What a lead balloon of a football game. The most important player in it, Brock Purdy, got hurt in the first quarter, and it was only a matter of a time before the better team began the rout. (Not saying Purdy is better than Jalen Hurts. He isn’t. But the drop-off from Purdy to backup Josh Johnson is like an Acapulco cliff-dive. The drop-off from Hurts to Gardner Minshew is not nearly as steep—Minshew can play.)
So the Eagles go into the Super Bowl on one of the best runs in recent history: 16-3 overall, with two of the losses coming in games Hurts didn’t start because of a bum shoulder. The Eagles are 16-1 with Hurts playing—including 38-7 and 31-7 playoff steamrolling’s of the Giants and 49ers at Lincoln Financial Field in the last two weekends. Make no mistake: These Eagles are deep and dangerous, and it will take the best game of their season by the Kansas City Chiefs to beat them in Super Bowl LVII in 13 days.
What was most interesting Sunday—echoing the rout of the Giants—was the dominance of Philadelphia on both sides of the ball. Remember last week, after the win over the Giants, when I witnessed this in the post-game scrum inside the Eagles’ inner sanctum:
“My dad’s here tonight,” Sirianni said after the game, nodding in the direction of his father, “and the first thing he told me when I got into coaching was, ‘It’s always about the O-line and the D-line.’”
Just then, the architect of the two lines and the rest of the roster, GM Howie Roseman, walked by to congratulate Sirianni.
“Howie!” Sirianni yelled. “All about the O-line, D-line, baby!”
“All about the O-line, D-line!” Roseman said.
Think of all the big plays in this game, and the big players, for the newly crowned NFC champions. The GM, Roseman, is linked to most of them. Namely:
1. Jalen Hurts. The quarterback who was widely derided when selected 53rd overall in the 2020 NFL Draft proved what a smart pick it was by leading the Eagles’ drive to their second Super Bowl in five years. Hurts didn’t turn it over, bulled for an insurance TD, and extended a first-quarter drive with a deep throw to DeVonta Smith. Seems so long ago that picking Hurts immediately wounded the psyche of shaky incumbent Carson Wentz. But remember the truth. Roseman didn’t pick Hurts to replace Wentz; he picked him because Wentz was hurt a lot and the Eagles didn’t want to pay the backup QB $7 million, and because Hurts was a fascinating prospect. One more point: Roseman did due diligence on Deshaun Watson when he was a free agent a year ago, but wisely, for many reasons, chose to stick with Hurts.
2. Haason Reddick. Great value signing in free agency for the former Cards and Panthers linebacker (three years, $45 million, cap numbers of $3.9 million and 7.0 million in the first two years), with production far beyond his contract. After finishing second in the NFL with 16 sacks in the regular season and first with five forced fumbles, he was the most important defensive player on the field Sunday. He strip-sacked Purdy and forced him from the game, then sacked Johnson on a drive-crippling play, and then recovered a Johnson fumble late in the half, prompting a late first-half TD. Huge producer when it’s counted for Philadelphia.
3. The corners. Roseman traded third- and fifth-round picks in 2020 to Detroit for Darius Slay, and signed James Bradberry as a salary-cap casualty from the Giants last offseason. Slay and Bradberry have keyed a secondary that—understanding the quality of the passing games the Eagles have faced in the playoffs has been weak—gave up 192 net yards passing and zero TD passes in eight quarters. Slay and Bradberry erased the opposition.
4. DeVonta Smith. Picked 10th overall by Roseman in the ’21 draft, Smith has been the deep threat the Eagles hoped for. He was credited with the most important offensive play for the Eagles Sunday, the 29-yard completion on fourth-and-three that led to the opening Philly touchdown.
5. Nick Sirianni. An offensive coach in Frank Reich’s shadow, and a coach who wasn’t going to call offensive plays because he wanted to be the coach of the whole team still got the nod over the more experienced Josh McDaniels. Remember Sirianni’s disastrous opening press conference? Yikes. But the Eagles do marathon interviews with their coaching candidates, and Roseman and owner Jeffrey Lurie were convinced they saw an underrated leader who wouldn’t be cowed by the local fans or press in tough times, and who would build an excellent offense and coach a complete team. It’s all come true.
“We’re only as good as the staff we have,” Lurie said after the game. “In a way, that’s the secret sauce—the culture and the staff.”
And the personnel staff, led by Roseman. After the last Super Bowl team dissolved into mayhem in less than three years, the fans wanted Roseman out too. But Lurie knew he had a strong GM who deserved a chance to rebuild a team in the dumps. He did—and that’s one of the things that led Roseman to Reddick.
The legacy of Andy Reid in Philadelphia, in part, is what Sirianni and Roseman exulted about last week. Always concentrate on the lines. Philadelphia rotates eight defensive linemen; each plays a dozen snaps or more per game. Keeping them fresh has allowed Reddick the freedom to be a pass-rush marauder, moving inside and outside at will with the offensive line so concerned with the defensive front.
Against the Niners, he was matched against tight end Tyler Kroft on the first series of the game. Later, Reddick was asked what he was thinking when he saw only Kroft between him and Brock Purdy. “Oh man,” Reddick said. “Really bad things.” Reddick beat Kroft easily and steamed toward Purdy, ripping into his right arm—and the ball—just as Purdy tried to throw.
This was the turning point of the game. “I was yelling to coach Nick, ‘Throw the flag!’” Reddick said. The challenge flag, he meant. “I knew that was a sack fumble, cuz I got my hand on the ball.”
Sirianni threw the flag. Meanwhile, Purdy felt a bad sensation. “Shocks all over, from my elbow down to my wrist,” Purdy said. Whatever the replay decided, Purdy was done, at least for a while. And the replay confirmed Reddick’s gut feeling: the fumble, Purdy’s first in the last nine games, gave the Eagles the ball at their own 44. They couldn’t do anything with it, but then Reddick ruined the next drive by sacking Josh Johnson for a loss of 10 on the second play.
As crazy as it sounds, just watching the game, it seemed impossible that the 49ers would be able to stay with Philadelphia. Even though the Niners tied it at 7 on a ridiculously wonderful 23-yard TD run by Christian McCaffrey midway through the second quarter, keeping up with the Eagles would be out of the question with Johnson playing. And it got worse when he had to leave with concussion symptoms early in the third quarter. Purdy re-entered a 21-7 game, but with an apparent elbow injury preventing him from being able to throw, this game became an exercise in just-get-it-over-with, not a true contest of the two best teams in the NFC. “I couldn’t throw more than five, 10 yards,” Purdy said.
As tight end George Kittle said with stark realism after the game: “You’re down to two quarterbacks and neither one of them can throw and neither one of them is really available. It kind of limits what you can do as an offense, kind of limits our playbook to, like, 15 plays.”
So now the Eagles move on. They have many strengths, as winning 16 of 17 with the starting quarterback in the lineup would illustrate. But now, fortunately for them, the Eagles will face one of the game’s best passers—maybe THE best in Arizona with a scary pass-rush. Philadelphia had but 29 sacks last year, and Reddick’s addition blasted that up to 69 this year. Reddick, with 19.5 sacks in 19 games, can win with speed on the outside, and he has enough strength in inside rushes to power through inside gaps.
Amazing to think this, after the Eagles won their first Super Bowl five years ago with an explosive performance against the best team of the era, New England. But this Philadelphia team has fewer weaknesses than the one that beat Brady and Belichick. Thanks to Roseman filling so many holes with high-quality players—and one smart coach—the Eagles won’t be satisfied with anything short of a second Lombardi.
Read more in Peter King’s full Football Morning in America column
