If it wasn’t for the AFC South, the NFC East would be the worst division in football. The Eagles now own the tiebreaker over NY.
Advertisement
The Eagles went into halftime trailing 28-14.
According to oddsmakers at MyBookie.ag, the Eagles are favored at home, as Philadelphia is getting odds of -5.5 points against the Bucs. Except their de facto general manager is also the head coach, so Chip Kelly’s future consists of just three more days before he has to have a game plan in place in order to deal with the Detroit Lions on Thanksgiving.
“This is my first time really being a part of something like this”, said Maxwell, a five-year veteran who spent his first four seasons with Seattle and played in two Super Bowls. He toted the ball 27 times for 235 yards. Winston then tossed a 4-yard pass to Evans to tie it 7-7.
“He’s small, he is very patient, and he’s hard to bring down”, outside linebacker Connor Barwin said.
The Eagles have been here before.
The Eagles were outscored by the Dolphins 3-7 in the payoff period as substitute quarterback Mark Sanchez took over from Bradford.
Sanchez, though, did what Sanchez does more often than not and that’s throw picks. According to CBSSports.com, the tight end has not been cleared for contact.
Never mind that Winston caught a break as his fumble one play earlier was wiped away with a defensive holding penalty.
Things are good right now in Bucsdom and for Winston.
There are still six games to be played, but the way they looked against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers on Sunday basically renders those games moot. He now has 11 career 100-yard rush games, which is tied with Warrick Dunn (1997-2001, 2008) for second-most in team history.
Tampa Bay picked on Philadelphia’s secondary throughout the game. On the year, the Bucs have notched a takeaway on 15.5 percent of their opponents’ drives, a number that ranks fifth in the league. Defensively, the Buccaneers yield 233.2 yards in passing and 101.0 yards in rushing.
Even the return of perennial Pro Bowl offensive tackle Jason Peters meant little to the Eagles, who after their usual slow start in the first half were hopelessly outclassed in the second half.
“I grew up an Eagles fan”, Winston said. The Philadelphia defense will need to arrive prepared for Winston to be a major threat on Sunday. Quarterback Jameis Winston threw for five touchdowns.
Then there was the Philly run defense. The run game isn’t good. Doug Martin is Tampa Bay’s leader in the category. The game is also airing as a live stream online. Matthews has 51 catches for 552 yards and two TDs, but the other WRs are not producing. That who is Mike Evans. The 6-5 wide receiver leads the Buccaneers with 40 receptions for 662 yards. He returned to practice on Thursday and has officially been listed as questionable for this weekend’s matchup. After that, Tampa Bay kept feeding Martin to wear down an Eagles defense that spent 35 minutes on the field Sunday.
“You just can’t have those runs”, Davis said.
The 6-foot-1, 227-pound Alexander, a fourth-round draft selection, is Tampa Bay’s second-leading tackler with 63.
Byron Maxwell couldn’t explain what happened.
The difference between the Buccaneers’ opener and their 45-17 rout of Philadelphia, though, is that we now have 10 games from Winston to digest, making it easier to contextualize this performance. The Bucs played without out two starters, RG Ali Marpet (ankle) and TE Austin Seferian-Jenkins (shoulder).
They allowed 521 yards.
The offensive line had its moments, too. “I just got done watching that Tennessee game where he wasn’t quite (ready) and turned it over a few times”. I do think he gets a chance to fix this mess in the offseason and try to turn things around next season. The division is wretched, yes, and a win by the Birds would’ve put them atop the wretchedness with the Giants at 5-5.
The Eagles have defeated the Buccaneers in three straight regular season meetings, dating back to 2009.
Advertisement
This game has assured me that the 2015 Eagles are all but finished. Unfortunately, safeties do not count. “We shouldn’t have lost this game”.
