Ok people Big Games 101 class is in session.  You might want to write this down.  Big games aren’t usually decided by the team that makes the most big plays, they are usually decided by the team that makes the fewest mistakes. Mistakes are often born from inherent flaws.  In the NFL your strengths are what get you to the postseason but your flaws are what get you eliminated.  But before we get into that here’s a look at today’s Wildcard Round game between the Eagles and Packers in South Philadelphia at a glance.

The Basics: Packers at Eagles

• Who: Packers (11-6, 5-3 Away) at Eagles (14-3, 8-1 Home)
• When: Sunday 4:30 p.m. ET
• Where: Lincoln Financial Field, Philadelphia, PA
• TV: FOX
• Betting: Eagles -5  Money Line: Eagles -105, Packers -115

Getty ImagesSAO PAULO, BRAZIL – SEPTEMBER 06: Saquon Barkley #26 of the Philadelphia Eagles scores a touchdown during the second quarter against the Green Bay Packers at Arena Corinthians on September 06, 2024 in Sao Paulo, Brazil. (Photo by Pedro Vilela/Getty Images)

Eagles Quid Pro Quo System Has Taken Complementary Football To New Heights

If the NFL regular season is a series of quizzes, the NFL playoffs are the final exams.  They are timed so you better not show up late and you better come ultra prepared.  If you played for Packer legendary coach Vince Lombardi if you showed up on time you were late so get there early, bring your number 2 pencils and make sure they’re sharp.  All you need to do is pass.  But these win-or-go-home tests of survival and advancement aren’t about the teams that bring the sharpest pencils to the testing facility. The teams that survive and advance in the postseason are often the ones that play ahead of schedule and have the best erasers.

Fortunately for the Eagles they don’t have too many flaws in their game.  They’re relatively healthy and the starters are rested.  They have the top defense in the league yielding less than 17 points per game and their offense is riddled with superstars and several potential hall of famers.

But they’re not a perfect team.  Their kicker struggled from 50 + yards this season and their punter, who was thrust into kick-off duties this year couldn’t find the end zone if the balls had a GPS in them.

At times they let their emotions play with them versus playing with emotion, costing them unnecessary, mind numbingly stupid penalties.  Fortunately for the Eagles none of those flaws ended up costing them wins this year.

Fewest Mistakes Wins

As I mentioned above, in big games the team that makes the fewest mistakes usually comes out on top.  If you need examples of this you need not look back any further than the National Semi-Final College Football Playoff game between Penn State and Notre Dame last Thursday.  Both teams made big plays, especially in the second half, but clinging to a seven point lead in the waning minutes, the Irish scored on a 55 yards pass from Riley Leonard to Jaden Greathouse. The Penn State cornerback was playing press coverage and basically just fell down as he tried to run with Greathouse.  Then the safety got caught flat footed as Greathouse waltzed into the end zone and just like that the game was tied at 24, with the P.A.T. that followed.  Then after a couple of back and forth series’, Nittany Lions quarterback Drew Allar threw a horrific interception at his own 42 yard line with just :32 seconds left in regulation.  A couple of safe plays later, ND’s Mitch Jeter drilled the game-winning field goal with just :08 seconds left to send the Irish to the National Championship Game.

Perhaps an even better example would be Super Bowl 57, a couple of years ago in Glendale, Arizona.  How many times have you heard someone say since then that Jalen Hurts far and away outplayed the Chiefs’ Patrick Mahomes?   Well, not so fast.  Hurts certainly made far more big plays than the three-time Superbowl Champion  that day but he also made the biggest mistake of the game and it ended up costing the Eagles a Super Bowl title,  Leading 21-7 in the second quarter, the Eagles were driving again when they faced a 4th and six at the chiefs 45 yard line.  Hurts kept the ball on a designed run but inexplicably just dropped it and when Kansas City’s Nick Bolton scooped it up and took it back 50 yards for the touchdown, it  turned what looked like a possible 21 point Philly lead into a seven point game, 21-14.  It was, worst case, a 10-14 point swing and it ultimately led to the Birds’ demise that fateful day in the desert.

But here’s the thing with the 2024 version of this Super Bowl or bust team.  They are loaded with human erasers and cleaners.  Much like a goaltender in the NHL who often is called upon  to cancel out the mistakes of the five guys playing in front of him, the Birds are chock full of high-caliber players who are good enough, if not elite enough, to overcome mistakes should they be made on a Sunday.  

The Great Eradicator

The biggest and baddest human eraser that the Eagles employ is the guy who just became the ninth player in NFL history to rush for over 2,000 yards in a season.  I’m not going to mince words here, Saquon Barkley is a generational football player.  Yes, I’m acutely aware of his inexplicable drop in week two that would have sealed another win for the Eagles against the Falcons, but other than that the man has far and away exceeded the hype that preceded his signing here last March and he has constantly and consistently bailed out his team this year with epic highlight reel bursts, explosive, timely and sensational individual efforts that were directly commensurate with the Birds’ success this season, winning 14 games for only the second time in franchise history.

Time and time again, Saquon was the great nullifier with epic performances against the Packers, Saints , Giants, Jaguars, Commanders, Rams and the Cowboys.  He’s a difference maker and he’s made a big difference this season in covering up turnovers, missed kicks, bad penalties and the somewhat anemic passing game at times.

Has Jalen Hurts engineered a cover-up at times this year?  A.J. Brown?  Devonta Smith?  Oh you betcha.  But when the mallet went down this season a healthy dose of #26 was always the remedy for a team playing, perhaps, a tad under the weather.

On the Mount Rushmore of the Eagles’ offensive elite, Saquon Barkley is front and center.  And if he’s able to pick up where he left off in Week 17 against the Cowboys there’s no reason to believe that Sunday’s Wildcard Round Game will be much of a contest by the time the fourth quarter winds it’s way on down.

It also helps to have a stalwart and opportunistic defense to hold down the fort at times until the offensive reinforcements show up.  In the season opener against the Packers, if you recall, the Birds got off to an inauspicious start.  The very first offensive play of the year, Barkly did a face plant on a routine hand-off losing five yards.  Two plays later, Hurts threw an interception giving the ball to Green Bay at the Philadelphia 19 yard line.  On the very next series  a fumbled exchange between Cam Jurgens and Hurts gave to ball to the Packers once again, this time at the Eagles’ 15 yard line.  It was a disastrous start by the offense but the Birds’ defense swooped in and cleaned up the mess holding the Packers to just two field goals, keeping the game close in time for Hurts and company to get clicking as they exploded in the second quarter for 17 points enroute to a 34-29 win over Green Bay in Brazil.  

Then again in week 15 against the Steelers, two Philly turnovers gave Pittsburgh the ball at the Eagles’45 and 11 yard lines respectively but the defense, once again, had the offense’s back, yielding just three points off those two turnovers to keep the game close as the Eagles would go on to beat Pittsburgh to set a franchise record with their 10th consecutive victory.

Sweep The Leg

This Eagles team has done a sensational job of playing complementary football this season. But a good start would be somewhat refreshing to take some pressure off of the defense.  In the first 13 games this year the Eagles putzed around and took their time to get untracked.  The offense was deliberate and not always in sync in the early going.  The Birds scored a total of 17 first quarter points in those 13 games.  That’s an average of 1.3 points in the opening quarter.  Not good.

But in the final four games they scored 45 points in the first quarter, an average of 10.1 points per opening quarter.  Much better. Fortunately their slow starts didn’t hurt them this year,  They seemed to do much better at reacting versus setting the tone.  It took them until the second quarter to get rolling in most games and as they got markedly better and more dominant as the games went on. 

In the NFL’s second season time is a precious commodity and if you show up late for the game, where time is especially of the essence, you might just run out of it.  And if you played for Lombardi, if you showed up on time you were late and most likely suffered a consequence.  The punishment in the NFL’s postseason is an early flight to an early tee time.  You can’t “play with your food” against good competition and high wire acts in the postseason usually end up in chalk outlines so it is of the utmost importance to harness that playoff emotion into a fast start and make the under-manned and more inexperienced Packers play up hill.  Strike first, strike hard, no mercy.

Prediction: Eagles 31, Packers 14

 

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