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Josh Naso

Week 10 2020: Studs and Duds

Well, Week 10 produced a disgraceful, inexcusable performance from the Eagles. With a chance to take a stranglehold on the division standings, the Eagles played a flat game and lost to a two-win Giants team. It's going to be a stretch to name some studs from this debacle, so take them with a grain of salt. There won't be any shortage of duds, and we'll probably have to leave some guys off the list that deserve to be there. Anyway, let's dig in.





STUD: Miles Sanders


Sanders returned to action and provided the spark the Eagles both expected to get from him and that they needed. Sanders finished with 85 yards on 15 carries, averaging 5.7 per carry. He and Carson Wentz had some miscues in the passing game, but Sanders added two catches for 10 yards and it should have been more than that. In addition, Sanders did a solid job blocking. He did what was expected of him, and his day should have been better if it wasn't for the person we'll discuss next.


DUD: Doug Pederson


Pederson was absolutely terrible on Sunday. Let's start with the point we started to make in the previous section. Miles Sanders was having his way with the Giants defense. Meanwhile, the offensive line was struggling, Wentz wasn't particularly sharp, and some of the receivers were having some drop issues. And yet, Pederson refused to commit to the run game and Sanders ended up with just 15 carries. There's no excuse for that. But that's not the only knock on Pederson's day.


How about his insistence on constantly going for two? Yes, there are times when the two-point conversion can be useful, even in not-so-obvious situations and yes, generally an aggressive mindset is a positive. But Pederson seems to be grasping at straws, fluctuating game to game between aggressive and conservative and too often choosing poor situations to lean aggressive. Never was that more clear than after the Eagles scored a third-quarter touchdown to pull within four points. The extra point would have gotten the Eagles within a field goal, while getting within two-points doesn't do much for you especially when you consider the risk-reward. The decision made no sense, and it looked even worse after the Giants added a field goal, which put them up seven instead of six. Ultimatley it became moot because the Eagles were awful in every phase and never truly threatened again, but it's these kinds of unsound decisions that add up and hurt football teams.


Pederson continues to be clueless on how and when to deploy Jalen Hurts as well. Yes, Hurts has provided a few sparks for the offense. But there are two big issues. One, outside of one exception, the Eagles refuse to let Hurts throw the ball. Every single person watching knows exactly what is coming when Hurts enters the game, and that's asking for trouble. On Sunday, it was made worse by the fact that Pederson decided to use Hurts on a play during a drive when the Eagles were finally showing some rhythm and momentum, and the Giants were able to quickly swallow up Hurts for a two-yard loss that derailed the drive. It demonstrates more poor decision making from Pederson, and what's worse is if this is the best that a supposedly offensivley creative mind can come up with for Hurts then something is wrong.


Finally, it was completely inexcusable for the Eagles to come out the way they did following a bye week. They were undisciplined and unprepared. The Giants looked completely comfortable on both sides of the ball and the Eagles committed 11 (ELEVEN!!!) penalties. Completely unacceptable. Oh, and the Eagles couldn't convert a single third down, going 0-9. We have more beef with the coaching coming up, but we'll move on for now.


STUD: Alex Singleton


Look, it's really hard to find anyone who is truly worthy of positive recognition here. Richard Rodgers (four catches for 60 yards) or Boston Scott (three carries for 63 yards and a touchdown) are possibilities, but ultimately their impact was limited outside of Scott's big run. So we'll go with Singleton because why not. He piled up 16 tackles, nine of which were solo, and one tackle for loss. Sure, there were some guys who got sacks, but even guys who had moments also were responsible for some negatives. Anyway, shout out Singleton for flying around out there, I guess.


DUD: Jim Schwartz


Back to the coaches. The defensive game plan was completely baffling. Even after getting burned by a huge Daniel Jones run in the first meeting between the teams and knowing that Jones is going to run a lot of option plays and look to use his legs to make plays, the Eagles had no answer for Jones' running on Sunday. He carved the Eagles up for 64 yards and a touchdown on the ground and had another running touchdown called back by a penalty. Making matters worse is the fact that Schwartz had two weeks to prepare for this and this was the best he could do.


In addition, Schwartz continues to deploy his players in baffling ways, with the most glaring example on Sunday being having the cornerbacks line up seven yards off the line on a Giants 3rd and 2. It's a recurring issue with Schwartz and one that is getting old.


The game plan was awful despite having an extra week to prepare and Schwartz continues to make the same questionable decisions in alignment. Jim's seat should be feeling mighty hot right about now.





DUD: Jason Kelce


We love Jason Kelce. He's one of the best players in Eagles history, his versatility has been a huge reason the Eagles have been able to do some of the things they've done on offense during his career, and he was a key player on a Super Bowl-winning team. But he was not great on Sunday.


The announcers spent a lot of time praising Kelce for a nice block that he made, and that praise was deserved. But Kelce had some serious issues snapping the ball and several poor snaps led to busted plays that disrupted and derailed Eagles drives. With the team as a whole dealing with so many issues across the board, they simply can't afford to have issues with one of the most basic and fundamental parts of football, especially from a veteran like Kelce.


DUD: Travis Fulgham


Fulgham came back down to Earth on Sunday, finishing with just one catch for eight yards. He was targeted five times and had one pretty egregious drop. Fulgham has been great for the Eagles, but he came up small on Sunday.

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