The Philadelphia Eagles led by the iced veins of Nick Foles season came to a painful end yesterday against The New Orleans Saints in The Mercedes Super Dome! Alshon Jeffery laid flat out on the floor for over a minute after a routine throw from Nick Foles on 2nd and 10 with two minutes remaining slipped between his calms and ended up in the hands of Lattimore for his second interception that effectively ended The Eagles chances of a fairy tale ending.
Jeffery said “It’s a play I didn’t make. It went through my hands. Nick threw me a catchable ball. I’ve got to make that play,” He went on to say “I’ll take that loss. It’s on me. I let all my teammates down, the city, the City of Philadelphia. I’ll take that.” Zach Ertz commented and said that Jeffery makes this catch 999,999 out of a million.
An amazing run put together by this Eagles team, they were living in the moment and you could feel that something special was happening, something they will not be able to get back next year with this group as it is likely that Roster changes will effect them. Nick Foles being the biggest change of all but one shining light from all of this is how the 2nd and 3rd string secondary has performed towards the end of this season.
The Eagles were in position to win before Foles was picked off and ironically it started on the very first throw of the game by Drew Bress, he dropped back and launched a down the field pass intended for Ted Ginn but was intercepted with a fantastic catch by Cre’Von LeBlanc. This pick resulted in The Eagles marching 76 yards and scoring on a 37 yard pass to J. Matthews on their opening drive, very quickly the Eagles found themselves 14 – 0 up with a 1 yard Nick Foles quarter back sneak after Brees and The New Orleans failed to find their rhythm and were off the field with a 3 and out.
The Eagles were looking to twist the knife and extend their lead, early in the second half an underthrown pass from Nick Foles to Zach Ertz was intercepted by Lattimore which woke up the sleepy Saints who effectively had 20 days off of competitive football after they rested starters in week 17.
We all saw what Sean Payton did earlier in the week to motivate his men but he wanted to show his intentions and called an aggressive play in Saints territory, a fake punt directly snapped to the all action gadget QB Taysom Hill who gained 4 yards to kick start The Saints and get things moving. Payton did it again when it was 4th and goal, the Eagles D started strong and opting for the field goal to get points on the board seemed the logical option but instead the Saints went for it and completed a touchdown pass to Kirkwood and from then on the Saints were lit.
After the ideal start The Eagles just couldn’t get things going, they received the ball to start the 3rd quarter but up to this point had only managed 2 first downs and the Saints Defence started to impose their will. The best place for the Saints to keep Nick Foles was on the bench and they managed this with a 3rd quarter drive that lasted 5 and a half minutes, had 18 plays and went 92 yards which ended with a Brees to Michael Thomas touchdown pass and for the first time in the game the Saints took the lead and never looked back from this point.
So it’s over, one team wins it which means 31 others have to fall down, that’s just the way it is, the fairy tale story never played out like last year but Jeffery, Foles and the Eagles can be proud of what they achieved this year, let’s not forget that on December 7th they were given just 26.9% chance of making the playoffs, the season was riddled with injuries to Wentz, Kelce, the whole secondary and many more. The Eagles proved that the Super Bowl slump is a choice and I believe that the Eagles fans can go to work this morning with heads held high and the Eagles will use this feeling as motivation going in to the 2019 season. Until then “The Eagles still fly”.
Image credit: USA today