Philadelphia Eagles news and links for 9/13/21.

Let’s get to the Philadelphia Eagles links ...

Eagles vs. Falcons: 15 winners, 12 losers, and 2 IDKs - BGN
Jalen Hurts: franchise quarterback? He just might be if he continues this up! The Eagles’ second-year signal-caller went 27/35 (77% completion) for 264 yards (7.5 average), three touchdowns, zero interceptions, and a 126.4 passer rating. He also had seven runs for 62 yards. That’s good stuff. As we said leading up to the game, it’s not like the Falcons have a very formidable defense. And it’s just one game. But, man, hard not to be encouraged about Hurts’ outlook after this one. As reflected by his very high completion percentage, Hurts was mostly accurate. He did a great job of managing the Eagles’ two-minute drill before the end of the first half, using his mobility to avoid pressure and move the chains. He capped that drive off with a bullet while throwing against his body to a diving Dallas Goedert. Such an impressive throw. Re-watching Hurts’ touchdown throw to Jalen Reagor, he stood in and delivered a perfect pass despite being pressure immediately arriving to him.

Handing out 10 awards from the Eagles-Falcons game - PhillyVoice
The consensus belief is that Jalen Hurts has one season to prove beyond a doubt that he is “the guy” at quarterback for the Eagles, and that if he doesn’t, the team will either trade for a star vet or select a quarterback with their abundance of high picks in the 2022 NFL Draft. It’s almost sort of unfair pressure to put on a second-year player, when there are other young quarterbacks who have the luxury of showing over several years that they can be the face of the franchise. Hurts still has a long way to go to definitively stake his claim in Philadelphia, but he’s off to one hell of a start. On the day, he was 27 of 35 for 264 yards, 3 TDs, 0 INTs, and QB rating of 126.4. He also ran 7 times for 62 yards. He showed complete command of the offense, and while his accuracy wasn’t perfect at times, he made his share of bigtime throws, the best of which, in my opinion, was this strike on the run to Dallas Goedert for a touchdown. That was a beauty. Eagles fans couldn’t have realistically hoped for a better Week 1 debut out of Hurts.

NFL Week 1 Game Recap: Philadelphia Eagles 32, Atlanta Falcons 6 - PFF
Jalen Hurts may have had a low average depth of target and high rate of yards after the catch, but make no mistake — he had a career day. Hurts was decisive inside the pocket and executed a short passing attack that found plenty of success as opposed to holding onto the ball and taking risks like he did in 2020. Along with that, Hurts was his playmaking self on the move outside of the pocket and didn’t put the ball in harm’s way on such plays. Hurts completed five of eight passes for 50 yards and a touchdown outside of the pocket and also took a couple of scrambles for 15 yards.

Jalen Hurts starts 2021 in dream fashion for Philadelphia Eagles fans - TouchdownWire
From this end zone angle, you can see how TE and QB work to get on the same page. Goedert sees Hurts scrambling outside the pocket and works towards the middle of the field, but Hurts puts the throw towards the outside to beat the lurking underneath defenders. Goedert sees this and darts behind the defender, getting in position to finish the play.

2021 NFL season, Week 1: What we learned from Sunday’s games - NFL.com
Jalen Hurts is a good fit in Sirianni’s system. The player of the game by far, Hurts completed 27 of 35 pass attempts for 264 yards and three touchdowns while adding 62 yards on the ground. On the team’s opening drive of the season, Hurts floated a perfect TD pass to first-round wideout DeVonta Smith (six receptions, 71 yards) for the rookie’s first NFL reception and the Eagles QB went on to sustain an efficient offense to secure an easy victory. Hurts’ great day at the helm was aided by savvy play calls and designs in accordance with a reliable running attack that featured Miles Sanders (74 yards on 15 attempts) and rookie Kenneth Gainwell (37 yards, TD). While Hurts wasn’t asked to take many shots down field, the second-year QB proved to have already grasped the concept of Sirianni’s system with a mistake-free day. The 23-year-old should only improve as the season progresses.

Brilliance from Jalen Hurts and more in Roob’s 10 observations - NBCSP
1. What a brilliant performance from Hurts in his first opening-day start and his first game under Nick Sirianni. He played such smart football and saw the field so well. Responded beautifully to pressure, didn’t force anything when it wasn’t there, took what the defense gave him, spread the ball around, used his legs when it was the right thing to do, threw the ball accurately and just showed terrific poise and command of the offense throughout the game. You still think he can’t throw the football? Hurts was 27-for-35 — that’s 77 percent — for 264 yards, three TDs, no turnovers and 62 rushing yards on seven carries.

BGN Instant Reaction Show: Eagles open season with road victory over Falcons - BGN Radio
Now that’s how you start the season! Following the Eagles 32-6 road victory over the Falcons, Eytan Shander and Jessica (Towne) Taylor recapped all of the game action including Jalen Hurts’ performance as well as DeVonta Smith and Kenneth Gainwell’s rookie debuts.

A Great Start - Iggles Blitz
Before we get too excited about the Eagles, we do have to point out the Falcons looked bad. That team has major issues. Still, the Eagles won by 26 and played well. That’s what you’re supposed to do when you play a bad team. The Eagles didn’t score 30 points in any game last year. The last time they did that was the 2019 season finale vs the Giants. The Eagles hadn’t won a [regular season] game by 26 or more since beating the Bears 31-3 in November of 2017. Forget about context and enjoy this win. Today was a good day.

11 observations from the Eagles’ 32-6 victory over Atlanta - PE.com
9. A big part of Jonathan Gannon’s defensive philosophy is to limit the big plays, and the Eagles did a magnificent job of that. Pitts had a long reception of 18 yards. Ridley’s longest gain was 16 yards. That’s impressive stuff against such a high-powered group of pass catchers.

The Winners and Losers of NFL Week 1 - The Ringer
My favorite trend in the 2021 NFL draft was all the teams that paired their recently drafted quarterbacks with some of the wide receivers they played with in college. The Bengals took Joe Burrow first overall in 2020, then used their first pick in the 2021 draft on his LSU teammate, Ja’Marr Chase. The Dolphins took Alabama’s Tua Tagovailoa fifth overall in 2020; then took his Tide teammate Jaylen Waddle sixth overall this year. The Eagles used a second-round pick on Jalen Hurts in 2020 out of Oklahoma; they used their 2021 first-round pick on Heisman winner DeVonta Smith, who played with Hurts when he was at Alabama. All three pairings immediately paid off. The Eagles’ first touchdown of the season was an 18-yarder from Hurts to Smith.

Week 1: Cheese, Decisions And Dreams—Jameis Winston Gets The ‘W’ In Saints’ Statement Rout Of Pack - FMIA
Philadelphia T Jordan Mailata. Shortly after getting an eyebrow-raising, $16-million-a-year extension, the former Aussie rugby player lived up to the hype. He allowed one pressure and zero sacks of quarterback Jalen Hurts in 41 pass-blocking snaps.

49ers injury updates: Kyle Shanahan fears that Jason Verrett tore his ACL - Niners Nation
The 49ers beat the Lions Sunday 41-33, but it didn’t feel like that the way the fourth quarter ended. Head coach Kyle Shanahan spoke to the media after Sunday’s victory to provide a few injury updates. Shanahan fears that the team has lost cornerback Jason Verrett to an ACL injury for the season: “It’s crushing. Hoping for the best, but it’s crushing.” Losing Verrett would be a massive blow, as he was comfortably one of the best players on the team. The Lions took advantage of the defense once Verrett went down, and Shanahan acknowledged as much. [BLG Note: Bad news for Philly’s Week 2 opponent.]

Time to wrap up the Jalen Mayfield experiment and finally sign a left guard - The Falcoholic
We are left struggling to find out what went wrong and why in the aftermath of an egregiously bad start to a new Falcons regime. The Falcons have played so much terrible and infuriating football for so long, however, Sunday’s loss sticks out. The team can typically muster some level of competence and excitement for at least part of a bad game. That did not happen against the Eagles. In a game where nothing went right, what went wrong? One of the biggest problems was Jalen Mayfield, the rookie lineman forced into starting at left guard. Arthur Smith said, when pointed towards the tough match-up against Philadelphia’s defensive line, “everyone has to get baptized.” Mayfield was baptized to the tune of multiple false starts, at least one clear sack, and multiple blown plays. The offensive line was close to 2014 bad where injuries and depth forced the likes of tight end Levine Toilolo to fill in at right tackle, thanks, in strong part, to Mayfield.

‘Things I think’ after Giants’ disheartening loss to Denver - Big Blue View
We know an 0-2 start basically means you probably aren’t going to the playoffs. Roughly 90 percent of teams who have started 0-2 since the playoffs were expanded in 1990 hve missed the playoffs. Considering the yearly miserable starts for the Giants — 0-2 or worse in seven of eight seasons before this one — the importance of Thursday night is magnified. It’s not just about the playoffs. It’s about giving a disheartened fan base something to feel good about, and a ready to pounce media horde at bay for at least a while. The Giants know they have no time to wallow in disappointment. They have a division game coming up in what is really just a few short hours at that point, and it is another chance to try and change the negative narrative.

Point/Counterpoint: Glad and mad about the Cowboys loss to the Buccaneers - Blogging The Boys
David: Moral victories don’t show up in the win column, and at the end of the day Dallas had a shot to win and failed to do so. But the Buccaneers also had several opportunities to blow the Cowboys out of the water and they also failed to do so. Chalk it up to first game rust for both teams. The bottom line is the Cowboys answered a ton of questions we all had coming in: the two tackles are back at 100% (except for the suspension issue), Dak very obviously is, and Kellen Moore has full command of this offense. Defensively, they looked about as good as you’d expect facing off against Tom Brady after so much roster turnover. The pass rush had its moments, Trevon Diggs looked great, and the run defense wasn’t a liability. Sure, the secondary got burned at times, but it’s Brady. Special teams looked especially bad, but that may be due to rust more than anything else; we’ll find out in the coming weeks if it was rust or a real problem. Either way, going toe-to-toe against the reigning Super Bowl champs on the road is highly encouraging. [BLG Note: The Cowboys’ Week 1 loss was apparently the biggest moral victory in NFL history.]

Report: Ryan Fitzpatrick suffers potentially serious hip injury; MRI coming tomorrow to confirm - Hogs Haven
On the 4th drive disaster struck. Ryan Fitzpatrick was driven into the ground hard and was slow to get up. He was helped off the field and immediately taken to the back, and word came out a little later that he had a hip injury. He was ruled out of the game, and everyone was left to wonder how bad the injury was. Taylor Heinicke came into the game and did his best to provide a spark for the offense. He led 1 touchdown drive and got the lead at one point. He finished the day 11 of 15 for 122 yards and a TD along with 3 rushes for 17 yards. That could be a glimpse of Washington’s future if Ian Rapoport’s injury report for Ryan Fitzpatrick is correct. Washington’s starting QB is believed to have suffered a hip subluxation and will get an MRI tomorrow to access the damage. This could a serious injury and could potentially end Fitzpatrick’s season.

Knee-Jerk Reactions: Colts drop home opener to Seahawks 28-16 - Stampede Blue
Carson Wentz wasn’t spectacular but given the circumstances of how limited he has been in practice, the first game would have to be considered about as good as could be expected. He’ll need to get his receivers more involved and find ways to avoid pressure more consistently but expecting either of those two things to be excellent at this point would be unrealistic.

Sunday Late Night Wrap Up #1: What you need to know about Week 1 - The SB Nation NFL Show
Rob “Stats” Guerrera recaps every single game from Sunday with all the relevant facts, numbers, and storylines you need to know.

...

Social Media Information:

BGN Facebook Page: Click here to like our page

BGN Twitter: Follow @BleedingGreen

BGN Instagram: Follow @BleedingGreenInsta

BGN Manager: Brandon Lee Gowton: Follow @BrandonGowton

BGN Radio Twitter: Follow @BGN_Radio

BGN Cameo: Click here for a personalized video message