Eagles-Packers: The Birds are resilient, and other things we learned

GREEN BAY, Wis. — The Eagles somehow, despite another slow offensive start and an undisciplined and porous defense, toppled Aaron Rodgers and the Packers, 34-27, Thursday night.

Here’s what we learned:

1. Doug Pederson’s Eagles are one sure thing: resilient. When the visitors’ locker room opened, dance music blared from Jason Peters’ boombox and the Eagles were overly joyous. They had stolen a victory, seemingly saved the season, and after a short flight home would get an extended break before their next game.

The postgame atmosphere felt a lot like the one in London last year when the Eagles beat the Jaguars to move to 4-4 before the bye. They thought they had turned the season around and would become the Super Bowl-caliber squad they were the year prior. But the Eagles ended up losing their next game and floundered over the next month.

Will this year’s team get on a roll after avoiding a 1-3 start, or will it continue to play mediocre football?

“Hopefully, it gives us momentum,” Pederson said, “gives us a little shot in the arm now.”

But some of the Eagles’ problems don’t appear to be going away. Their offense went another first quarter without scoring a point. That’s now happened in 15 of their last 21 games. With DeSean Jackson still sidelined with an abdomen strain, the Eagles had virtually no deep passing game. Carson Wentz’s longest pass was for 20 yards to running back Jordan Howard.

Rodgers is one of the best ever, but the pass rush generated only one sack even though the Eagles had made the Packers one-dimensional and the quarterback dropped back to throw 59 times. The secondary, meanwhile — and specifically the cornerbacks — couldn’t cover consistently enough. And to make matters worse, the unit was undisciplined and collected four personal-foul penalties.

The Eagles, though, found some way to win. Wentz wasn’t Rodgers’ equal, but he was efficient and didn’t turn the ball over. The offensive line dominated the line of scrimmage as Howard and Miles Sanders gobbled up yards on the ground. Jim Schwartz’s bend-and-bend-and-bend-some-more defense could have broken in two. But it bottled up the Packers in the red zone and forced two field goals and delivered two goal-line stops on seven possessions inside the 20.

And that resiliency has been the one common thread that has run through Pederson’s teams. In 2016, his first season, the Eagles won their last few games when some had speculated the coach might not even last more than one year. In 2017, they overcame multiple season-ending injuries to key players, including Wentz, and still won the Super Bowl. And in 2018, they shook off a 6-7 start and another season-ending injury to their quarterback, made the playoffs and came one dropped pass from advancing to the NFC championship game.

The 2019 team has yet to define itself. But when it looked as if there was no way they would leave the Midwest with a 2-2 record, the Eagles kept chipping away and held off the Packers for one of the wilder wins in team history.

Will it lead to cleaner play, or will they continue to be erratic?

2. The run game has teeth. We saw glimpses of what the Eagles’ ground attack could do to defenses, particularly in Week 1 vs. the Redskins. But even though investments were made to upgrade the running-back position, the results weren’t yet there. The offensive line had also started to regress after a strong opener.

But Pederson stayed committed to the rush and it was in many ways the reason the Eagles won. Howard and Sanders combined to rush for 159 yards on 26 carries, a 6.1-yard average. Howard scored twice on the ground and added a touchdown through the air when the Packers blew their coverage.

Running backs have long been featured receivers in the West Coast offense. Pederson’s system isn’t exactly cut from the same cloth, but it’s an element that’s been missing from the offense the last few years. But Sanders caught two passes for 73 yards last week, and Howard pulled in three catches for 28 yards against the Packers. While the latter probably won’t be as reliable a receiver, the former could provide a ball-catching spark out of the backfield.

Sanders was the stimulus behind the Eagles’ comeback. With the Packers up, 10-0, the rookie returned a kickoff for 67 yards, helping set up Wentz’s first of three touchdown passes. And after last week’s fumbles, he showed that he could secure the ball for an entire game. That’s a low bar, but it was a step in the right direction.

3. Carson Wentz can come out on top in a closely contested game. A narrative has taken shape recently that Wentz can’t win the close ones. His record in one-score contests hasn’t been great, but the numbers don’t tell the full story.

If Nelson Agholor pulls in a would-be touchdown catch, the Eagles likely win at Atlanta. If Mack Hollins and J.J. Arcega-Whiteside didn’t have hands of brick on the final drive against the Lions, the Eagles probably pull one out last week. But Wentz has yet to deliver 60 high-level minutes this season, and the same could be said of Thursday night’s game.

He wasn’t sharp early and couldn’t connect with Alshon Jeffery on third down when a conversion late in the fourth quarter might have sealed the game. For long stretches, he paled in comparison to Rodgers. But he hung in there and made the necessary throws, most importantly in the red zone. And as mentioned above, he didn’t give the ball away.

As great as Rodgers played, when he had a chance to either win or tie, he tossed an interception and it was Wentz who got the victory.

4. The Eagles’ duct-tape defense is holding up. Barely. The Eagles can stop the run, all right, but that’s about it. Even though they’ve managed to force offenses into second-and-longs and third downs, they haven’t been able to get off the field enough.

Rodgers got the ball out quickly or he escaped the pocket, making the Eagles pass rushers’ job that much more difficult. But there needs to be more pressure. Schwartz had to blitz to compensate for the front four, and that is always a recipe for failure vs. Rodgers.

There were some hurries and hits, but when the defensive line has just two sacks through four games, something is awry. Derek Barnett had a strip sack, but it came at the expense of a tight end. He otherwise was fairly quiet. Fletcher Cox has yet to be his dominant self. He limped off the field late in the game, and returned, but he’s not 100 percent. Brandon Graham and Vinny Curry have high motors, but they’re seemingly always a half-step short of taking a quarterback down. And there’s been no such thing as a coverage sack.

But the defense dug deep. The Eagles made stops in the red zone. And they received a timely play from the unlikeliest of sources, cornerback Craig James, after the Eagles had already lost Sidney Jones and Avonte Maddox to injuries. I wrote about James’ heroics in my story off the game.

5. And some leftovers: Jeffery caught only 3 of 9 targets for 38 yards and a touchdown, but just having him on the field gave the offense a swagger it had been lacking in the previous two games. Agholor was virtually silent. He had no catches and was targeted only once. … Zach Ertz led the Eagles with seven catches for 65 yards. ... Dallas Goedert was involved in the two-tight end-heavy game plan. He hung onto a Wentz pass in the end zone — unlike last week — and did the Lambeau Leap.

Linebacker Kamu Grugier-Hill played in his first game of the season, and while he wasn’t initially on the field in the base defense, he did log 13 snaps. … The Eagles are depleted at cornerback with Ronald Darby (hamstring), Jones (hamstring) and Maddox likely out for the near future. Jalen Mills and Cre’Von LeBlanc are also still weeks away from possible returns. Could there be any better time than now to make a move for Jalen Ramsey?

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