thinks he’s going to fumble out of nowhere.

These are the same refs that won’t call a pass “uncatchable” because they think the superhuman athletes can all catch passes thrown in their zip code, but they still think a nudge from a butt is enough to knock over and force a fumble from the best running back in the NFL. Sure. Whatever.

Premature Loser: The best catches in the NFL

On Thursday night, the New York Jets’ Garrett Wilson had a miraculous touchdown catch. It sparked a conversation about which catch was better: Wilson’s or Odell Beckham Jr.’s one-handed catch.

Now, OBJ’s catch was infinitely better, but it’s funny that there was an argument about the greatest catches of all time, and then three days later DeVonta Smith walked in the room and said, ‘Cool, I’m happy that everyone is making highlights, but check this out.’

He beats Ronald Darby, makes a one-handed catch, falls down, and taps both toes. He’s simply incredible.

That catch came at the right time too. A.J. Brown left the game with a knee injury, and we’ve seen this offense not just sputter, but flat-out lose all explosiveness in the passing game when he is out. On top of that, the Jags had just scored twice and the momentum was shifting.

All of this, just for DeVonta to stuff the Jags’ faces in the dirt and say, ‘No, actually you’re not going to come back in this game. Get back down like the street rats you are.’

Loser: Easy points

Lane Johnson said that the Eagles should’ve scored 40 points and he’s not wrong. The Eagles scored 28, so we’re missing 12. The Eagles had four touchdowns and only kicked an extra point once, so that is 25 points that could’ve been 28 points by itself. That’s three of the missing points.

The Eagles also had two turnover-on-downs in the red zone, so that’s six more points from what could’ve been field goals. We’ve accounted for nine missing points so far. Then maybe you count Jake Elliott’s missed field goal. That three points would equal the full 12 that would bring the Eagles from 28 to 40.

The fact of the matter here is that Nick Sirianni is back on his rotten-brain grind. He’s doing the thing where he can’t manage a game, and that’s the only thing that he needs to do. He ran the Brotherly Shove a couple of times, and it got shut down. Then, instead of kicking a field goal to make it a two-score game or continuing to run the B.S., he shied away from it on a fourth-and-inches and chose to do some ridiculous play-action pass that got wrecked immediately. His lack of consistency in some areas of the field is one thing, but his decision to consistently bash his head against a wall is a whole nother thing.

If you’re down by 14 points, it’s one thing to go for a two-point conversion after you score a touchdown. If you make it, then you’re down by six, and another touchdown and an extra point put you in the lead. 

It’s totally different when you go for two when you’re up by 16 and go for two. If you kick an extra point, a 17-point lead makes it a three-score game. If you go for two and make it, it’s 18-0 which is also a three-score game, but if you don’t make it then still just 16 points and a two-score game. Nick chose lunacy.

You can argue about whether the choice to go for it on fourth downs, kicking field goals, and going for two are the right decisions. There are good points on both sides: if you can go for a two-point conversion when you only have one yard instead of the full two yards then you should. You should be aggressive in the opponents’ red zone but it’s different when the game flow says getting points when they’re available is the right idea. Choosing to switch things up when your short-yardage play isn’t working is fine but you should remember that play is going to eventually work.

It’s hairy, but Nick is obviously not making the right decisions anywhere close to 100% of the time. Hell, he's not making them even 60% of the time. He has one job, and he’s not elite at it. Everyone else on the team is playing at, or near, an elite level. The weakest link is the head coach, and that’s the link that you really really don’t want even in consideration for the weakest.

The Eagles won by five points, and we have to say they ‘escaped’ with a win. If Nick made the right decision even half the time, it would’ve been an 11-point win and everything the Jags did in the fourth quarter would’ve been ‘garbage-time yardage’ rather than, ‘Clench every single muscle you have because Trevor Lawrence might mess around and win this game.’