Eagles News: Jordan Mailata is PFF’s third-highest-graded tackle

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Best NFL players at every position in 2021: Highest-graded veterans, rookies and surprises - ESPN+
Biggest surprise: Jordan Mailata, Eagles. Regular-season PFF grade: 86.9. Mailata will finish as the league’s third-highest-graded tackle in his second season, as his grade jumped from 70.9 last year to 86.9 this season. At 6-foot-8 and 346 pounds, he is one the biggest players in the league. And because of his rugby background coming from his native Australia, Mailata never played a down of American football before being taken in by Eagles offensive line coach Jeff Stoutland and subsequently becoming one of the best at his position in the league.

NFL Playoff Picks Against the Spread: Wild Card Games - BGN
PHILADELPHIA EAGLES at TAMPA BAY BUCCANEERS (-8): I really don’t feel incredibly confident in predicting the winner of this game. The one thing I DO feel confident about is that it’ll be close. The Eagles’ defense figures to struggle against Tom Brady and the Bucs’ offense. But Philly’s commitment to their ground game offers a new dynamic that Tampa will have to deal with, unlike the last time these two teams met. The weather could also be an interesting factor in this matchup with heavy winds expected. Such a variable might only stand to benefit the underdogs. The Eagles’ vibes are too positive for them to totally get housed in this matchup. And it’s not like the Bucs are exactly firing on all cylinders lately. Their last five games: destroying the listless Panthers twice, getting shut out by a Saints team that didn’t even have a real quarterback, almost blowing a big lead at home to the Bills, and needing a big comeback to beat the Jets. The reigning Super Bowl champions are not invincible. PICK: Eagles +8.

Eye On the Enemy #81: Eagles-Buc wildcard round prediction with Trey Downey + Reflecting on the nightmare 2002 NFC Championship Game at the Vet - BGN Radio
John Stolnis talked to Trey Downey, podcast host for Bucs Nation. They previewed what Tom Brady might do against Jonathan Gannon’s defense, how the Bucs plan to stop Jalen Hurts, and John gave his predictions for the Wild Card round. John also looked back on the last time these two teams met in the playoffs, the nightmare 2002 NFC Championship Game at the Vet.

Buccaneers vs. Eagles: Bold predictions and staff picks for Wild Card Round - Bucs Nation
David: Seven times this season Philadelphia Eagles quarterback Jalen Hurts has completed 16 or fewer passes. Six times this season Buccaneers linebacker Devin White has had 10 or more tackles. Both of these stats collide on Sunday when the run-heavy Eagles lead to Devin White having more tackles than Jalen Hurts has pass completions.

2022 NFL Playoffs: Power Rankings - Fake Teams
7.) Philadelphia Eagles: There are two sides to this...the first that I think Jalen Hurts could surprise people and turn some heads. This team has enough individual talent to really surprise people. The other and more difficult side is their path to the Super Bowl being with Tampa Bay and Green Bay, and it does not get much tougher than that for any team. The average nature of most of their play will be tough to make a deep run.

‘It’ll still eat at him and you’ll never know’: The playoff struggles that led Jalen Hurts to his first NFL postseason - Inquirer
“What are we getting at with this?” he said, before moving on to the next question. Henderson said he knew where Hurts was coming from. “It’ll still eat at him and you’ll never know,” Henderson said. “I’m not comparing him to Michael Jordan, but if you know anything about Michael Jordan, he uses everything as motivation. … It’s the same with Jalen. He feels if he takes a moment off, or a moment to reflect, then it’s going to deter him from moving forward. “So he has to have those internal motivations to keep his fire lit to move forward. And I think that’s what those games do for him.” Hurts’ sights are set solely on the wild-card playoff matchup Sunday at the Buccaneers. The Eagles aren’t anywhere near the underdog Channelview was six years ago, but Tampa comes in as an 8-½-point favorite with quarterback Tom Brady making his 46th start in the postseason. The 23-year-old Hurts, who will be the youngest starting playoff quarterback in team history, may not have the 44-year-old Brady’s experience. But since his last high school game he played in the biggest “knockout” games at the collegiate level. “I’ve been on some very big stages,” Hurts said. “I think all of those things have kind of helped me.”

A Little Help - Iggles Blitz
The key to affecting Brady is normally pressure up the middle. That means Fletcher Cox and Javon Hargrave are the real keys for the Eagles. They must win up front and get quick pressure on Brady. He gets rid of the ball as fast as any QB in the league so interior pressure is the best way to affect him. You need to make Brady move his feet and you want to be right in his line of sight. Even if you don’t hit him, he’ll have to hold the ball longer than he wants as he adjusts. That gives guys like Sweat time to win off the edge. I can’t stress enough that the Eagles and Bucs are different teams now than when they met. Tampa had the best run D in the league and they were also coming up with takeaways. The game was played on a short week, which gave a real advantage to the team that had a veteran coach and QB. The Eagles had lost 3 of 4 games. The offense was struggling and the defense couldn’t stop the run. Nick Sirianni was still hell bent on turning this into a passing team. Jonathan Gannon played a defense that was so soft that it might as well have been cotton candy. Needless to say, a lot has changed. That doesn’t mean the Eagles will win, but these are different teams.

Best wild-card Sunday single-game & player props bets - PFF
QB JALEN HURTS under 0.5 interceptions (+110). Hurts has done a good job preventing turnovers in his second season, as he finished with just nine interceptions and ranked 15th among quarterbacks in turnover-worthy play percentage (min. 400 passing attempts). With a strong cold front, showers and storms predicted for Tampa Bay on Sunday, the weather could have an effect on both quarterbacks and force both offenses to rely more heavily on the run – which would mean fewer overall passing attempts deep targets for Hurts, both of which are logically correlated with interception probability. At plus juice, there is simply too much value to pass up tailing Hurts’ passing touchdowns prop, especially given that PFF’s player props tool gives Hurts a 54% chance to not throw an interception.

In Roob’s Observations, a lot to like about the Eagles’ mentality - NBCSP
3. Jalen Reagor was targeted 57 times this year and had one catch of 25 yards or more and two TDs. Greg Ward was targeted 11 times this year and had one catch of 25 yards or more and three touchdowns. More Ward. Less Reagor.

The week of words, from the players - PE.com
DeVonta Smith, WR. “You’ve got to know what’s at stake. It’s win or go home – win you advance, lose you go home. That’s kind of the main thing. It comes down to what we do as a football team, not about them. How we execute our game plan. How we do our techniques, the fundamentals and things. It’s the same thing for me. It’s the next game. It just feels like another game to me. I treat it the same and do my usual routine and stick to it. For me, honestly, it feels the same.”

Eight Eagles thoughts: Jonathan Gannon’s defense vs. Tom Brady, playing in the rain, Jason Kelce in rare air - The Athletic
5. The forecast in Tampa on Sunday calls for morning thunderstorms, then partly cloudy late in the day with strong winds. So run-the-ball weather, right? Well, not quite. The wind could have a major effect on how Sirianni decides to call the game, with strength and the direction affecting the quarterback. However, Sirianni believes that rain and a wet field actually favor the passing game, which he learned from Larry Kehres, his coach at Mount Union. “He would say the offensive line has the advantage against the pass rush on a sloppy field when the field’s wet because the get-off isn’t quite as quick,” Sirianni said. “There is some slippage. It’s just, advantage goes to the offensive line a little bit because it slows the pass rush down. Then his other point was always defensive backs are reacting. Wide receivers know the route depth. They know if they’re breaking inside or breaking outside. They know if they’re going vertical. They know what release they’re going to use off the line of scrimmage. So, advantage goes back to the offense again on that.”

Vikings request to interview Eagles DC Jonathan Gannon for head coaching job - Daily Norseman
He then got hired to be a part of Mike Zimmer’s staff here in Minnesota as an assistant defensive backs coach, a position he held from 2014 to 2017. From there, he joined Frank Reich’s staff with the Indianapolis Colts in the same capacity and moved on to the job as the Eagles’ defensive coordinator before the start of the 2021 season. Gannon is another very young member of the NFL’s coaching ranks, as he celebrated his 39th birthday just a couple of weeks ago. He has plenty of experience, mostly with defensive backs, but one has to wonder if only being a coordinator for one season is something that could potentially work against him.

Could Doug Pederson be the Giants’ next head coach? - Big Blue View
Personally, I’d be surprised (maybe even stunned) if the Giants wound up hiring Pederson. Right now the best we can hope for is that the Giants hire the best candidate for general manager, and the new GM hires the best candidate for head coach.

Cowboys head coach Mike McCarthy must prove his worth in 2021 postseason - Blogging The Boys
The biggest question mark heading into the 49ers game from a team perspective is currently the kicker. While he’s had plenty of struggles down the stretch, McCarthy must find a way to pull this game out given how healthy his team is in this matchup. The 49ers are a good football team. They present some unique challenges for the Cowboys, but there is no one who would currently say they are the more talented team from top-to-bottom. In that case, it’ll fall on Mike McCarthy to let his experience in these situations shine on the biggest stage he’s been on since taking over as the head coach of the Dallas Cowboys. He’s in great position to have a nice playoff run, with one of the more talented rosters we’ve seen from the Cowboys in the last 10-15 years. If the Cowboys can’t pull it out, many Cowboys fans will rightly be disappointed with a first-round exit after the season they had in 2021, the fact their favored in this football game with the home field advantage. If they do fall short, this will start to feel eerily similar to the Jason Garrett era.

Who is more desperate than Ron Rivera going into 2022? - Hogs Haven
As Ron Rivera enters his third year as Supreme Commander of Washington’s football operations, his seat is heating up. A failed gamble that Dwayne Haskins was an NFL quarterback in Rivera’s first season, combined with a failure to groom a longer term option behind the starter in his second, have left the culture-changing coach in a difficult position. In the 2022 offseason, Rivera appears to be left with no choice other than move a significant share of his chips onto the table, either grabbing a rookie QB in the draft, or expending substantial trade capital in the hopes that one of the mid-level veteran QBs that might be on the market can carry him to his first winning record in 5 seasons. Despite Rivera’s increasingly pressing situation, his is probably not the most dire in the league. In this piece, we’ll look at other NFL execs and coaches whose situation is more urgent, and explore ways that the Washington Rouge Commandants could potentially take advantage of those circumstances this offseason.

The Vikings have requested to interview 49ers DC DeMeco Ryans for HC vacancy - Niners Nation
It speaks volumes to what the league thinks about Ryans as he received an interview one year into becoming a defensive coordinator. Many have asked why the Vikings would go in the defensive direction again. Their offense is already set. Their core is in place. Also, it’s more about the message. Mike Zimmer comes off as a by-the-book, almost fear-based coach. Ryans is the opposite of that. He seems like the best version of what a player’s coach is. It’s been fun to watch him interact and evolve this year, so it’s no surprise Ryans is wanted around the league.

Colts Should Seriously Pursue Trade for Aaron Rodgers or Russell Wilson—If Option Realistically Presents Itself - Stampede Blue
If either future Hall of Fame quarterback becomes realistically available this offseason, the Indianapolis Colts should do everything in their power to land either the Green Bay Packers Aaron Rodgers or Seattle Seahawks Russell Wilson—and go ‘all in’ for 2022 and immediately beyond. At a quarterback crossroads with incumbent starter Carson Wentz (and potentially faced with their 5th new starter in as many seasons), none of the Colts’ top brass: team owner Jim Irsay, general manager Chris Ballard, and head coach Frank Reich have exactly given him a vote of confidence during this early offseason—as the team actively vets through any and all potentially available upgrades. Ballard has already stated this early offseason that he doesn’t want another stopgap, but a long-term answer at the game’s most important position.

Bengals-Raiders was marred by a phantom whistle on a TD in 2022 NFL Playoffs - SB Nation
The Cincinnati Bengals were driving deep into Las Vegas Raiders territory in the second quarter of their first round game in the 2022 NFL Playoffs when a controversial play swung the tide of the matchup. On a third-and-four play inside the red zone, Bengals quarterback Joe Burrow rolled to the right sideline to avoid the pass rush and fired a bullet into the end zone caught by Tyler Boyd. It appeared that Burrow may have stepped out of bounds before the threw the pass, but the play was ruled a touchdown on the field. A replay confirmed Burrow wasn’t even close to stepping out of bounds before he threw the pass. There was only one problem: an official blew his whistle while the ball was in the air. By rule, the play should be dead and the down should be replayed because of the inadvertent whistle. Instead, the touchdown was able to stand, and the Bengals took control the game.

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