In Roob's Daily Eagles Observations: An area the Eagles have shown remarkable improvement originally appeared on NBC Sports Philadelphia
NEW ORLEANS – An area where the Eagles have shown remarkable improvement, a rookie whose contributions have been a huge surprise, an emotional moment from an unemotional player and an impossible Eagles trivia question.
It’s Monday. The Super Bowl is six days away. And Roob’s 10 Daily Random Eagles Observations starts now!
See you in 24 hours!
1. One huge area of concern the Eagles seem to have solved is their issue with scoring in the first quarter. Remember how bad it was? The Eagles didn’t score a 1st-quarter point in their first seven games and had just 17 in their first 13 games. That’s an average of 1.3 per game. Then, starting with the Steelers, they scored 82 1st-quarter points in their last seven games, or 11.7 per game. Similarly, they were outscored 59-17 in the first quarter through the Panthers and have outscored their opponents 82-27 since, critically 37-10 in the first quarter of their three playoff wins. They started the season as only the ninth team since 1995 to score 17 or fewer points in their first 13 games. The other eight went a combined 71-137 and won one playoff game. Now they’re actually the first team since the 1988 Broncos to lead three straight games in the same postseason by at least six points after the first quarter. Just another area that improved dramatically as the year went on.
2. The more I look at the Chiefs’ run defense, the more I think Saquon Barkley is going to be able to trample K.C. Check out these numbers: The first 13 games of the season, the Chiefs ranked 2nd in the NFL allowing 3.8 yards per carry and 3rd allowing 88 yards per game. In six games since, they’re 4th–worst, allowing 5.1 yards per carry, and 5th-worst allowing 147 per game. That’s an astonishing drop-off. They’re allowing 25 percent more yards per carry the last six games and 40 percent more yards.
3. You’ll hear so much this week about Super Bowl LVII, but the Eagles and Chiefs have met more recently. They played Week 11 last year at Arrowhead and the Eagles won that game 21-17, and I feel like for the guys who are still around from that game beating them in their own building will take some of the mystique out of a team playing in its fifth Super Bowl in six years and trying to win its third in a row and fourth since 2019. The Chiefs led that game 17-7 at halftime, and the Eagles outscored them 14-0 in the second half. The Chiefs are 66-7 under Reid when they lead by 10 at halftime, and the Eagles knocked them off in their own building. A big part of the Chiefs’ edge is that their track record can be intimidating. Just that aura that Patrick Mahomes brings them. They’ve lost just 36 games since 2016, which is insane. But one of them was to the pre-collapse Eagles last year, and it sure doesn’t hurt when you see Andy Reid, Mahomes and Travis Kelce across the field and know that you beat them just a year ago.
4A. Jalyx Hunt has been such an enormous surprise this year. I didn’t mind when the Eagles drafted him in the third round because he had all the tools to eventually become a productive edge rusher. With emphasis on the word eventually. But this is a kid who played at FCS football in the Southland Conference for Houston Christian after starting his career as a safety at Cornell. I saw him as a long-range project with 2025 as his red-shirt year. To think he’d be able to come in and contribute anything this year wasn’t realistic. The season began as you’d expect for Hunt. He was inactive for the opener in São Paulo, then had a total of 17 defensive snaps in the Eagles’ next seven games. But something clicked. Over the last nine games of the regular season, Hunt averaged 25 snaps per game and that’s nudged up to 27 per game in the postseason. And they’ve been productive snaps. He had a sack in the win over the Rams, and it was a huge one, coming on a 3rd-and-13 in the third quarter with the Rams at the Eagles’ 13, forcing a field goal. With Josh Sweat due to hit free agency after the season, Brandon Graham’s future up in the air and Bryce Huff a huge disappointment so far, Hunt could potentially play a major role on this defensive line as early as next year.
4B. During the 42-year span from 1982 – the first year sacks were an official stat – through 2023, the Eagles got a total of 6 ½ postseason sacks from players 23 or younger. Just this year, they’ve gotten 8.0 – 4.0 from Nolan Smith, 2.0 from Jalen Carter and 1.0 from Hunt and Moro Ojomo. They’re only the second team in NFL history with four different players 23 and under getting a sack in the same postseason. The Chargers did it in 2018 with Joey Bosa, Justin Jones, Uchenna Nwosu and Isaac Rochell.
4C. Nolan Smith has the 3rd-most postseason sacks in NFL history by a player 23 or younger with 4 ½. George Karlaftas III has 7.0 and J.J. Watt had 5.0.
5. Jalen Hurts has put together a streak of seven consecutive postseason games with at least 20 pass attempts and no interceptions, the longest streak in NFL history. Patrick Mahomes had a six-game streak that ended last year, and Josh Allen, Matt Ryan, Joe Flacco, Drew Brees and Joe Montana had five-game streaks. What’s crazy is that Hurts’ seven total postseason games with 20 passes and no INTs are already the 11th-most in history and tied with Mahomes for most by a player 26 or younger. And they’ve been consecutive. Hurts also already has five postseason games with a passer rating over 100 – only 11 quarterbacks in NFL history have had more, including guys like Montana, Brady, Mahomes, Aaron Rodgers and Peyton Manning. Hurt’s 17 total postseason touchdowns – eight passing, nine rushing – are 3rd-most by any quarterback before his 27th birthday. Mahomes had 33 and Josh Allen 19. Hurts and Ben Roethlisberger both had 17.
6. Marty Schottenheimer, Chuck Knox, Marvin Lewis, Jim Mora, Norv Turner, Dennis Green, Jack Del Rio, Jason Garrett, Wade Phillips, Dave Wannstedt, Steve Mariucci, Dick Jauron, Todd Bowles, Dom Capers, Bruce Coslett, Jack Pardee, Wayne Fontes, Jeff Fisher and Jerry Glanville coached a combined 229 seasons. Nick Sirianni has been to more Super Bowls in four years than all of them combined.
7. It was incredible to see how emotional Cam Jurgens was after the NFC Championship Game. Cam is a very quiet kid, a farm boy from Nebraska, and rarely shows any kind of emotion. But after gallantly replacing Landon Dickerson at center and playing the second half in the win over the Commanders with a back injury that should have had him safely on the sideline, NBC Sports Philadelphia’s John Clark caught up with Jurgens on the field and maybe for the first time since he got here in 2022 Jurgens really let his emotions show and the tears welled up as he said this: “I’m just so happy I got drafted here. I couldn’t be in a better spot. I love this team. Love this city. And I can’t wait to go down to New Orleans and get to play one more time.” I ran into Jurgens in the hallway outside the locker room on Friday, and he laughed and said that was so out of character for him he can’t believe it happened. “I can’t even watch it,” he said. It was a very cool moment.
8. You’ve got to be a pretty hard-core Eagles fan to get this trivia question right, but here we go: Who was the last Eagles quarterback to win a playoff game for another team after leaving the Eagles? Hint: It wasn’t Randall Cunningham, so it was more recent than 1998, when the Cards with the Vikings. And it wasn’t Jeff Garcia, who lost a playoff game to the Giants for the Bucs in 2007. And it wasn’t Donovan McNabb, Sam Bradford, Joe Flacco, Marcus Mariota or Carson Wentz either. Who was it? The answer is below!
9. In postseason losses in 1988, 1989 and 1990, Randall Cunningham threw 123 passes with no touchdowns and five interceptions. He’s the only quarterback in NFL history to throw 100 passes in a three-game postseason span with no TDs and five or more INTs.
10. This will be the sixth rematch in Super Bowl history but only the third in which the head coach and starting quarterback from both teams will be the same. The Steelers and Cowboys met after the 1975 and 1976 seasons with Chuck Noll and Terry Bradshaw facing Tom Landry and Roger Staubach in both games, and the Giants and Patriots met in 2007 and 2011 with Tom Coughlin and Eli Manning facing Bill Belichick and Tom Brady. In both cases, the team that won the first game – the Steelers and Giants – also won the second. The other rematches have been the Dolphins vs. Washington in 1972 and 1982 and the Bengals and 49ers in 1981 and 1989, the Cowboys and Bills in 1992 and 1993.
Trivia answer: On Dec. 30, 2000, the Dolphins beat the Colts 23-17 in overtime in a wild-card game at Joe Robbie Stadium. Their quarterback that day was Jay Fiedler, who spent some time on the Eagles’ roster in 1995 as a rookie out of Dartmouth. Fiedler is also the last Dolphins quarterback to win a playoff game. Since that day, the Dolphins are 0-4 in the postseason, with Chad Pennington, Matt Moore, Skylar Thompson and Tua Tagovailoa taking the losses.
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