It’s broken until it’s not: What we learned about the Eagles and Packers

It takes a real sicko to appreciate a defensive game, and on Monday night, the Philadelphia Eagles walked out of Lambeau Field with a 10-7 win over the Green Bay Packers. The offenses weren’t fantastic, but it was the epitome of a defensive game.

For the Eagles, it was crazy that the defense performed as well as they did, and disappointingly predictable that the offense was a bummer. For the Packers, it was moderately crazy that the offense struggled and delightfully refreshing that the Eagles defense was the primary reason why.

It’s the crazy aspects that we’re focusing on, because those are the spots of each team where we learned a lot. 

Philadelphia Eagles

The most important thing coming off the Eagles’ win is that now they are sitting at the top of not just the NFC East, but the entire NFC.

It’d be fun to say that we learned that the Eagles' play callers are ding-dongs, but we already knew that. It would’ve been cool if we saw a 2025 version of their 2024 shift to being a mega-run-heavy scheme when they came out of the bye… it really looks like that’s not the case.

But because the Eagles only scored 10 points, which is the fewest since that hell wild card game at the end of the 2023 season, it’s worth bringing up.

In the past, specifically in Week 15 of the 2023 season against Seattle, we’ve seen Jalen Hurts and A.J. Brown freelance and run a play that wasn’t called. There’s a chance that the Eagles’ last offensive play, where Hurts took a shot to A.J. Brown, was not a play that Sirianni/Patullo called.

Regardless, that was just one play, albeit a substantial one. There were a whole lot of other plays that Sirianni/Patullo mind-meld called that were absolutely baffling. 

Specifically, the Eagles’ third-and-12 play inside the red zone, where they ran Will Shipley (who is an RB3) for four yards. Or the sequence when they had the ball on their own 35 with 23 seconds left before halftime. The four plays: a four-yard scramble, a short incompletion to DeVonta Smith, a two-yard run with Billy Ships, and a throwaway.

But that’s what this offense is. If you were hoping that the Eagles were going to use the bye week to install a whole lot of undercenter play-action third-down plays, keep on hoping. 

Those plays are going to be there, but not anywhere close to as frequently as you want. It’s going to be incredibly frustrating, but the Eagles will keep actually running the ball on long third downs, you’ll just keep getting mad about it, and they’ll keep winning. That’s life.

The Jaelan Phillips-head fixed the defense:

It’s been a minute since Howie Roseman made a trade for an edge rusher who has made a real impact. Jaelan Phillips came in, started, and made that impact... and that's exactly what the pass rush needed.

It’s not like he was a part-time player; he came in and played 52 defensive snaps (78.8%). The only defensive lineman who played more snaps than him was Jalen Carter. 

He played for Vic Fangio when they were both in Miami a couple of years ago, and it turns out that system is just like riding a bike. We’ve seen some guys have a little bit of an acclimation period where they’ve had limited snaps until they ramped up to full-time players… that was not the case for Phillips. 

He ended the game with six tackles, one TFL, two quarterback hits, seven pressures, and he had a fumble recovery. If you want goosebumps, just watch Brian Baldinger’s breakdown of what he did last night. It’s awesome. 

Green Bay Packers

The fact: Jordan Love is getting paid $55 million per year. That’s the second-highest annual salary, the 12th-highest contract, and his $160 million guaranteed is the 12th most money of all quarterbacks in the NFL. 

The opinion: He’s not playing up to that price tag.

On Monday night, Love was pressured a season-high 17 times. On those 17 dropbacks, he got the ball out 12 times. Of those 12 passes, he completed three of them for 21 total yards. That under-pressure completion percentage of 25% is his lowest of the season.

That’s really a microcosm of the whole thing with him: if he’s pressured, he gets in all kinds of trouble. That’s true with all quarterbacks, but with Love it’s really, really bad.

But just like with the Eagles’ offense and its frustrating tendencies, we already knew that about Love. What we’re learning about this Packers’ offense is that it’s in big trouble.

The magic of Matt LaFleur is getting dispelled

Matt LaFleur’s supposed to be a generational offensive mind, and he has been in the past. The problem is that now, it’s looking a lot like he is just a ‘has-been.’ He’s not providing answers for a struggling offense, and that was specifically evidenced when he was calling plays where Love was targeting Quinyon Mitchell instead of Adoree’ Jackson. 

Mitchell is one of the top-five (maybe top-three) cornerbacks in the NFL. Adoree’ Jackson is a top-100 cornerback. If you want to attack that Eagles’ defense, the place to do it is by throwing at their CB2. LaFleur was getting entirely too cute with his passing game… which is a weird move when you’re down your best pass-catcher in Tucker Kraft. 

That pales in comparison to their issues with predictability. There’s a clip going viral where the Eagles’ defensive tackle, Moro Ojomo, is calling out a play before it happens. That play was a fourth-and-one on their second-to-last drive of the game. It was a massive play in the game. 

You simply have to do a better job calling plays, especially mega-important ones, if the play type, run scheme, and direction are getting shouted out for the entire world to hear. Also, do you really think Ojomo is the only player to predict one of their plays? I’d bet that he’s not. 

Mix that with the way Love performs under pressure, and you’ve got an enormous and season-ending problem. We had some thoughts that the Packers' offense was in trouble, but after seeing how they played against a Super Bowl-contending defense, we know that this offense is not a Super Bowl-contending offense… at least not right now. 

There are still eight games left in the Packers’ season. This week, they get to play a bad Giants team. If there’s a time to get right, it’s against them. After that, they do get some tests; they still see Minnesota twice, Detroit, Denver, and a Baltimore defense that’s bouncing back. 

If the Packers do make it to the postseason, and it’s not because the rest of the NFC North implodes, they’ll have earned their spot and maybe a little faith… or everything can keep falling apart, and they’ll implode themselves. Football rocks. 

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