Eagles, team of destiny: Birds show their massive hearts again in latest comeback win

Experts say the animal with the largest heart on Earth, weighing in at more than 1,000 pounds, is the majestic blue whale.

The experts might want to check the Eagles.

They played without possible Hall of Fame offensive tackle Lane Johnson. Likely Hall of Fame defensive tackle Fletcher Cox left at halftime. Both have groin injuries. They played without injured defensive tackle Milton Williams (concussion) and they lost starting linebacker Zach Cunningham in the second half (hamstring).

Still, the Birds overcame two 10-point deficits in the second half.

Wanna talk heart?

» READ MORE: Yes, the Eagles won. But how did they perform against the Bills? Here are our grades.

The Eagles’ exhausted, undermanned defense, led by young defensive tackles Jalen Carter and Jordan Davis, held the Bills to a field goal on the first possession of overtime. Then MVP favorite Jalen Hurts, horrid through the first half of the game, marched them 75 yards downfield and capped the comeback with a 12-yard touchdown run that gave him a 37-34 win over another marquee quarterback.

“What animal has the biggest heart in the world?” asked Darius Slay. “The blue whale? We got a blue whale heart, then.”

Wanna talk destiny?

Eagles kicker Jake Elliott drove a last-minute, 59-yard field goal through a 20-mph wind and driving rain to force overtime after they watched the Bills get one field goal blocked from 34 yards and another one miss from 48 — wide-right, of course. After all, it’s the Bills. In overtime, Josh Allen had a receiver open in the end zone against an Eagles blitz, but Allen threw right when the receiver broke left.

Brandon Graham and Jason Kelce have played on Eagles teams that overachieved all the way to two trips to the Super Bowl. Have they ever been a part of a team like this?

“Yeah, I’ve been on some really good teams,” said Graham, who collected a sack in his 189th Eagles game, a team record. “But now, we got people getting hurt. So, probably not. Let’s take advantage!”

“The last two or three weeks have been crazy,” Kelce agreed. “But we have a quarterback that doesn’t get frazzled at all.”

So did the Bills, on Sunday,

Allen threw for 339 yards and ran for 81 more, passed for two TDs and ran for two more, but he could not keep the Eagles down. Hurts passed for 200 yards and three TDs, ran for two more, and, for the second week in a row, willed the Eagles past a QB supposedly his superior.

Hurts beat Patrick Mahomes in Kansas City on Monday Night Football six days before. He has beaten the Rams’ Matthew Stafford, the Dolphins’ Tua Tagovailoa, and the Cowboys’ Dak Prescott, and Allen in the Eagles last seven games.

For most of the game the only numbers that really mattered pertained to third-down conversions and time of possession, and, really, the first begat the second.

The Bills converted both third downs on their touchdown drive that gave them a late fourth-quarter lead and converted third-and-9 twice in their overtime field-goal possession. They entered the game with the second-best conversion rate, 48.1%, and lived up to the billing, at 59.1% on Sunday.

They trailed only the Eagles, who did not. They’d converted 48.2%, but managed just 36.3% on Sunday. They went 0-for-7 through the game’s first 35 minutes, at which point Hurts’ passer rating was 14.6 (he finished at 96.2).

The Bills held the ball for 40 minutes, 30 seconds, almost 14 minutes more than the Eagles.

“That’s why they make you play 60 minutes, right?” said Eagles coach Nick Sirianni.

Actually, coach, more than 67 minutes on Sunday.

“That’s why you can’t look at the numbers. You’ve got to just keep putting your head down and keep fighting. And our guys did that,” Sirianni continued. “That just shows the mental toughness of our guys.

» READ MORE: Jalen Hurts outduels Josh Allen in an Eagles victory for the ages

“I’m happy.”

He should be.

Sirianni, like every coach of his generation, wallows in numbers. But, like every coach ever, he also knows the numbers that matter most appear in the standings.

The Eagles are 10-1. They hold the No. 1 seed in the NFC. They have a two-game lead over the Cowboys, who are in their division and whom they have beaten; the Lions, who are flawed; and the 49ers, who visit Sunday.

They moved to 5-0 in their eight-game stretch in which they play seven of the NFL’s better teams.

But they proved once again that they are the NFL’s best team. They are the team with, arguably, the best players and the best quarterback. They are the team with, arguably, the best coaches.

And, inarguably, they are the team with the most heart.