Tag: NFL

The Philadelphia Eagles won another football game on Sunday, this time against the Detroit Lions, but as usual, they gave their fans plenty to complain about in the process. As always, win, lose, or tie, we hand out 10 awards.

1) The ‘Masterclass’ Award 🧙‍♂️: Vic Fangio

The Lions were 3 for 13 on third downs in this game, and 0 for 5 on fourth down, resulting in five turnovers on downs. Getting five stops on 4th down in one game is kinda nuts.

Fangio’s defense started to dominate teams around this time last season, and we’re seeing that trend repeat in 2025. The defensive line is getting pressure on opposing quarterbacks, the linebackers are flying to the football, and for the most part, the defensive backs are contesting catches and forcing incompletions.

In two consecutive weeks against the Packers and now the Lions, the offense didn’t do much of anything and needed the defense to pick up the slack, which they did, and then some.

2) The ‘Brick Wall’ Award 🧱: The Eagles’ run defense

Jahmyr Gibbs and David Montgomery form arguably the best running back tandem in the NFL. They combined for 18 carries for 66 yards, or 3.7 yards per carry. As noted in our Eagles-Lions preview, if you can stop the Lions’ rushing attack, you’re probably going to beat them. The Lions are now 0-4 when they fail to rush for over 100 yards, 6-0 when they go over 100.

Before tonight, the Lions had gone 40 straight games scoring double-digit points. 

3) The ‘Volleyball’ Award 🏐: The Eagles’ pass breakups

Jared Goff completed just 14 passes on 37 attempts for a 37.8% completion percentage. Goff completed 72.4% of his passes in 2024, and heading into this matchup, he led the NFL with a 74.0% completion percentage.

Jordan Davis had 3 batted passes, and Jalen Carter had 2. Quinyon Mitchell and Cooper DeJean also had 2 pass breakups apiece, and Adoree’ Jackson chipped in with an important one of his own on fourth down late in the game. (Video via @DiBonaNFL)

Jameson Williams got loose for one long catch and run, and Gibbs had some electric runs after the catch, but otherwise the Eagles shut down the Lions’ potent passing attack.

4) The ‘Bad Things Happen in Philadelphia’ Award 🕺: Amon-Ra St. Brown

St. Brown did the “Trump dance” last Sunday against the Commanders. On Sunday night, the Eagles’ secondary slapped a tariff on his ass, as he had just 2 catches on 12 targets.

5) The ‘Thank You’ Award 🙏: Dan Campbell

Campbell had a bunch of questionable game management decisions in the first half: 

• On a night in which he went for five other fourth downs, he punted from the Eagles’ 40 yard line on a 4th and 6. He tried to draw the Eagles offsides and took a delay of game penalty when the Eagles didn’t jump. He then punted and the Eagles got the ball at their own 15 yard line, for what was essentially a 25-yard net (if you don’t count the delay penalty).

• He ran a fake punt even though the Eagles kept their regular defensive personnel on the field instead of their special teams guys. I mean, in that situation, you either just punt it away, or call a timeout and put your offense back on the field and run a real play. What you don’t do is run a linebacker up the middle directly into Jordan Davis and Moro Ojomo.

• When the Eagles had 1st and Goal before the end of the first half, the Lions didn’t use any of their timeouts, and were left with just 10 seconds on the clock when they got the ball back. They basically cost themselves a possession.

The Eagles have seen bad coaching performances on consecutive weeks from Matt LaFleur and Campbell.

6) The ‘Alarming’ Award 🚨: The Eagles’ offense

For as dominant as the defense was, the game was still in question until the final seconds because the offense couldn’t get anything going whatsoever. They couldn’t run, they couldn’t pass, and they couldn’t catch. The only positive was that they didn’t turn it over.

Jalen Hurts completed 14 of 28 passes for 135 yards (4.8 YPA), and the offense as a whole gained a paltry 3.9 yards per play.

And that was despite the Lions being without three defensive back starters in Terrion Arnold, D.J. Reed, and Kerby Joseph.

Hurts force-fed 11 targets to A.J. Brown, who had 7 catches for 49 yards, and who just doesn’t look like the same player he was his first three years in Philly.

7) The ‘Wonky’ Award 🙃: The Tush Push

The Eagles had four failed Tush Pushes Sunday night. Two were false starts, and the Lions stopped consecutive Tush Pushes on third and fourth and 1 with about three minutes to go.

The Lions are the only team on the Eagles’ schedule this season who voted not to ban the Tush Push during the 2025 offseason. “Respect,” Nick Sirianni said of the Lions for their vote, and for their ability to stop the play.

8) The ‘What the Hell, Dude’ Award 🤨: Nick Sirianni

Last week in Green Bay, facing a 4th and 6 from the Packers’ 35 yard line, Sirianni opted to go for it, and Hurts misfired on a low percentage deep shot to A.J. Brown down the left sideline. The Packers got the ball back with 27 seconds left and only needing about 25 or so yards to get into reasonable field goal range. As it turned out, the Packers only got 18 yards, and then missed a potential game-tying field goal attempt.

A week later, Sirianni made a similarly crazy call, when he went for it on 4th and 1 from his own 29 with a 10 point lead and only three minutes to play. Normally, that type of aggressive call might be applauded, but as noted above, the Tush Push had been wonky all night, and the defense was absolutely dominating.

The Eagles failed to convert the Tush Push, and even though the defense held the Lions to a three-and-out — and a loss of 7 yards, at that — on their ensuing drive, they kicked a field goal, turning a two-score game into a one-score game.

Once again, the Eagles survived anyway, partly because of an atrocious pass interference call on the Lions’ Rock Ya-Sin.

Sirianni has developed a weird habit of making conservative calls throughout the game, and then getting wildly over-aggressive in the last two or three minutes.

9) The ‘Tiebreaker’ Award 👔: The Rams, Buccaneers, Packers, and Lions

The Eagles aside, most would consider the other top teams in the NFC to be the Rams, Buccaneers, Packers, Lions, and Seahawks. The Eagles have beaten all of those teams except the Seahawks, who are not on their schedule this season. The Eagles have a 7-1 conference record, compared with the Seahawks’ 4-3 conference record.

Though arguably not as talented as the above teams, the Bears are also in the mix, at 7-3. The Eagles will play them at home on Black Friday. In emoji form:

🐏: ✅
🏴‍☠️: ✅
🧀: ✅
🦁: ✅
🐻: TBD

10) The ‘Magic Number’ Award 🪄: 4 and 7

If the Eagles are able to win four of their remaining seven games this season, they will clinch the NFC East. They only need three more wins if one of them is against the Cowboys next Sunday. The Eagles also “control their own destiny” to earn the 1 seed in the NFC. If they win out, the will get a first round bye and home field advantage throughout the playoffs.

So, you know, it’s not always pretty, but they just win. And they also beat their best competition in the conference.