Eagles Win Against A Depleted Saints Team

The Philadelphia Eagles for the first time in 5 games this season looked like they constructed and then executed a fundamental gameplan against a NFL team. Chip Kelly made some changes to his kinetic tempo offense and put together a plan of attack that looked like he spent a week studying tendencies, weaknesses, and players of the team he was facing that week. This is called improvement my NFL friends and humbling oneself rather than saying EXECUTION was the issue which to all who heard these words sounded like a code word for it's not my gameplans, it's the players.  Ok I got that off my chest and now let's talk about the game.  Sam Bradford still is rusty and it showed in the game as he missed two redzone throws that would have put the Eagles up 14-0 in the first quarter but instead they were interceptions that sucked the air out of the stadium. The good news was before those throws he was leading the team and moving the ball down the field which speaks to having a game plan as mentioned before. 

The Saints had problems though because of a strong defensive effort led by Fletcher Cox didn't present much offense beyond their early 7-0 lead in the first quarter.  The defense allowed Bradford and the offense to finally start cashing in on the movement and they led 10-7 going into halftime with Bradford throwing a 41 yard touchdown to Josh Huff and a field goal by Caleb Sturgis.  The third quarter showed the grit of Bradford as he began, through a balanced attack featuring DeMarco Murray, to pull the team ahead while Drew Brees had to deal with constant pressure from the Eagles defensive front and was sacked 5 times with one resulting in a fumble. Bradford and the defense buoyed the team and they exploded with touchdowns from Ryan Mathews, Brent Celek, and DeMarco Murray ending up with a 39-17 win.

It was a strong second half and that's been the usual case for the Eagles as they seem to still be getting used to playing with each other.  The star of the game was Fletcher Cox who finished with six tackles, 3 sacks, 2 forced fumbles, and 1 fumble recovery which is the stat line which he said after the game is the first of his career.  Next up for the Eagles are the New York Giants on Monday Night Football next week.