Roob's Observations: Eagles escape with win over hapless Browns

Roob’s Observations: Eagles escape with win over hapless Browns originally appeared on NBC Sports Philadelphia

Remember when it used to be fun watching the Eagles?

It was too close, too sloppy, too scary, but the Eagles escaped the Browns Sunday at the Linc, a game neither team seemed to want to win for most of the afternoon.

A fantastic run-out-the-clock drive in the final minutes following 56 minutes of uninspired football gave the Eagles a 20-16 win over a hapless Browns team and got the Eagles to 3-2 with the murderer’s row of the Giants, Bengals and Jaguars coming up next.

Exhale.

1. It wasn’t exactly the blowout the Eagles were looking for. The Browns came in 1-4 on their third straight road game with a quarterback who can’t throw a football, and the Eagles are coming off a bye with all their weapons back at full strength in their own building, and they had to really scramble to escape with a win. Hey, they all count the same, and 3-2 is a better place to be than 2-3. But the Eagles’ inability to run away from this truly awful Browns team is concerning. The Eagles have now gone 16 consecutive games without beating anybody by two possessions, and that’s insane. The last time they won a game by more than eight points was Miami last October. For those of you who keep track of this stuff, this is the Eagles’ 3rd-longest streak of games without a two-possession win in 40 years. So while the win is a positive, it’s hard to feel super upbeat about a four-point victory over one of the worst teams in the NFL. Will this team ever play well for an entire game on offense, defense and special teams for 60 minutes? It’s been almost a year since they have.

2. Pretty good stuff throughout from the defense They held the Browns to 244 yards, nine points, 4-for-12 on third down and picked up five sacks after getting just six the first four games. But I’m not sure we really learned a whole lot about the defense because the Browns have literally one of the worst passing attacks in NFL history and until the Eagles play like this against a team with a real quarterback nothing has really changed. But it was encouraging to see. Coverage was tight, pressure was terrific, tackling was better, the d-line got after Deshaun Watson and anytime you can keep a team out of the end zone that’s a big plus. Impressive. But do it against a real offense and I’ll be more impressed.

3. Jalen Hurts’ 0-for-5 start didn’t bother me at all because – and I’m being serious here – he was throwing incomplete passes that the other team couldn’t pick off. He was making good decisions, he wasn’t putting the ball in harm’s way, he just wasn’t connecting. And once he got going and was excellent the rest of the way, finishing 16-for-25 for 264 yards with a 22-yard TD pass to A.J. Brown and a 45-yarder to DeVonta Smith and that 40-yarder to Brown to finish things off. One of his better games in quite a while. In fact, it was his first game with multiple touchdown passes and no interceptions since Week 9 last year and the win over the Cowboys. I thought Hurts made good decisions in the pocket, didn’t force the ball, showed good pocket presence and avoided mistakes. That’s all you ask of a quarterback. He made some big throws and and some big runs and didn’t mess up. This was the first time in 10 games he hasn’t committed a turnover. Next step? Keep it up. Do this consistently.

4. This was mainly the DeVonta and A.J. show but impressive stuff from both Grant Calcaterra and Jahan Dotson. With Dallas Goedert out for most of the game with a hamstring injury. Calcaterra had just 176 yards to show for his first 38 NFL games – that’s about 4 ½ yards per game. But he caught four passes for a career-high 67 yards, including a 34-yarder on the Eagles’ first touchdown drive. And Dotson, who had just 25 yards to show for his first five games, had a 13-yard gain on a pass that was technically a run and also a massive 10-yarder for a first down just before the two-minute warning as the Eagles were running out the clock. You need guys like that to make plays to be a team. And huge for Hurts to throw to those guys instead of forcing things to Smith and Brown.

5. The Cooper DeJean move into the slot paid immediate dividends when he recorded a 15-yard sack on Deshaun Watson in the first quarter when the Browns had the ball at midfield (officially, he shared it with Bryce Huff, of all people). He was part of another sack in the third quarter, although that one was credited to Milton Williams. But you could see his blitzing ability and you could see how active he was around the football and what a sound tackler he is. DeJean was fine in coverage as well. Sometimes coaches are reluctant to make this kind of switch. Avonte Maddox has been a solid NFL slot for a long time and is in his seventh year with the Eagles, and DeJean had played just eight defensive snaps in his life before Sunday afternoon. But this is why they drafted him and this is why he’s here. If he hadn’t missed 3 ½ weeks of training camp he probably would have started the season in the slot. A smart move that paid immediate dividends. With Quinyon Mitchell and DeJean, the Eagles now have two rookies in this secondary and they’re going to be very good players for this team fort a long time.

6. The Eagles’ embarrassing 1st-quarter scoring issues continued. This is now the first time in franchise history they’ve failed to score a point in the first quarter through the first five weeks of a season. Overall, they’ve now gone seven straight games without a 1st-quarter point going back to Julio Jones’ 12-yard TD catch in the loss to Arizona last year in Week 17. It’s the first time they’ve gone seven straight games at any point without a 1st-quarter point since a stretch from Week 8 through Week 14 of 1994. Their last longer streak was an eight-game streak in 1936. Figuring out how to get off to faster starts was a priority during the bye week for Nick Sirianni and his staff in the self-scout process, but no answers yet. This offense just isn’t prepared when games begin, and until they get that figured out, they’re just going to keep making things difficult for themselves.

7. Brandon Graham can’t retire. Can’t. What B.G. is doing at 36 years old in his 15th season is remarkable. He’s playing at such a high level in what was supposed to be his retirement tour he’s actually been one of the Eagles’ best defensive players this year and almost certainly their most consistent defensive linemen. B.G. is never out of position. He never misses a tackle. He never has a negative play. That five-yard loss on Cedric Tillman on a 3rd-and-1 in the third quarter was absolutely huge. B.G. said he’ll come back for a 16th season if the Eagles need him, and I don’t see how they won’t. I hope he never retires.

8. I was surprised the Eagles weren’t able to run on the Browns and their 26th-ranked rush defense – Saquon Barkley finished with just 47 yards on 18 carries – but the Browns went into this game stacking the box and determined not to let Barkley beat them. One thing I would like to see a little more of is Kenny Gainwell mixing it up. Gainwell came in briefly and there’s so much value in a change of pace he popped a 19-yard run – the Eagles’ longest in the game – on his first carry. Sometimes just a different sort of back can keep a defense off balance, especially one focused on stopping the run. I still want Barkley to get his 22 or 23 touches per game, but there’s room within that for a little change up here and there on those occasions where the Eagles just can’t get going. Gainwell isn’t bad and he needs to remain a part of this offense.

9. How about Nolan Smith showing up. Probably the biggest play of what’s been a disappointing career so far. The Browns had a 2nd-and-goal on the Eagles’ 5-yard-line with 4:07 left and the Eagles leading 20-13 and Deshaun Watson took off to his right with the sticks in sight. Nakobe Dean flushed him outside, where Smith – Dean’s college teammate – finished off Watson, tackling him out of bounds for a two-yard gain. After a false start and incomplete pass, the Browns had to settle for a field goal, and the Eagles were able to run out the clock. It’s been a rough year and a half for Smith, the 30th pick in last year’s draft. But he had his second career sack Sunday, had a quarterback hit and had that huge tackle in the low goal line that helped keep the Browns out of the end zone. By far the best game of his career when the Eagles needed him the most.

10. That entire sequence that led to the Browns’ blocked field goal touchdown just before halftime was super ugly. The Eagles had a 2nd-and-1 on the Browns’ 31-yard-line. Hurts threw a short pass to Saquon Barkley, who either misjudged where the sticks were or took a bad angle to the sideline but wound up with no gain when the Eagles should have had a 1st-and-10. The Eagles had timeouts, so getting to the sticks was the priority there, not getting out of bounds. Just a bad play by a great player. And then on 3rd-and-1, Hurts let himself get sacked for an eight-yard loss. So now Jake Elliott is attempting a 57-yard field goal instead of a 51-yarder, and as we know, the longer a field goal attempt, the lower the trajectory and the easier it is to block. And it was – by Myles Garrett – and returned 50 yards by 34-year-old Rodney McLeod of all people for the Browns’ only touchdown. Now it’s 10-10 instead of possibly 17-3 and at least 13-3. Bad offense and bad special teams combined to hand the Browns a touchdown. That touchdown never should have happened.

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