Gardner Minshew’s big game overshadows huge Eagles win as they stay in the NFL playoff race | Marcus Hayes
The Mississippi Mustache had a 133.7 rating, the Eagles' best since Nick Foles' 141.4 in the NFC title game in 2018, but the "W" was bigger than the stats — and the QB controversy they sparked.
A loss to one of football’s worst franchises would have left a festering sore as the inconsistent Eagles entered their late-season bye week, but, incredibly, nobody really wanted to talk about that. Such is the magnitude of Gardner Minshew’s magnetism.
So manic was Minshew Mania, that, in the minutes after the Eagles beat the Jets, coach Nick Sirianni was not asked a single question about the biggest win of the season.
“Yeah, right?” Sirianni said outside of the interview room at MetLife Stadium. He’d spent nine minutes navigating questions about how Minshew had played better than Jalen Hurts ever has, and he was eager to address the bigger picture: “You never want to sit for two weeks on a loss.”
The Birds, behind Minshew’s virtuosic performance, had avoided catastrophe. In the same stadium, a week after an upset loss to the woeful Giants, they’d weathered an offensive blitzkrieg from the pathetic Jets, who scored touchdowns on their first three possessions but still lost, 33-18.
“Let’s come back and get ready to run this table,” safety Rodney McLeod told the team in the locker room. “We know what’s in front of us. All division opponents. Everything we set out for, man, is right in front of us.”
And so it is.
Thanks to the win, entering their bye week the Eagles stand at 6-7, not 5-8. They’re a half-game behind the 49ers and Washington, both of whom are 6-6 and have had their byes. The Eagles hold their own future firmly in their hands.
They host Washington, the Giants, then travel to Washington, before finishing with a visit from the Cowboys. As such, a 9-8 record is attainable, and 10-7, and an almost certain playoff spot, is possible.
Sirianni said he’d return to the man who started the first 12 games as soon as Hurts’ ankle heals, for better or worse. But a loss to the Jets would have made immaterial whether Sirianni started Hurts or, more logically, the Mississippi Mustache.
The win “was huge for us, especially after last week, the way we felt leaving this building,” right tackle Lane Johnson said.
They left that building dismayed, after a 13-7 loss to the Giants. The loss was engineered by Hurts’ three interceptions and a 17.5 passer rating — the NFL’s worst this season — and Sirianni’s deviation from the run-heavy scheme that minimized Hurts’ poor passing abilities and had won the Eagles three of four games.
Sirianni didn’t need to hide Minshew’s arm. Minshew, Hurts’ backup, flashed the magic that made him a cult hero in the sporting world in 2019 and 2020, when he stole Nick Foles’ job in Jacksonville. But the Jags drafted Trevor Lawrence with the No. 1 overall pick, traded Minshew to avoid any distraction that might arise if Lawrence struggled, and transferred their inevitable quarterback controversy 800 miles north.
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All of which meant a “W” for the Birds entering the bye.
A portion of the fan base might consider 2021 a rebuilding year in which the team can gauge Hurts’ potential, but his teammates don’t really care about his future as much as they care about their own present.
“This was a big step to stay in the [playoff] conversation,” Johnson continued. “Get the bye week, get rested up, and then four big-time games for us.”
Five, really. Include Sunday.
“Good steps moving forward, knowing we have these games,” said running back Miles Sanders.
Unencumbered by Hurts’ run-first presence, which invites an extra defender or two to be close to the line of scrimmage, Sanders got a career-high 24 carries and gained 120 rushing yards, two shy of another career high. He aggravated an ankle injury, but Sanders is ready to romp 14 days hence: “We all know what we’ve got in front of us.”
And behind them? Their best all-around offensive game in almost two years, when Carson Wentz took a patchwork 6-7 squad to Washington and won the second of four in a row that catapulted the Birds to the NFC East title.
That was the last time Eagles fans saw quarterbacking as complete as what Minshew showed them Sunday.
It couldn’t have come at a better time.