FINAL SCORE: Eagles tie the Bengals, 23 to 23

The Philadelphia Eagles and Cincinnati Bengals tied! Just like I told you they would. Final score: 23 to 23.

God, what a stupid game.

Read on for a recap and some instant postgame thoughts, I guess!

FIRST QUARTER

• The Bengals got the ball first and moved to mid-field before a Josh Sweat sack on third down forced Cincy to punt. Sweat got the start at right defensive end over Derek Barnett. Cre’Von LeBlanc was also first up as the Eagles’ nickel cornerback.

• The Eagles started DeSean Jackson and John Hightower on the outside at wide receiver with Greg Ward in the slot. Carson Wentz overthrew Jackson deep on the first play. Miles Sanders had a couple nice runs and then Wentz threw an interception. The ball was tipped but it didn’t look like a good decision anyway ... Wentz’s intended target was well covered on this:

• The Bengals couldn’t take advantage of Wentz’s turnover. The Eagles had to burn a timeout with the Bengals punting on 4th-and-2 because they had too many men on the field.
• The Eagles moved into the red zone with Wentz escaping a sack and getting hit late out of bounds for a 15-yard penalty. The Eagles got down to the 3-yard line before Wentz took a six-yard sack to end the first quarter.

SECOND QUARTER

• Jake Elliott drilled his 27-yard field goal attempt. 16 players to only come up with three there. EAGLES 3, BENGALS 0.
• Another stalled drive for the Bengals. The defense came to play after struggling last week.
• Another stalled drive for the Eagles. This offense did not come to play after struggling last week.
• Burrow got knocked out of the game after a real big hit from Malik Jackson. Ouch! Vicious play but not sure how that was a roughing penalty. Brutal hits aren’t automatically illegal. Burrow came back into the game (tough dude!) and got sacked by Barnett on third down to bring up a punt.

• The Eagles went three-and-out again with Doug Pederson curiously not opting to run the ball.
• The Bengals moved into field goal range and Randy Bullock hit a 48-yard field goal attempt to tie things up. What a thrilling game it was to this point. EAGLES 3, BENGALS 3.
• The Eagles used 10 plays to get in position for another field goal attempt. Scintillating stuff. EAGLES 6, BENGALS 3.

• The Bengals drove the length of the field and got a goal-to-go at the 1-yard line with Jalen Mills committing a pass interference penalty in the end zone. Burrow tossed a touchdown to Tee Higgins to give Cincy their first lead. EAGLES 6, BENGALS 10.

• The Bengals kicked the ball out of bounds like idiots to give the Eagles the ball at Philly’s 40-yard line. A Sanders run moved the Eagles into Cincy territory. Wentz fumbled for the 51st time in 59 games. Then he threw a touchdown to a wide open Greg Ward to give the Eagles the lead back. Helped that the Bengals blew their coverage. EAGLES 13, BENGALS 10.

THIRD QUARTER

• The Eagles got Jalen Hurts in at quarterback (!) with Wentz lined up out wide and Hurts ran for eight yards to pick up a first down. The Eagles’ drive stalled with Ward tackled for a loss on a sweep and then for no gain a screen. Elliott made his 54-yard field goal attempt to put the Birds up six. EAGLES 16, BENGALS 10.
• Burrow looked good leading the Bengals down the field on a 10-play, 76-yard touchdown drive capped off by another Higgins score. The Bengals went right after Trevor Williams, who had to come in for an injured Avonte Maddox. Nathan Gerry was also lost in coverage yet again, drink. EAGLES 16, BENGALS 17.

• Wentz had John Hightower wide open beyond the sticks on a rollout ... and opted to throw at Ward’s feet along the sideline for an incompletion. He followed that play up with his SIXTH interception of the season. Just brutal, man. What happened to this guy?

FOURTH QUARTER

• Marcus Epps (!) did a nice job of breaking up a fade route to make the Bengals settle for a 31-yard field goal. EAGLES 16, BENGALS 20.
• Wentz accidentally (?) completed a target to Hightower to Ertz. Hurts came in for another quarterback snap and fumbled the RPO exchange but the Eagles recovered. Wentz had Sanders open streaking down the sideline on 3rd-and-10 but overthrew him. The Eagles had to punt.

• Burrow made an incredible play for a Bengals first down ...

... but the Eagles challenged and it was called back for illegal touching. The Bengals were at 3rd-and-15 and Jim Schwartz had his actually usually effective sticks defense on the field ... but to no avail! Cincy gained 42 yards on a quick Burrow pass to Gio Bernard. Cincy got knocked back to 3rd-and-goal from the 15-yard line and had to settle for a 25-yard field goal. EAGLES 16, BENGALS 23.

• The Eagles took over with 3:05 left in the game. They moved into Cincy territory with two pass interference penalties drawn by Hightower. Positive impact by a young guy! The Eagles reached 3rd-and-3 from the 12-yard line with 0:56 left. Wentz completed to Ward to bring up 1st-and-goal from the 7-yard line. Wentz took off running and got into end zone to tie the game. Credit to Wentz for finding a way to get the Eagles to overtime. EAGLES 23, BENGALS 23.

• The Bengals took a knee to run out the clock and get the game to OT.

OVERTIME

• The Bengals won the coin toss and elected to receive. They couldn’t do much on offense thanks to good coverage from Darius Slay. Punt.
• The Eagles took over at their own 11-yard line. They got to 3rd-and-8 and Wentz threw the ball at Sanders’ feet. Just another bad throw. Punt.
• The Bengals took over at their own 41-yard line. They lost 11 yards and went three-and-out.
• The Eagles took over at their own 30-yard line. Wentz made a great, accurate throw (!) down the field to Ertz to move the Eagles into Bengals territory. Great catch from Ertz as well. Holding penalty on Lane Johnson knocked the Eagles back to their own 48-yard line. On 3rd-and-19, Wentz made another bad overthrow out of bounds while targeting Sanders. Punt.

• The Bengals took over at their own 9-yard line with 2:56 left in the game. Nickell Robey-Coleman got beat over the top by Higgins but still managed to break up the pass to bring up 3rd-and-16. Huge play. Fletcher Cox sacked Burrow to force a punt. The Eagles called their second and final timeout of overtime.
• The Eagles took over at their own 45-yard line with 1:41 remaining in the game. They moved to the Bengals’ 41-yard line. Wentz’s third down throw was knocked down and Elliott came in to attempt a long field goal. But then Matt Pryor got called for a false start! And the Eagles brought in the punt team! And took a delay of game penalty to push them back even further! What the fuck?!?!
• The Bengals ran a play and the clock expired. Lololololol.

FINAL SCORE: 23 to 23, tie game

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RAPID REACTION

• What an unsatisfying result! What does a tie really even do for this Eagles team? A win would’ve kept the season on life support. A loss would’ve cemented their status as a truly awful team. A tie ... ¯\_(ツ)_/¯.
• The Eagles are still definitely bad, though.
• Another week where I find myself asking what happened to Big Balls Doug. Playing for the tie?! Seriously?!
• Wentz is still looking pretty not good! On the positive side, he did some nice things with his legs today and came up big at the end of regulation. But, man, it feels like his struggles are making him not far off from being bench-worthy.
• Jason Peters, who made the Eagles give him a raise to play left tackle, did not play well at left tackle. Can they get a refund?
• There’s obviously a lot of blame to go around for the Eagles stinking. But do not forget to include Howie Roseman:

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INJURIES

• Dallas Goedert got banged up after making a first quarter catch. Ankle injury. Didn’t return.
• DeSean Jackson was getting looked at on the trainer’s table late during the second quarter. Hamstring injury. Didn’t return.
• Avonte Maddox got hurt while tackling Tyler Boyd late in the third quarter. He limped off the field with a trainer straight to the locker room as opposed to getting looked at on the sideline. Maddox hurt his ankle.
• Darius Slay got hurt in the second half but was able to return after getting looked at in the locker room.
• Jason Peters got hurt late in overtime. Jordan Mailata came in to play left tackle.