“Interesting year in the NFL,” Eagles center Jason Kelce said an hour after one of the most interesting games of the year—Philadelphia 37, Buffalo 34, in 68 minutes, on a raw, rainy evening in south Philly. “It feels like there’s a big middle of the pack. Very big. It’s as close as I’ve ever seen the NFL.
“Feels like more than ever, it’s an Any Given Sunday league.”
Six weeks to go. Philadelphia, 10-1, with a two-game lead in the loss column over seven three-loss teams. Not dominating, but the Eagles find ways to win the nerve-wracking games. Wins by three over Buffalo, four over Kansas City and five over Dallas in the last three games, a play or two deciding every one of those games. (Sunday’s was a gem. More in a few grafs.) The Eagles and Bills looked like Super Bowl teams for swaths of Sunday’s game, and both have lost to Zach Wilson and the 4-7 Jets this year.
It’s such a weird, ridiculously tight league. The TV ratings are up, even as some of the biggest names (Burrow, Rodgers, Watson, Cousins, Jefferson, Chubb) get kayoed. I say it’s because every week, in all different windows, there are ratings magnets. In this month alone: Miami-Kansas City, Dallas-Philadelphia, Buffalo-Cincinnati, Denver-Buffalo (surprisingly), Cincinnati-Baltimore, Philadelphia-Kansas City, Jacksonville-Houston, Buffalo-Philadelphia. Next week is full of clunkers, but Niners-Eagles and Patrick Mahomes at the resurgent Packers will drive huge audiences.
The four teams best able to challenge Philadelphia:
- San Francisco, 8-3. Niners are healthy for now, have scored 30 or more in seven of their eight wins, and travel to the Linc for the game of week 13.
- Kansas City, 8-3, which is struggling a bit offensively, but doesn’t play a team with a winning record (as of today) in the last six weeks.
- Baltimore, 9-3, which will be the best-rested of the prime contenders down the stretch with a bye this week. Ravens have one game in the next 20 days.
- Dallas, 8-3. The Cowboys haven’t played well in January in recent years, but they are 4-2 in the last six games against the Eagles. They’re scoring 42 points a game over the last three.
The other top teams? Jacksonville’s won seven of eight, but the Jags had decisive home losses to Kansas City and San Francisco; a bit of a mystery there. Detroit looks to have peaked. Hard to put the Dolphins near the top when they’ve lost to the three best teams on their schedule. Pittsburgh and Cleveland? Quarterback issues. Houston and Denver are intriguing, and hot at the right time.
For long stretches Sunday, 6-6 Buffalo (505 total yards, four TDs produced by Josh Allen) looked better than the Eagles. When Allen threw a seven-yard strike to Gabe Davis with 1:52 to play in the fourth quarter, Buffalo led 31-28. Then it turned into the Kelce/Elliott/Hurts show. As the Eagles drove to at least tie it, Kelce twice in four plays got called for false starts. He barely flinched. The second time, it left the Eagles with a third-and-17 at the Buffalo 41-yard line, with 30 seconds left.
Who admits guilt at a time like this?
Jason Kelce.
“I think they were good calls, if I’m being honest,” Kelce said. “I flinched. That’s the bottom line. You know, our stadium, our fans are incredible. But it’s kinda been some of the problems sometimes when we go no-huddle. The fans are revved up. It’s a game! Big game! The fans are really excited and you’re trying to make a play and all of a sudden it’s difficult sometimes to hear the quarterback.
“Matter of fact, we went silent snap-count right after that second one. We should’ve gone silent right after the first one to be safe. Especially with [Bills coach] Sean McDermott, he likes to blitz in the last two minutes. Now all of a sudden, I’m looking and trying to make sure I pick up things. We were doing a phenomenal job of getting things directed and then you’re expecting the play to happen quicker, and you’re not ready for that cadence, it can be an issue. That was exactly what happened on the first one. The second one I just flinched. Not good.”
Kicker Jake Elliott saved the Eagles, sending the game into overtime with his 59-yard field goal through the rain and dank crosswind. Buffalo won the toss, scored a field goal, and now the Eagles had their chance. Jalen Hurts threw for 32 yards and ran for 15 more to get the ball to the Buffalo 12-yard line late in overtime.
Hurts was in shotgun at the Buffalo 18-. It was a Hurts run all the way; Kelce’s job was to erase the flotsam on the front side of the play—either a rusher who came free on the line or a blitzer. Said Kelce: “It wasn’t until right before snapping it that it became evident the inside linebacker [Tyrel Dodson] was going to blitz off that front-side [left] edge. It’s one of those things, for us, where that can either be a home-run shot, which it ended up being, or it can get stuffed. It ended up operating really well.”
Kelce erased Dodson at the 17-. Hurts ran straight up through the gap to the goal line, through two Bills around the three-yard line for the score. Ballgame.
Philadelphia’s 10-1, and a Rocky Balboa-like survivor, because it’s a deep team with a championship pedigree. The quarterback never gets rattled. One of the all-time centers errs twice on a big drive in the fourth quarter, and makes up for it with the block of the game in overtime. Winning at the highest level of the NFL requires great chemistry at the defining moments. The Eagles have that. Someone’s going to have to play four very good quarters (maybe plus an overtime) to beat them.
“I guess it’s surprising that nobody else is up there with us at this point of the season, because the disparity between great teams and good teams is less than I’ve seen in my time in the league,” Kelce said. Maybe that’s because the one great team always finds a way to beat the good teams in the biggest moments.
Read more in Peter King’s full Football Morning in America column.
