The Bears ran for 281 yards in Friday’s win over the Eagles, and both of their running backs, with running back Kyle Monangai gaining 130 yards and D’Andre Swift gaining 125 yards. That doesn’t happen without great offensive line play.
Bears coach Ben Johnson made a point after the game of mentioning left tackle Ozzy Trapilo, left guard Joe Thuney, center Drew Dallman, right guard Jonah Jackson and right tackle Darnell Wright.
“It doesn’t happen without that offensive line,” Johnson said. “You can’t say enough about Ozzy and Joe and Drew Dallman, and Jonah and Darnell. Those guys, they were huge for us. Really proud of them.”
On a windy day in Philadelphia, Bears quarterback Caleb Williams completed just 17 of 36 passes for 154 yards, and Johnson said afterward that he should have stuck with the running game even more than he did.
“I look down and I see 36 attempts and I go, ‘Shoot, I probably called too many pass plays in this game,’ especially with how we were running it, so that’s an area that I can be better at,” Johnson said.
But in a cold and blustery game, the big guys upfront can make all the difference, and that’s what Johnson wanted to call attention to after the game: “I can’t say enough good things about our offensive line today.”
In Philly, it’s beginning to look a lot like 2023.
But Eagles coach Nick Sirianni isn’t panicking. Even if he arguably should be.
After Friday’s 24-15 loss to the Bears, Sirianni said he won’t be shifting the offensive playcalling duties away from coordinator Kevin Patullo.
“We’re not changing the playcaller,” Sirianni said, via Tim McManus of ESPN.com. “But we will evaluate everything. It’s never just about one person. You win as a team, you lose as a team and you try to evaluate everything, win, lose or draw, and get better from it.”
It’s hard to reconcile a vow to “evaluate everything” with a clear and firm decision to not change the playcaller. If everything is going to be evaluated, playcalling will be, too. And, as part of the evaluation, a change would be, in theory, possible.
It’s becoming more and more clear that something is broken. And with two straight losses after an 8-2 start, the season is taking on the same vibe as it had two years ago, when a 10-1 start melted into five of six losses and a one-and-done postseason exit.
Of course, changing the playcaller won’t matter if the issue is execution. In this regard, Derrick Gunn’s reporting from last week takes on specific relevance. If quarterback Jalen Hurts is freelancing, playcalling isn’t the issue.
Whatever it is, the Eagles have a problem. The boo birds were out in full force on Friday. They have a few extra days before the Week 14 Monday night game at the Chargers. After that, the Eagles have a date with the woeful Raiders, two games against the listless Commanders, and a showdown with the Bills looms. The Eagles should win at least three of the final five games.
The problem is, frankly, that the team that took the field on Friday doesn’t seem equipped to beat anyone.
Whether that changes at this point is up to the Eagles.
The Bears ran all over the Eagles in Friday’s 24-15 win and it’s been a long time since a Vic Fangio-coached defense has been pushed around like that.
Chicago piled up 281 rushing yards in the win, which Sheil Kapadia of TheRinger.com points out is the most that any team has put up against a Fangio defense since he was the coordinator in Houston during the 2005 season. Fangio has been the coordinator in Philadelphia since the start of the 2024 season and they had not allowed more than 174 in a single game until Friday.
Former Eagle D’Andre Swift ran 18 times for 125 yards and rookie Kyle Monangai had 22 carries for 130 yards. Both running backs also scored touchdowns in the game.
While most of the attention has been paid to the sputtering Eagles offense this season, that performance gives the Eagles something else to focus on as they head into a Week 14 Monday night road game against the Chargers.
There was a lot of talk coming into Week 13 about how the Bears have fattened their record against lesser opposition, but Black Friday showed that they are not a team to be discounted in the NFC.
D’Andre Swift and Kyle Monangai each ran for a touchdown while combining to run the ball 40 times for 255 yards in a 24-15 win over the Eagles in Philadelphia. The victory was their fifth straight and ninth in 10 games. It also moves them to 9-3 and keeps them ahead of the Packers, who won on Thursday, in the NFC North heading into next Sunday’s showdown between the teams in Green Bay.
Swift’s touchdown staked the Bears to a 7-0 lead and the Eagles offense struggled to get anything going in the first half, but it remained a one-score game when an A.J. Brown touchdown catch brought the Eagles within one point with eight minutes to play in the third quarter. The Eagles missed the extra point, though, and things would go downhill quickly for the Eagles.
After a Jalyx Hunt interception got them a chance to take the lead, Jalen Hurts was stripped by Bears cornerback Nashon Wright on a tush push and the Bears rode Monangai to a score that increased their lead to eight points. A quick three-and-out by the Eagles was followed by Caleb Williams hitting tight end Cole Kmet for a 28-yard score that made the result pretty academic.
Hurts threw an interception in addition to losing that fumble and many of the season-long issues with the Eagles offense were front and center in Friday’s loss. Saquon Barkley made little impact and the league leaders in three-and-outs had four of them over the course of the afternoon.
The Eagles are now 8-4 and still hold a clear lead in the NFC East, although you’d be forgiven for not realizing that amid the boos that rained down at Lincoln Financial Field before the place emptied out well ahead of the final whistle. They’ll play in front of what will likely be another Eagles-heavy crowd at SoFi Stadium against the Chargers next Monday night, but the reaction won’t be any happier if the teams put forth the same kind of effort.
Just when it looked like the Eagles had grabbed the momentum in the third quarter on Friday afternoon, the bottom dropped out on them.
Edge rusher Jalyx Hunt intercepted Bears quarterback Caleb Williams a few plays after the Eagles cut the Bears’ lead to 10-9 on an A.J. Brown touchdown catch and the Eagles moved the ball inside the Chicago 15-yard line. They faced a third-and-1, which everyone in the NFL knows is tush push time and Bears cornerback Nashon Wright came up with a winning way to stop the play.
As Jalen Hurts was trying to grind his way to the first down, Wright stripped him of the ball and recovered the fumble. Bears rookie running back Kyle Monangai ran the ball for 73 yards on the ensuing drive, including a four-yard touchdown that pushed the Bears’ lead to 17-9.
Monangai has 17 carries for 121 yards and D’Andre Swift has 14 carries for 113 yards as the Eagles have failed to come up with the same kinds of answers to the Bears ground game that Wright came up with for the tush push.
