Winners and losers: 5 takeaways from Eagles win in Week 6

It wasn’t remotely pretty, but the Philadelphia Eagles won in Week 6 and their record is 3-2. Barely eking past a Cleveland Browns team that is going to be competing for the first draft pick with a score of 20-16 is nothing to be proud of, and it certainly wasn’t what we wanted to see from a team coming off their bye week.

That being said, a win is a win. Just like every game, some roses and thorns have to go to the team. As you can imagine, one bald guy will be getting an especially barbed and preferably tetanus-ridden thorn.

An Eagles win doesn’t stop Nick Sirianni from being a loser

Let’s start with the losers for this one. That way we can end it on a high note before we never think of this forgettable game ever again.

Unfortunate loser: Hamstrings

This game was a hamstring massacre. Eagles tight end Dallas Goedert, left tackle Jordan Mailata, and Browns running back Jerome Ford all left the game with hamstring injuries.

We went into the bye saying, ‘Whew, at least now the Eagles can get healthy,’ and then this happens, which really stinks. A.J. Brown’s hamstring injury was one thing because he had the bye week to look forward to. For Goedert and Mailata? Not so much.

Mailata’s situation is a little different than Goederts’. We saw Grant Calcaterra take the TE1 role and run with it (as far as the passing game goes). Fred Johnson came in for Mailata and Johnson is nowhere near the player Mailata is, which might cause some issues.

The Eagles have to play some decent edge rushers in the coming weeks when they play the Giants (who have Brian Burns) and the Bengals (who have Trey Hendrickson and Sam Hubbard). If things get dicey with Fred Johnson, Mialata might feel some pressure to come back sooner rather than later.

That’s trouble because as the National Library of Medicine will tell you “Hamstring strains are the second most common injury in the NFL… It has been reported that NFL players have a [Hamstring Injury] recurrence rate of 38.4% and a 13.4% increased risk of reinjury if the player returned to play (RTP) within two weeks.”

If a National Library of anything says something, it probably means they’ve done their work on it all and it’s probably a good idea to believe them. 

A good thing about Mialata’s injury is that he’s an offensive lineman and the NLoM also said that “OL and DL have a disproportionately low number of HSIs” compared to linebackers and defensive backs, who have a disproportionately high number.

So maybe Mailata’s risk of reinjury isn’t super high given his position, but there is a lot of football left to be played, and having one of your best offensive linemen playing as close to 100 percent is better than rushing him back and risking everything getting a lot worse for a longer time. 

All this being said, Jordan Mailata was seen after the game with a mondo-sized sleeve on his leg while he was walking with crutches. So maybe this is a hamstring like it was reported, or maybe it’s something worse. Regardless, it sucks big-time.

Undisputed loser: Nick Sirianni

Is it possible for us to all crowd-fund tuition for Big Dom DiSandro to become a behavioral psychologist? He’s currently a senior advisor, chief security officer, and director of gameday coaching operations, so what’s one more title? 

Nick Sirianni is having a mental breakdown and Big Dom might be the only one who could reign him in before he gets himself fired for non-football things.

Nick shaved his head, did some weird trash talk to the Browns’ defensive backs during the game, yelled at fans who rightfully wanted him fired as the game was ending, brought all three of his kids into the post-game press conference, spouted a bunch of nonsense about how excited he was for the win, and then claimed he called a defensive play. This is a man who is the Heach Coach of the Philadelphia Eagles.

Somehow, the craziest part about this is that the team is maybe into it. Nick said that he heard from the team that they wanted the spicy Nick Sirianni. Normally, you’d think that’s just a psychopath trying to validate his actions, but it might be true.

Brandon Graham was asked about Nick, and he said, “I told him to be him. I told him to be 2022 Nick so we can get there. We just want people to be themself. At the end of the day, coach been taking a bunch of heat, and I understand he got a lot of stuff on him. We got his back because Philly can be hard. I know all about it…” (4:37 in the video below)

Jalen Hurts was asked about Nick’s thing at the end of the game and he said, “...I didn’t see anything, but I encouraged him to be himself, and so, that’s who he is.” (4:13 in the video below)

This doesn’t make any sense, but sure…whatever. If the guys like playing for him, that’s fine. Nick is just a 100% loser for jawing back at the crowd that booed him. 

In his bizarre press conference, Sirianni said, “...We hear 'em when they boo. We don't necessarily like it, I don't think it's productive for anybody. But when they cheer for us, we love it.” (2:54 in the video below. If you have the time and want to hear the ramblings of a lunatic, watch the whole thing)

It’s like a hand of Black Jack: you find out if your bet was good in about 15 seconds. Nick makes bad bets during a football game, and then the stadium tells him what they think of those bets. If you don’t like getting booed, then prepare your team and don’t make stupid play calls. In Nick’s case, don’t make any play calls ever and just be the coach that the players like playing for.

Winners: Eagles defense

The Eagles' defense held the Browns’ offense to just nine points, which is the lowest number of points the Browns' terrible offense has scored this season. So, yes, it was a great showing against a terrible team, but the Eagles did better than other teams have done against this terrible team.

There are a few players that really stood out in this game, and there’s no better place to start than with Brandon Graham.

It was BG’s 200th NFL game in Week 6 and he showed up for it in the same BG way that everyone knows and loves. As soon as the broadcast started talking about how he was the first Eagle to ever play in 200 games, he made an unbelievable play on third down where he tackled Cedric Tillman for a five-yard loss that ultimately resulted in the Browns missing a field goal.

It was awesome. BG has been everything to this team. He started his career very slowly, picked it up big-time, became a hero when he strip-sacked Tom Brady with just over two minutes left in Super Bowl LII, tore his Achilles in 2021, and came back to get 11 sacks in 2022. Now he’s making just as many impactful plays as ever and continuing to be dominant. It’s going to really suck when he’s gone.

The Eagles defense had a party in the backfield too. They got five sacks against the Browns, which almost doubled the team total through the first four games.

Nolan Smith, Josh Sweat, and Jalen Carter all had one sack. Cooper DeJean, Bryce Huff, Milton Williams, and Thomas Booker all had half a sack. Unfortunately, this means that you can no longer say, ‘I have the same number of sacks as the $17 million Bryce Huff.’

As for the sacks, you can say, ‘Who cares? It’s Deshaun Watson. He stinks and the defensive line stinks.’ You’d be right to say that, but getting sacks on bad quarterbacks who are behind bad offensive lines is something that SHOULD happen. 

Think about last year: Sam Howell was the Commanders’ quarterback and for a while, he was getting sacked at a rate that would’ve put him at 96.5 sacks in the season, thoroughly blowing David Carr’s record of getting sacked 76 times in a season out of the water.

The Eagles sacked Howell a combined six times in their two games. Bad teams don’t get the sacks that are there for the taking, and that Eagles team was a bad team. 

Before Week 6, Watson was sacked 26 times (5.2 sacks per game). The five sacks the Eagles got were right on track with that number, and that’s a good thing that shouldn’t be taken for granted.

Winner: Cooper DeJean

Cooper Dejean deserves his own section: The Eagles' second-round pick from the 2024 draft made his first defensive start against the Browns. Typically, when you’re thinking about a rookie getting his first start in Week 6, you’d think they would struggle. That was not the case with DeJean.

He came out and looked like a kid in a toy store, but where a kid would look excited to play with every toy, Cooper looked excited to just be able to hit anyone and everyone. It was almost to a fault too.

On the play where he got half a sack, he was the first one to hit Deshaun Watson. Unfortunately, instead of tackling Watson, he kind of just blasted him with his shoulder. NFL quarterbacks don’t go down from that. To be fair to Cooper, Deshaun isn't a real NFL quarterback, but still…

DeJean was fun to watch and he looked like one of the better players on the field. If this is what it looks like on his first start, there are a lot of good things to come. It’s nice to not have your Nickel Corner be an absolute liability in coverage.

Winners: A.J. Brown and DeVonta Smith

The two biggest weapons showed up in the biggest way against the Browns. A.J. had an amazing touchdown catch where he showed off pretty much all of his tools by pinning the ball between his hand, his bicep, and his helmet, all while he fell into the endzone. He then finished the game off when he perfectly tracked a 40-yard pass for a game-sealing first down.

DeVonta put it on display as well when he turned a short crosser into a 45-yard go-ahead touchdown. 

It should be known that Jalen Hurts started the game slow, missing his first five passes, but he ended the game going 16-of-20 for 264 yards. The connection between Jalen and his two favorite targets picked up right where it left off… with NO TURNOVERS.