VICTORY MONDAY: Did Eagles win over Vikings prove the naysayers wrong? | Birds Huddle

VICTORY MONDAY: Did Eagles win over Vikings prove the naysayers wrong? | Birds Huddle

presented by our friends at Toyota alongside Barrett Brooks. I’m Michael Barkann, a very happy Monday to you. Following an impressive Eagles 2822 road win in Minnesota yesterday. Barrett, how badly did the Birds need that win to prove to the naysayers that they are the team that everyone expected them to be this season? Well, I mean, it seems like the national media started turning their back on the Eagles like they couldn’t play well. Hey, they just had to show everybody they’re still the best team in the NFL. I mean, there’s a lot of, you know, people in the middle with these four wins, five wins. But at the end of the day, this Eagles team is still one of the top teams in the NFL. And it’s about time that people start noticing again. Played like it now five and two. And here’s our three presented by Toyota. Number one Jalen Hurts is still that dude. The Eagles needed him to beat the Vikings with his arm. And man did he deliver. Becoming the third Eagles quarterback to finish a game with a perfect passer rating of 150 8.3. Hurts joins Donovan McNabb and Nick Foles in that exclusive club. McNabb did it in a 56 to 21 rout of Detroit in oh seven, and Foles did it in his memorable seven touchdown game against the Raiders in 2013. Hurts, his teammates said they could sense that he was in the zone. I mean, he’s got so much swag, you know, just got a swagger to him when when he’s in control, you can see the look in his eye, especially when you I mean that my favorite player was that four minute bomb to AJ. That was I turned around and he’s just you know locked in I dialed in you could tell like when he when he really sees it and he and he gets this look that you know, he he sees and he’s like oh yeah. This is the one right here. So it’s fun, man. It’s fun. We’re all on the same page. You know the sky’s the limit. We just have to continue to to do that. You don’t have a game like that without the guys around you. You know they’re you. So I give credit to them. Give a lot to a lot of credit to the collective of everyone hanging in there and enduring the game. He can give away all the credit he wants. He is the centerpiece of that offense of that team. Barrett Brooks, what impressed you most about the way Jalen Hurts played yesterday? Well, just like they were talking about his pocket presence. You could tell you know sometimes you know he doesn’t have it all the time. Like he might run out the pocket before he needs to. And you know you could tell he was just locked in on going through his reads. And he trusts the blocking around him. I mean, he his pocket presence was impeccable yesterday. And that’s the biggest thing that I noticed from him the confidence level that he had. Everything’s going around him. He was assure those guys were going to block for him. And I mean even like Saquon, you know Saquon had a hell of a game blocking. You know even on that long touchdown pass to to Smitty. If you look at it Brett Toth gets beat. The center gets beat immediately. And you know in that protection you know it was they lined up under center. And it’s like a solid protection which is like the play action. It was solid protection. So they had extra blockers in. So Saquon wasn’t there. It might have been a sack because I mean he got beat. But Saquon was there to hit him. And then you know he trusted it and was able to push the ball down the field for a 79 yard touchdown. Once he gets locked in like that there’s pretty much nothing you can do about it because everything just starts slowing down for him. You could tell everything slowed down for him. He was going to second, third read. You know, picking those guys off. I mean, to have a player have 180 yards and one have like 120, 130 yards. Amazing. Yeah. Which brings up stance number two. The Eagles don’t have just one number one wide receiver. They’ve got two. Both AJ Brown and Devonta Smith had monster games in Minnesota. The Birds wideouts combined for more than 300 receiving yards and three touchdowns. The 183 yards from Smith a career high. It’s the 13th time they both caught at least one touchdown pass. And the Eagles are 13 zero when that happens. So Barrett these two are devastating as a combo and complement each other so well. Why don’t we see these kinds of games a little more consistently when they’re out there. I mean, you know, we we think of ourselves as being a run oriented team, even though we have the capacity to go out there and throw with just anybody in the league. I like the fact that, you know, we can rely on going to those guys and they can, you know, give us the results. We have virtually. Batman and Robin. I don’t know who it is. It depends on the game. Who’s going to be Batman, who’s going to be Robin? Smitty turned out to be Batman yesterday. And when you look at it, they are both contrasting styles. Here you have AJ. AJ is, you know, a bully type of player, a type of player. All Jalen has to do is just put the ball, put the ball on him and he’s going to take it. He’s going to rip it out of the air. He uses his body. He uses his frame to Debo smaller DBS and he’s able to go out there. And then he still has a speed enough to give him a, you know, a slant and go a sluggo route and still be able to go out there and still use his body to shield the defender from the ball and catch the ball. Then you have Smitty. Smitty is a route runner. Smitty is perfect at going out there and creating separation for for the passes, and that’s what makes the biggest difference. You can throw and lead a guy like like like Smitty. And he’ll go get it because he’ll have separation from the DB. At this point AJ doesn’t need any separation. He’s going to just go out there and take the ball from him. So with both of their styles like that, it’s hard for a defense to say, all right, we’re going to bracket you or we’re going to bracket you because you can’t because both guys are so good. Who’s going to be the number one on that day. And that’s what the biggest thing with you know having these defensive coordinators, how do you pick which one you’re going to bracket. How do you pick which one you’re going to, you know, send coverage to. It’s really, really hard when you have guys as dynamic as those two. So and then we’re not even talking about Grant Calcaterra, you know, in the middle of the field. Yeah. And this this offense could be unstoppable. And that’s what makes it so frustrating to talk about because they are so good and they have all the players that they need. They just need everybody to get it in sync together. So they still haven’t put a complete game together yet. Also, doesn’t Jalen need to learn of his successes from yesterday that he could throw the ball out there before these guys are actually open and they can run themselves open and catch it? Well, he can’t do that you know. But it depends on who you’re throwing it to. You know like I said Smitty he has separation. He creates that separation with his route running. AJ is not really a guy that’s going to create that separation. He doesn’t feel as though he needs to create that separation. He’s a tough enough player, has enough speed that he’s just going to throw the ball from people. So pick what you want, you know what I’m saying? And both guys are just efficient in what they do and what they bring to the table. Stance number three the Eagles defense bent but did not break in Minnesota despite six trips to the red zone. The Vikings only managed to score one touchdown. The Eagles held Minnesota to five field goals, and that was the difference in a 2822 win. Vikings did sustain drives. They had 387 yards of offense, held the ball for over 34 minutes, but the Eagles came up with two interceptions, including a pick six by Jalen Hunt. Barrett. Your overall assessment of the defensive play yesterday. Well I just think, you know you have a defensive coordinator Vic Fangio, who knows how to get his best talent on the field and get them working in, you know, cohesively together. You know here we are. You know, we have a linebacker comes back and Dean and they implement him. He’s one of the best players on the team. So you implement him into the defense. So you you make up another defense. You go double Eagle or you cover the center both guards. And then you have your your first rounder out on the outside which he can pass, rush and stop the run on the outside. You know, here you have three of your best linebackers on the field, but you’re able to do that because Vic Fangio put a defense out that can do it. He’s just timely at getting guys to play well together and using their talent

Happy victory Monday to all! Coming off an impressive performance from the Eagles on Sunday, the Birds Huddle crew is fired up and feeling good about the Jalen Hurts and his two receivers. #Eagles 

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