Tale of two halves

The Eagles came back from 19 points during their 33-24 win over the Rams, looking like a totally different team in the second half. What went wrong in the first half?

Play calling

The biggest thing that changed was the play calling in the second half. Offensive coordinator, Kevin Patullo, had no idea what was going on and while his game plan was failing he continued to play conservative with the Eagles continuing to punt. The Rams would load the box with 6 defenders and the Eagles would see it and run right into it for a yard or two. Or Patullo would call for a pass with Jalen Hurts throwing the ball for 3 yards on a screen or short pass to Saquan Barkley, our running back, was our best receiver, AJ Brown, not getting close to seeing the ball. Everything changed in the second half when the Eagles started to throw the ball long forcing the Rams to drop back. This opened up the both the run with Saquan and Hurts. The Rams defenders did not have the ability to guard both DeVonta Smith and AJ Brown with both of them combining for 169 yards and two touchdowns. With Brown only getting the ball in the second half. Godert started the scoring spree with a 33 yard touchdown with him walking into the end zone. After that the Eagles never looked back scoring 26 straight points.  
Right tackle

Another big reason that the Eagles flipped the switch in the second half was because of Fred Johnson. Lane Johnson suffered a stinger (neck injury) during the first half of the game and never returned (he will be fine for the buccaneers). After he went down, Matt Pryor was subbed in and was terrible. Pryor played 15 snaps giving up 3 sacks where his defender ran right by him with his last play having him whiff on Jared Verse who would then strip Jalen Hurts giving the Rams the ball on the the Eagles 8 yard line. Pryor was benched after that play for Fred Johnson who would jump right in and have no problems. Fred Johnson would stay in for the rest of the game holding his own against Verse.

Defense

Despite the missteps with the offense, the Eagle’s defense kept them in the game. While the offense struggled the defense stayed strong and sticking to Vic Fangio’s bend not break defense forcing 6 field goal attempts, blocking 2 of them.. Although the Eagles’ offense made the necessary corrections in the second half, it was fitting that the game was ultimately won on a strong defensive play with 340 pound Jordan Davis helping out with the first one and blocking the second before running at 18.59 miles per hour as time expired into the end zone to seal the Eagles win.

The Eagles are going to need to play like they did in the second half if they want to beat the Buccaneers after losing to them 3 times in the last 5 years with the most memorable one being in 2021 when the Buuccaneers beat the Eagles 31-15 in the divisional game. The Eagles will be without their star edge rusher, Nolan Smith Jr., who has been placed on IR. Let’s hope the Eagles can learn from their past mistakes and put the right person to fill his spot.

Ben Lavelle

Jan 1 2023