Eagles News: The lasting impact of Carson Wentz’s comeback

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Why Carson Wentz’s comeback could have long-term effect on Eagles - ESPN
The energy between quarterback Carson Wentz and his playmakers bounced a little bit differently in the immediate aftermath of the Philadelphia Eagles’ 23-17 comeback win in overtime against the New York Giants on Monday night. Actually, by this time, it was Tuesday morning, but the Eagles’ locker room was still buzzing over what went down. ”That’s a bad man right there,” rookie running back Miles Sanders said of Wentz. “He played a hell of a game, especially when it counted.” [...] As Wentz, 26, walked around the locker room after the game, he passed a cluster of stalls filled with some of the unlikely difference-makers in the game, such as running back Boston Scott and receivers JJ Arcega-Whiteside and Greg Ward. He stopped to give each a fist bump and a word of praise for rising to the occasion. ”I’ve got to stop cramping up on you late in games,” a bright-eyed Arcega-Whiteside said, explaining why he missed some snaps down the stretch. There was no mistaking who the Eagles’ leader was during that interaction, and who was eager to please whom. It’s a young, impressionable group, after all, and QB1 just made a heck of an impression.

Credibility - Iggles Blitz
Another kind of credibility is late game heroics. This is an area where Wentz was lacking. He’s had plenty of chances to win games on fourth quarter drives in the past couple of years, but something always went wrong. Until Monday night. Wentz led the Eagles back from a 14-point deficit. The game-tying TD came with less than two minutes left. Wentz then led the team on the winning drive in overtime. Teammates now know Wentz can lead them to a late-game TD to tie or win. That doesn’t mean it will happen every time the Eagles are trailing, but the players now will have confidence that they can win these games. And Wentz will have that confidence himself. That means a lot.

Eagles favored by 4.5 points on the road in Washington - BGN
Considering that Keenum completed 68.2% of his attempts for 380 yards, three touchdowns, zero interceptions, and a 117.6 passer rating against the Eagles’ defense, I think Jim Schwartz won’t mind seeing him stay on the sidelines for this game. Haskins hasn’t been very impressive; he’s completed just 55% of his attempts (yikes) for 6.1 yards per attempt, three touchdowns, seven interceptions, and a mere 61.2 passer rating. He has four times as many combined picks and fumbles as touchdown passes. Perhaps Haskins will have the best game of his career chucking the ball down the field to Terry McLaurin, who gave the Eagles a lot of problems in Week 1. But Schwartz’s track record against rookie quarterbacks is pretty good. Take a look at these numbers from the five games that Schwartz faced a rookie quarterback since becoming Eagles defensive coordinator in 2016.

Babes On Broad #16: We Have Feelings Too - BGN Radio
Sam Wilson & Jessica Towne debate how optimistic we should be after the Eagles squeaked by the Giants PLUS What’s Going On Around Philly, their Recipe of the Week & listener questions! Powered by SB Nation & Bleeding Green Nation!

Eagles vs. Washington: Five matchups to watch - PhillyVoice
In 7 games (5 starts), Haskins has thrown 7 INTs and he has fumbled 5 times, through he has been fortunate to only lose 1. He has been sacked 26 times on only 160 pass attempts. For context, you know how a lot of folks gripe about Carson Wentz not throwing the ball away, or holding onto it too long at times? Well, he’s been sacked 33 times, but on more than triple the number of pass attempts (484). The Eagles need to pressure Haskins into bad decisions.

The WR picture for Sunday? New faces in new places - PE.com
Right now, at this very moment, the Eagles have Arcega-Whiteside, a rookie, and Greg Ward, who’s been on the 53-man roster for four games and 145 offensive snaps this season, as their only healthy wide receivers. They’ve been cross-training Joshua Perkins, a tight end by trade who’s got some receiver in his background and who is able to line up across the formation and contribute. There are three wide receivers on the practice squad. We’re getting late in the week here, and the Eagles are going to have to add to the active roster. Logic says it’s going to be a receiver or two from the practice squad, but who knows? The Eagles have an emergency list. In this case, they may have to go to the emergency, emergency list. “It’s like our cornerback position last season when that group was decimated,” head coach Doug Pederson said. “This year it’s our wide receivers. No excuses, though. We have to play with what we have and we will.”

NFL Week 15 PFF Preview: Players to watch, fantasy football advice and betting projections - PFF
An overtime victory against a floundering Giants team doesn’t exactly instill confidence that the Eagles have righted the ship. They may be in a position to win an NFC East that neither the Cowboys nor the Eagles seem to want to win, but there are still plenty of legitimate concerns on this team. The trenches are not one of them, as the Eagles currently boast one of the top offensive lines and defensive lines in the entire league. They rank first in offensive line grade as a unit (86.0) by a clear margin, and their defensive front ranks fourth in team grade (82.0) behind just the Steelers, 49ers and Rams. There may be no better case that shows that the game is shifting away from the trenches towards the perimeter. Despite having top-five offensive and defensive lines, the Eagles haven’t lived up to lofty expectations this season due to injury and poor play from their receivers and coverage men on the back end. As a team, their wide receivers rank dead last in overall grade (59.7), and their cornerbacks rank 28th with a collective overall grade of 54.0.

Nelson Agholor gives less-than-encouraging update on his knee injury - NBCSP
Eagles receiver Nelson Agholor, who has missed two of the Eagles’ last three games with a knee injury, is unsure if he’ll be able to play on Sunday in Washington. When asked if his knee is getting better, Agholor gave a less than encouraging — and a conflicting — response. “I’m in a position right now where it’s kind of a stalemate,” Agholor said. “It’s taking its course. It’s getting better.” When asked if he’ll practice this week, Agholor said he’d leave that question for the coaching staff. On a short week, the Eagles’ first practice of the week is Thursday.

Beat back and forth: What’s next for the Eagles without Alshon Jeffery and Lane Johnson? - The Athletic
The Jeffery question is an interesting one. If I had to lean one way, I’d say that’s the last we’ve seen of him with Philadelphia. It might make for a more easily rationalized exit, too, as opposed to the tricky situation they were in before the injury. I suppose it depends on the nature of the injury and recovery, but again, Pederson wouldn’t characterize it the way he did if this wasn’t significant. The injury would hamper their ability to trade him, but it might also make them more willing to swallow money. It’s still premature to write Jeffery’s Eagles obituary, but there shouldn’t be recency bias when looking at his three years with the team. He changed the offense when he arrived in 2017, providing a bona fide threat at the “X” spot and an identifiable swagger to a team lacking such. He excelled during the Super Bowl run, scoring three touchdowns during the three-game 2017 postseason, and genuinely enjoyed playing in Philadelphia. If the end is indeed near, he should be remembered fondly for three years — not just the past three months.

Scramble for the Ball: Headed to Orlando - Football Outsiders
‘Beantown’ Fantasy Player of the Week: Running backs are fungible. Boston Scott was a sixth-round pick last season out of Louisiana Tech, and he has spent most of his career on various practice squads; he had just 99 career yards entering Monday night. But with Jordan Howard out with a bad shoulder, Darren Sproles and Corey Clement on injured reserve, and Miles Sanders suffering from dehydration, the Eagles were forced to turn to Scott for much of the second half. Scott delivered -- 59 yards and a touchdown on the ground, and 69 more yards in the air. That more than doubled his career yardage total, and it benefitted roughly no one in the first week of fantasy playoffs; if you were starting Scott, you were in dire straits. With Howard and Sanders expected back this week, this was likely a one-off for Scott, but it’s hard to imagine Philadelphia picking up that much-needed win without him.

The Impending NFL Free Agents Who Have Set Themselves Up for Big Money - The Ringer
WR Nelson Agholor, Eagles: Agholor has struggled to build on his 62-catch, eight-touchdown breakthrough campaign in 2017, regressing slightly in 2018 before falling almost completely off the map for the Eagles this season. The former first-rounder has caught just 39 passes for 363 yards and three scores in 11 games, failing to step up and take on a bigger role when a rash of injuries decimated the receiver position for Philly. Now dealing with a knee injury himself, Agholor won’t command much on the open market.

2020 NFL Mock Draft 4.0: Ohio State CB Jeffrey Okudah a Top-Five Pick to the Lions - MMQB
13. Philadelphia Eagles: Henry Ruggs III, WR, Alabama. The Eagles have missed the vertical element that DeSean Jackson could provide to their passing attack as he will miss virtually all of 2019. Averaging 18.6 yards per reception and scoring a (receiving) touchdown on every 4.0 receptions over his collegiate career, Ruggs is a field-stretcher and dangerous in space.

2019 Fantasy Football Rankings: Quarterbacks for Week 15 - Fake Teams
7) Carson Wentz — His receiving corps is depleted, but he’s playing well and it’s a great matchup.

Moore: Rasheed Bailey reaps a well-deserved reward - Bucks County Courier Times
Rasheed Bailey’s football journey has taken him places he could never have imagined. He’s been to rookie or veterans camp with five NFL teams, making it to the final cuts on three occasions and spending time on the Jaguars’ 2017 practice squad, since completing his record-setting career at Delaware Valley University. The highlight of his professional career occurred not in the U.S. but Canada. On Nov. 24, Bailey’s Winnipeg Blue Bombers defeated the Hamilton Tiger-Cats 33-12 at Calgary’s McMahon Stadium to capture the CFL’s 107th Grey Cup. “I wouldn’t think in a million years winning the Grey Cup that I would be this happy,” said Bailey in a telephone conversation. “Growing up, your dream was always to play in the NFL. I can’t even explain the feeling of being a part of something so great and special.”

What we learned from the Redskins 20-15 loss to the Green Bay Packers - Hogs Haven
The team is competing on a weekly basis, and that is a product that can be supported. I cannot pinpoint what the specific cause is behind the uptick in overall team performance, but things have changed since the Redskins took a beating against the New York Jets. Win or lose; the Redskins have shown effort and a no-quit mentality since their game against the Detroit Lions. This was just as evident against the Packers this past Sunday. As stated earlier, the team did themselves no favors early in the game, creating a 14-point deficit before the first quarter was even finished. Even when they found themselves down by that much, at 3-9, on the road in a tough environment, Washington began fighting back, starting on the defensive side. It began with the pressure on quarterback Aaron Rodgers, who was sacked four times but was pressured consistently throughout the game. Defensive lineman Matt Ioannidis and edge rusher Ryan Anderson took the cake with effort plays that resulted in sacks. More importantly, Ryan Anderson chased down Rodgers for a strip-sack and recovered his forced fumble.

Film Review: Dak Prescott’s inconsistent footwork is impeding the Cowboys offense - Blogging The Boys
Sadly, things haven’t been all that great in recent games. After throwing three touchdowns in three straight games from Weeks 9-11, he’s only had three total touchdown passes over the past three games. And it shouldn’t come as a surprise that the Cowboys have lost all three of those games. Last week against the Chicago Bears, the Dallas offense went three-and-out five different times, and they had a stretch during the game where they failed to convert on third down nine consecutive times.

Leftover ‘things I think’ about the New York Giants - Big Blue View
The game-winning (losing for the Giants) irks me. We hear over and over about how young the Giants are. Well, this one can’t be blamed on the kids. The three players involved in that coverage were Deone Bucannon (6 years in the NFL), Alec Ogletree (7 years) and Michael Thomas (6 years). Ogletree said this week on WFAN that the Giants had not seen this formation/play on film from the Eagles and thus weren’t prepared for it. But, c’mon! You have 19 years of experience involved there. Surely, you can figure out that you have to cover Ertz, the only legitimate receiver the Eagles had left. Besides, if you’re that confused call a timeout. Sorry, no excuse for that level of poor play and communication from a trio of veteran players.

49ers are re-signing WR Jordan Matthews - Niners Nation
On Tuesday, the San Francisco 49ers placed wide receiver Marquise Goodwin on the injured reserved. Needing another receiver, the team has re-signed wideout Jordan Matthews, per The Athletic’s Matt Barrows. He’ll be the team’s sixth receiver. This is Matthews’ third stint with San Francisco. He was originally signed to a one-year deal in the offseason but was released before the regular season started. Matthews was brought back in October and was on the roster for a few weeks, but released once again. Like the signing of Dontae Johnson, Matthews knows the offense, and you don’t have to give somebody knew a crash course. Matthews then signed with the Philadelphia Eagles on November 11 and appeared in two games prior to being waived on November 26. Matthews will wear No. 81.

NFL Panic Index 2019: Can this marriage between Odell Beckham Jr. and the Browns be saved? - SB Nation
Trading for Odell Beckham was an achievement for the Browns. After a decade-plus of languishing at the bottom of the AFC North — and the NFL in general — the All-Pro wide receiver was supposed to link up with an ascending Baker Mayfield to make Cleveland a division champion for the first time since 1989. Instead, Mayfield has thrown more interceptions (16) than touchdowns (15), Beckham has fewer catches than 32 other players in the league, and the Browns are 6-7 and just barely clinging to the hope of an unlikely wild card bid.

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