Didn't See The Eagles Flying This High.

  Never underestimate an opponent, especially in the NFL. A week ago, in the wildcard round, Tennessee Titans shocked the world by upsetting the Kansas City Chiefs, 22-21 at Arrowhead Stadium. Everyone expected the Chiefs to dominate the Titans. It did go that way for the first half of the game, as Chiefs took a 21-3 lead against the Titans. Then in the second half, Titans completely flipped the script. They held the Chiefs scoreless and scored nineteen unanswered points in the second half to seal the deal. I knew the Chiefs were going to get beat in the playoffs, but not by the Titans. Tennessee has a good young quarterback in Marcus Mariota, a nice overall team, but they were lucky to be in the playoffs and they were inexperienced with the playoffs' atmosphere. I was amazed with how the Titans came back and won the game. However, Philadelphia Eagles amazed me even more this past Saturday night, by beating the Atlanta Falcons in a game, in which they were the underdogs. In my previous article, I said three out of four teams in the NFC had a solid chance of playing in the Super Bowl. The one team I didn't pick to represent NFC in the big game was the Philadelphia Eagles. My prediction was that they were going to lose this past weekend to the Atlanta Falcons at home by at least ten points. I didn't believe in Nick Foles making plays in the game when he would be required to make plays. Also, the only way I saw the Eagles winning this game was if, Atlanta end up beating themselves. We have seen Falcons choked in the past and that was the only way Philly was going to win this game. Guess what? Falcons did choke.

  When a team loses its starting quarterback for the season in which, he was playing at an MVP level and had the team sitting as the number one seed in the conference, the team loses its confidence and momentum. No one wants to lose momentum going into the playoffs. To have a change at the quarterback position late in the season from an MVP player to a quarterback, who has bounced around among four teams in less than three years, is a brutal blow to the expectations of all the players, coaches, and fans. After Carson Wentz suffered a season-ending injury against the LA Rams in week fourteen, Nick Foles came into play quarterback for the rest of the way. Foles had an incredible year in 2013 in which he posted a touchdown to interception ratio of 27:2. He has been pretty much a disaster since then. Since 2014, he has thrown 28 touchdowns to 22 interceptions. No one expects a quarterback with such numbers to lead his team to a victory in a playoff game, unless he is playing for a team that has an extraordinary defense to back him up. Well this season, Foles is definitely playing for a very good team with a very good defense, but that defense isn't an all-timer. Philly's defense finished the year with fourth in yards allowed and fourth in points allowed. However, late in the season, the defense started to give a whole lot of big plays. In the game against the terrible New York Giants in week fifteen, the Eagles allowed Eli Manning to pass for 434 yards and three touchdowns with no Odell Beckham Jr and no Brandon Marshall. Philly's defense allowed over 500 of net yards to the New York Giants, a team playing without its best players and which struggled all year long to move the ball against other defenses. One would think the Atlanta Falcons with Julio Jones, who is the best or top two receiver in the league, along with Mohammad Sanu, running backs like Devonta Freeman and Tevin Coleman, and with a veteran quarterback like Matt Ryan throwing the ball would completely destroy the Philadelphia Eagles' defense in the playoffs. If Eli and no name receivers could put up points on Philly's defense, why can't one of the best offenses in the NFL, led by the reigning MVP, put up at least twenty points on the Eagles in a must win game? Well, the only thing stopping the Falcons offense in the game was the Falcons themselves.

Not saying that a team or a group can't play hard and good enough to win the game with its pride and motivation, but the Eagles' defense didn't exactly win the game on its own. They certainly did what was necessary to be done to win the game, but the Falcons play selections and use of players helped out the Eagles' defense big time. Last week in the wildcard round, the Falcons went to the coliseum in LA to play the LA Rams. Over there, the Falcons started the game off fast and took a quick 13-0 lead. The Rams did fight back and made it a competitive game, but all game long they had to play from behind and it was enough for the Falcons to win the game. The Falcons needed to use the same approach against the Philadelphia Eagles. The Rams were actually a tougher team for the Falcons to beat, as it had a much better offense and as good of a defense as the Eagles. Also, the Rams had their starting quarterback and a running back, who was having one of the best running back seasons of all time. The field at the coliseum was tough for any visitor to play on. With all those obstacles, the Falcons were able to beat the Rams. Against Philly, they struggled to move the ball and scored only touchdown. The game started with the Eagles turning the ball over in just twenty-four seconds and on the second play of the game. Falcons had short field to work with. Yet, they only came up with a field goal. Fine, they failed to punch it in, but they at least got points on the board early. Then, the game just slowed down for both teams. Nick Foles, the quarterback of the Eagles, was just way off in the game. He was missing open and at times, wide open receivers on key plays in the first half. Yet, he still managed to end the first half by leading his team to a 53 yard field goal and cutting Falcons lead to 10-9. Atlanta didn't have a strong first half, but they had the lead. In the second half, they needed to make the adjustments. One obvious thing they needed to do was, to give more touches to Tevin Coleman and less to Devonta Freeman. Falcons coaching staff love to have everyone on offense get equal amount of touches, which is not a good strategy to win games. We all know that Devonta Freeman is the Falcons number one running back on the depth chart but, he just couldn't get it going in the game. Freeman started the game with two carries for five yards. Since that point, he had eight more carries for a total of two yards. Two yards! On the other hand, Tevin Coleman had ten carries for 79 yards. One running back was on his way to have a monster game, while the other back couldn't get a yard per cary. Yet, both of them still received a total of ten carries each from their coaches. Question is why? I answered it already, Falcons love to have their players get equal amount of carries, and they just couldn't afford to have their number two running back to have more carries than their number one running back in a playoff game. Despite, their number one running back having an injury going into the game. He suffered a PCL (posterior cruciate ligament) in final week of the regular season and knew he wasn't a hundred percent going into the playoffs. Falcons coaching stuff knew too, but they still wanted to give him more or same amount of carries as their number two running back. That wasn't the reason why the Eagles upset the Falcons, but it was a reason, a major one.

   Eagles winning with their backup, Nick Foles, against the Falcons was surprising, but how they won the game was even more surprising. On 'Skip and Shannon: Undisputed,' Skip Bayless pointed out that the Atlanta Falcons won the turnover battle two to nothing against the Eagles and still lost. Going into the game, if one would say that the Falcons would win the turnover battle two to nothing, the other person would think that the Falcons would game by at least three scores. Falcons had everyone on their explosive offense and they won the turnover battle against Nick Foles led Eagles, and still they lost the game 15-10. Isn't that mind-boggling? Even though, Falcons had two turnovers in the game, they still were in position or close to having two more turnovers in the game. Before the Eagles scored their first touchdown of the game on 4th & goal, Nick Foles on 3rd & goal from the two yard line, fumbled the ball but, quickly jumped on it to recover it. Falcons didn't have a great chance to recover the loose ball, but the ball was on the ground for someone on either side to pick it up. Nick Foles coughed up a play in the red zone and was seen nervous. I give credit to the head coach of the Eagles, Doug Pederson for going for it on fourth and goal and showing his confidence on his quarterback to be a part of the touchdown play. Then later in the game, in the final seconds of the first half,  the Eagles gave another opportunity to the Falcons for coming up with a turnover. Nick Foles and the Eagles were looking to get some points on the board as they trailed the Falcons 6-10 before going into the halftime break. Nick Foles threw a pass straight in the hands of the safety Keanu Neal for an interception. The safety miss-timed his jump, pushed the ball up for grabs and watched Torrey Smith of the Eagles come down with a catch and run for few more yards. The pass should have been intercepted but, it turned out to be a twenty yard gain for the Eagles and helped them get into field goal area. Instead of going into the locker room 10-6, maybe 13-6, or 17-6, the Falcons went into halftime leading the Eagles up by only 10-9. Opportunities were there for the Falcons to come up with more turnovers, but they didn't.

  

So the Falcons ended the first half with one point lead, while not playing decent football. Well, in the locker room during the break, Falcons must have discussed their mis-opportunities, how to adjust their mistakes, and come up strong in the second half. None of that happened. In fact, Falcons came out flat and played even worst in the second half than they did in the first half. They continued giving carries to Devonta Freeman and not more to Tevin Coleman. Matt Ryan was outplayed by Nick Foles, as Foles made more plays and had more passing yards than Ryan did. Also the Atlanta Falcons were held scoreless in the second half. The game ended with Nick Foles and the Eagles having a better third down conversion than the Falcons, as the Eagles went 6 for 13 on third down, while the Falcons went 4 for 13. Eagles had 22 first downs, while the Falcons had only 19. Finally, Eagles ended the game with fifty three more total yards than the Falcons. After all that, Atlanta Falcons were still in position to win the game in the final seconds. In the final drive of the game, a play before the Falcons got to 1st & goal, Tevin Coleman had just rushed for ten yards on 2nd & 3. Now the Falcons have 1st & goal with a minute and nineteen seconds left in the game and everyone watching the game would expect the Falcons to give the ball back to Tevin Coleman. No, they didn't need to score right away, but at least get closer to the goal line and burn some clock. Matt Ryan on 1st & goal, tossed it up to Julio Jones on the sidelines for a go ahead score. That didn't happen, as the pass was incomplete and clock stopped. Okay, now its 2nd & goal, the Falcons would this time try a run play with Coleman. Nope, they went for another pass play, which resulted into another incompletion. Guess to whom that pass, on second and goal was thrown to? Not to Julio, not to Sanu, and not to Coleman who was having a very good game. The pass was targeted to Terron Ward! Great play and player selection in that situation for sure. Then on 3rd and goal, Ryan went back to Julio, this time he completed it, but for seven yards. So now its 4th and goal from the two yard line. This is where you score, take the lead, complete the two-point conversion, and have your defense seal the victory. On that play, Matty Ice, to ice the game, run on the right side of the field, looking to throw the ball to Julio for the touchdown. The play didn't go the way Falcons wanted because, Julio slipped on his route and by the time he got up, Ryan received a whole lot of pressure from the Eagles defense. Before Ryan got hit by one of the defenders, he lobbed the pass at the direction of Julio. The pass wasn't perfect, but it's one of those passes which Julio have caught before for touchdown or big plays. The ball went through his hands! Even if he had caught the ball, it wouldn't have mattered because his feet would have been out of bounds before coming down to the ground with the ball. Felt like the game ended right there, but it wasn't over just yet. Atlanta still had a chance to get the ball back and then give the offense another chance to score and win the game before time expires. Since Falcons failed to get the touchdown on 4th & goal, Nick Foles and the Eagles had to start from their own two yard line. There were two timeouts available for the Falcons to use with 58 seconds on the clock. There was no room for Nick Foles to take a knee to run the clock out. So he went for a hard count. There is no way any of the Falcons defensive players would fall for the hard count. But they did. One of their best defensive lineman, Grady Jarret fell for it and was called for encroachment. That ended the game there! Eagles completed their upset on Falcons and Lane Johnson got to wear the underdog mask!

   Yes, Philadelphia Eagles proved me and many others wrong. I didn't see this coming. I thought the Atlanta Falcons would learn from their last year's Super Bowl meltdown and wouldn't take this game  easy. They entered the playoffs as a sixth seed with a 10-6 record and defeated a very good team in LA Rams. They made a statement last week and it seemed like they were going to be one of those  dangerous wildcard teams, that we have seen in the past who would beat everyone on the road and in their way to get to the Super Bowl. Then in the big game, they would upset the team from the other conference to win it all. None of that happened! Eagles didn't play their best game, but they played a tough sixty-minute football game to win against a very good Falcons team. I apologize to all the Eagles' players, coaches, and all their fans for doubting them. However, none of you could call me out for predicting the Falcons winning. Just look at it from my perspective or just flip the situation. Imagine the Eagles entering the playoffs as a sixth seed with Carson Wentz fully healthy and playing the Atlanta Falcons in Atlanta, with Matt Ryan out and his backup, Matt Schaub playing instead. What would you expect? You would expect the Eagles to win and win it easily. That's what I thought the Falcons would do to your Eagles with no Carson Wentz behind center. Next week, in the NFC championship game, the Eagles will be playing the Minnesota Vikings, who are coming off a miraculous win against the New Orleans Saints in the divisional round. Excited for that matchup. Two former teammates and two backup quarterbacks, (Nick Foles and Case Keenum) squaring off in the championship game. Wish both teams the very best!