Observations from the NFC Championship Victory

We are two days removed from the NFC Championship Game, and it still feels surreal in a way. The Eagles are headed back to the Super Bowl in just two weeks. The team has gone as far as it can go, and just one more win puts the Eagles back on top as world champions!

Here are some observations from Sunday’s game versus the 49ers.

1. During the first half, the Eagles were pass-heavy. They got 97 yards off of the pass in the first half, with Jalen Hurts going 13-19. They ran the ball 18 times for 69 yards. During the second half, the Eagles switched it up and it paid off, relying heavily on Gainwell, ultimately rushing 44 times collectively for 148 yards.
   
2. On that point, one of the biggest things that occurred today that I was impressed by was the halftime adjustments the team made. The passing game wasn’t working, the Eagles were simply not getting Jalen Hurts enough time to make the key downfield decisions he needed to make. He was looking for AJ Brown several times over the course of the game and couldn’t find him, overthrowing the ball. At halftime, though, the Eagles made the adjustment needed to keep them on top on the scoreboard, switching to the run game at all costs, knowing that the Eagles were up against the best rushing defense in the league. It worked.
   
3. The longest play by the Eagles on Sunday was the 29 yard bomb from Hurts to DeVonta Smith, which was ruled a catch on the field though it really wasn’t. Outside of that, the Eagles had no plays go for more than 20 yards. Of those 10 longest plays, six of them were runs. The Eagles got the better of this run defense.
   
4. Let’s look at that bomb by DeVonta Smith. Sirianni spoke after the game about situational football extending not just to the down and distance. It impacts everything. Smith showed great situational football skills there by signaling to his guys that they needed to hurry up to get a play off before 49ers Head Coach Kyle Shanahan could get the word to challenge the play. Last year, I don’t think this team plays that way. As much as the Eagles were not doing so great on the passing game, there were some great plays by them in that domain.
   
5. As much as the Eagles were not doing so great on the passing game, there were some great plays by them in that domain.  Again, there were catches that, if this game were played last year, would not have been catches. This team really improved year over year in many facets of the game.
   
6. Gone are the days of the three-headed monster of Duce Staley, Brian Westbrook, and Correll Buckhalter at running back. Yet I like this crew more. There’s a clear RB1 in Miles Sanders, with Kenneth Gainwell and Boston Scott in as utility men. Add in a running quarterback in Jalen Hurts, and you’ve got a solid corps of people who can make a great ground attack that should cause some problems for the Chiefs.
   
7. Remember how in the days of Chip Kelly, we were constantly losing the Time of Possession battle? In Sunday’s game, the Eagles dominated this battle, with nearly 20 more minutes of possession than the 49ers. This was huge in controlling the tempo of the game.
   
8. Two of my keys to the game were discipline, including penalties, and turnovers. It’s hard to win games if you’re losing in that department. The Eagles were not called for ineligible man downfield, a penalty I called them out on for having it enforced 10 times over the season, including the postseason. The 49ers, on the other hand, were getting call after call made against them. They seemed less disciplined than the Eagles did. As far as turnovers, the Eagles recovered three of them on Sunday, forcing two (one was off of a bad snap). Meanwhile, the Eagles did not allow a single turnover, though there were a few close calls.
   
9. There were moments during the game where the defenders wouldn’t wrap their arms around the player and bring them to the ground, instead going just for a hard hit. That’s not going to work. The infamous hit by Brian Dawkins to Alge Crumpler in the 2004 NFC Championship game leading up to Super Bowl XXXIX still echoes at the Linc, but that only worked because he had just caught the ball and Dawkins is a monster. For folks who are running with the football, you can’t just hit hard. You have to tackle them.
   
10. I was actually not all that upset during the game that the 49ers scored when they did. The Eagles were routinely handing the Niners good field position, starting near midfield on each of the Eagles’ subsequent possessions after some bad punts by Kern. Did the ball hit the wire? We’ll never know. But the Eagles kept getting bad field position that wasn’t going to be reset until the Niners scored. I think we knew we wouldn’t shut them out, but to borrow from chess, sometimes you need to sacrifice a pawn to save the bishop, or in this case, the king.
    
11. Spare a thought for athletic trainers and the medical staff these next few weeks as they work with players like Lane Johnson, who reaggravated his groin injury. The Eagles are going into the Super Bowl the healthiest they’ve been in a playoff run. That says a lot about the conditioning and the trainers this year, compared to five years ago when we were a team that was heavily injured. Also on the injury front, Brock Purdy tore his UCL and while he may not need Tommy John’s surgery, he will need surgery to repair it this offseason. Hopefully he is okay, as he led the 49ers to the NFC Championship Game and has a long future ahead of him.

Onwards to Phoenix!

Featured Photo: Miles Sanders celebrates after scoring a touchdown in the NFC Championship Game on January 29, 2023. (AP Photo/Matt Rourke)