Sunday night in Philadelphia.
Jalen hurd's taking on Cooper Rush as the Cowboys. Try to
squeeze just one more game out of their back up before they
put the ball back in the hands of Dak Prescott Prescott.
Obviously says he would have been able to play last night.
He probably thinks he would have been able to play week to
only six days after surgery to repair the broken bone in his
thumb. I love that confidence that crosses over into
delusion, that's the way
you have to be to thrive in the NFL, the eagles with the twenty
two nothing lead and then it felt for a while. Like I was
going to be the Lone Wolf I will I was that I was going to
be Vindicated by the Dallas Cowboys.
That maybe I A bottle of Johnnie Walker Blue directly
from Jerry Jones, private stash as the reward. But it was not
to be the eagle to their credit and this is the hardest thing
to do. We really didn't need to see that. I just said it, but
there it
is. There's the photographic proof me down in the corner all
alone and using your religion. But you know what, you know
what, if I hadn't taken that bullet and it had been Eagles
all the way across the Cowboys, would have won, and And we all
would
have looked like fools. So
you're welcome. Everybody else whose name was on that
including America because if it had been
all equals, you know that cosmically it would have ended
up manifesting itself in the Cowboys
completing what they started. And I got to give the Eagles
credit because you can win different ways as we heard
Kevin O'Connell, say at the top of the show in relation to
the Vikings
but for the Eagles
to be up 22, nothing and to feel that it's falling apart
the moment. And I'm completely swung in the direction of
the Cowboys,
to hold it together,
put it together and take it down the field and score. The
touchdown that put the Eagles up by nine
and essentially slammed the door. I know it wasn't over
over at that point but that ended that sense of oh no here
come the Cowboys, it's going to be 3120 before we know it. That
was a great Drive
where they just kind of calm down and they
Not that it was all falling apart and they focused on
the task at hand and it's not the easiest thing to do when you
feel like you've gotten to a point in the game where you
can't do anything, right? It all falling apart, seems like
a little bit strong. Mike. I mean it was not going well for
the Philadelphia Eagles in the
second half. Sure.
But that's kind of the type of games that they've played,
right? I mean even last week you look at what the Arizona
Cardinals were able to do to get themselves back in it in
the second half and frankly they should have been able The
tie it
if they had a kicker other than that Amendola who frankly, I'm
not sure why they turned to him for a second consecutive week,
but as Simmons Allah catching his stray, but go ahead. Well,
yes, I never know who's gonna catch a stray on Monday
morning. I did not have met him at all on the bingo
card. Well, sometimes you know what, people just think come up
in my mind and that's exactly what had to happen right there.
But you know what the Eagles, I mean, we keep talking about
them as this most complete team right now and I don't know
if If
I look at the Chiefs and Bills game, which were going to talk
about in a little bit and I still feel like those two teams
are actually very complete, but if you look at the NFC yes this
is the best team right now in the National
Football Conference of Christ. That's is that actually what
it's called is yeah. Jeez. Yeah. Yes, it is. Why do you
got a problem with that? No, I mean you see I don't know you
correctly identified it
it was just a weird brain thing. That just it felt very
wrong in the moment and you know you said a couple weeks
ago that even if something feels wrong I gotta just push
through it, so I should've done that. Yeah, I know, should
regardless
the eagles look great.
And they are a great team. And when you have a two receivers
like, AJ Brown Devante Smith, and they are making plays as
they did on that drive, that you were talking about. It
makes you very hard to beat, right? Because those two guys
are
at the cusp of elite, you know, I don't know if I want to call
them Elite receivers quite yet but I don't also don't know if
there's two other receivers.
Is that I would rather have than those two guys based on
their combination of speed physicality. What they can do,
the plays, they've proven that they can make so Jalen hurd's,
and those two dudes, it's hard to beat them
when they have things going and they have things rolling, like
they did on that drive
and the way that I was selling our game
eagles-cowboys. Pitting number one versus number four in
the all-important and always binding PFT Power Rankings was
to say,
hey, Look Chiefs bills. We know both teams are great,
Eagles, Cowboys,
we don't really know
and especially with the Eagles,
like, Demarcus Lauren said, last week,
we don't know how good Jalen hurts his because he hasn't
faced the Cowboys yet. So the Eagles get the victory. They
moved to 6 and 0 which is incredibly difficult to do in
the NFL
to win, six and lose 0, whether it's middle of season and
the season start a season six in a row is difficult. The teams are
Act together. So, we've seen
different ways to win. We've seen grit, we've seen
toughness, we've seen resilience by the Eagles. And
now we see their 6 and 0 for the first time in 18 years
when they made it to the Super Bowl with
a receiver for whom they treated and it worked out
pretty damn. Well, that year and that year only with Terrell
Owens, now we have AJ Brown, proud, not having that same
tremendous statistical impact but they don't need him to,
there's still six and 0
and they made it the Super Bowl that year. And obviously,
Up short against the New England Patriots. But
this is a very good Eagles, team and their five years
removed from their own Super Bowl win, but the team is
completely different and the bottom line is Miles,
they're winning and they're winning because they're
balanced. There are few teams in the NFL now that have
ballots, it starts with the lines, great offensive and
defensive lines.
And then the back end on the defense is great and the skill
position players are great in jail and Hertz is a franchise
quarterback, at least he's becoming one before our eyes.
Rise. I know he's not going to be Josh Allen or Patrick
Mahomes
but he's going to be good enough. You don't have to be
those guys
when you have the rest of the team because those guys allow
you to to
go a little bit cheaper
and maybe make some mistakes with your draft picks elsewhere
because they're always going to bail you out. You don't need to
be bailed out by the quarterback when you're solid
across the board and that's what the Eagles are.
But it's I mean, you put it that way, it's kind of the same
way that the Eagles were built in He 17, although, with very
different players except for the guys that are still there.
We're talking about the Jason Kelsey's of the world. Brandon,
Graham Fletcher, Cox. Those guys are still there. But you
have right now, what's a very good offensive line and they
lost to
really, really big starters for them. And left tackle,
the right tackle and they were still able to compete.
Obviously, lame Johnson going out really changed the game.
And the complexion of that thing, in the second half for
the Dallas Cowboys, were, they were able to To start
generating some more
pressure with Micah Parsons because, well, we look when
you're right tackle, who's as good as Johnson is not there,
then that is going to make a significant difference but to
get back to what you're saying. Yeah. It's the same sort of
formula
where you have guys that are very, very good across
the board, and it starts with that offensive line and also on
the defensive line and you can generate pressure with for.
And once you can do that, then it really allows your secondary
to do all kinds of things. Things that make things tough
on opposing quarterbacks, but they made Cooper Rush look like
a backup. Last night
we saw the limitations of Cooper Rush, right there are
plays out there that that Prescott's going to make that
Cooper Rush is just not going to do because he's a backup
quarterback. And the thing that Cooper Rush did for weeks and
weeks was managed the game. Well and people talk about
that. Like it's such a dirty thing. Well, you have to manage
the game. Want to
win it. All right, you got it.
Get in. And out of the right plays, you have to deliver
the ball on time and on target and when you're able to do that and
you're able to stay ahead and the defense is playing as well
as it has. That's why the backup quarterback can win
games
but when you get off to
a slower start and the Eagles are able to generate pressure
and then they're able to generate takeaways.
Then that's where you see the limitations of having a backup
quarterback playing there. You it's not going to be the same
as having Dak Prescott in there and saying, okay Dak you bring
us
Back you make sure that we're going to be in a good position
to win. It's just one of those things he's not really going to
be able to do with Cooper Rush. Well and when you are a
team that is trying to continue to win games with a backup
quarterback, you have to minimize mistakes and we saw
the mistakes
conspire and combine to put the Cowboys in that 22.
Nothing whole. We saw the Dante, Fowler offside
on Fourth and short inside the 10,
the Reception by Cooper Rush on the next drive and then that
moment that weird inexplicable moment where
CD lamb Dives for a first down and everybody thought
he had gotten
past
the marker
before his elbow or his knees, struck and his elbow and
forearm landed on the ground before his knees. But at that
point, the ball look to be
far enough for the first down.
And the Cowboys rushed to the line
to call the fourth down play. They seem discombobulated.
They had no inclination,
no indication
that they were going to actually challenge
the ruling on the field, the spot of the ball and rarely
can you reliably challenge a spot because usually it's
a cluster of bodies and you've got different frames of
reference. And what kind of view are we going to have? But
it's almost like you didn't even hit. Mike McCarthy's
radar screen. It's like he wanted to rush to the next
play, so we wouldn't have to go through the mental gymnastics
of considering.
Should I
exercise My Prerogative to challenge this? I'd only want
to make that decision. So let's just move on to the next play,
the whole thing.
And look, when you go back to a game you pick out five, six
moments that come together to influence the outcome. But,
That that and they're lucky. It was only a touchdown, a field
goal. Excuse me, not a touchdown that came out of that
when they handed the ball to the Eagles at
the Dallas 35 but that was just weird. That was just one of
those weird moments and I think that's what made it so stunning
that the Cowboys found a way out of this hole that they
deliberately dug for themselves
with a big-ass shovel.
And that moment was was indicative, there was like
determined to lose the game and I think that's what made So
jarring to me when they finally wake up and start scoring
points and get it down to three and it makes it more impressive
to me that the Eagles were able to pull the pendulum back in
their favor, when the momentum
had completely gone
to Dallas after Dallas had done everything they could. To just
say here Philadelphia, we think you know you should you should
win tonight because it's a better story if you win because
you've had a great Sports weekend in Philadelphia, yada
yada, yada it just it was thought that was weird
and and it all seems so So weird, because of the way, that
that moment was handled, where you throw the red challenge
flag, you're getting your first
down, you continue that drive
and maybe, you know, maybe it's not 22, nothing
perhaps not. It was one of those moments where you think
about processes
and it sort of was like, okay the Cowboys had predetermined
that if they had gotten to a certain spot that they were
going to go for it on fourth down. And when you do that, you
want to get to the line because
it keeps Philadelphia in that same Personnel grouping.
And you want to make sure that your can trying to catch
the defense off guard a little bit. But when it's that close,
then there should be some sort of mechanism where somebody's
like, hey, hola like they, we should maybe challenge this
because it really did look like
lamb had stretched the ball
over that line to gain
on that dive. So if
I understand what happened and why it happened, but yeah, you
can see it right there. R. Look, where is elbows down?
Look where the marker is at the yard line. I mean, it's right
at the stripe and you can see that the football is right at
the stripes. So
that obviously would have been somewhere where McCarthy could
Challenge and then they could have gotten that first down and
who knows? Maybe they have to punt after the next series set
of downs anyway, but
it's still maybe one of those game changing plays. You're
right. Mike, there are sort of five six moments that you can
point to. That was definitely one of them.
One of the things Sean, Payton always says about replay review
when you're the coach and you're the one that's got to
make the call as to whether or not you're going to find
the red flag. And as we know
as Jeff Fisher proof, sometimes it's not easy to find
the red flag But first you gotta find it. Then you got to
throw it. Peyton says when it's clear not sure catching astray
when it's true. Well if there's anything I got more, when it's
truly clear and obvious,
you're hearing all the voices
in your head set
of challenge at challenge at challenges,
Challenge it when it's closed. It's crickets.
Maybe that's the ultimate litmus test.
That they are the 50 drunks in a bar that Mike Holmgren once
spoke of they are the ones who fill the coaches ears with
challenge challenge challenge.
And my guess is Mike McCarthy was hearing crickets when he
shouldn't have that. Somebody should have seen. Oh man, CD
lamp got it and they should have been screaming to Mike
McCarthy.
Find that red flag
and throw that red flag and extend
the
So
again you can never know. I'm not going to say never
sometimes, something like that happens, right? At the end of
the game and it's much easier to say, that's why?
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