The Eagles’ victory had a message attached
PHILADELPHIA » The newest rivals in what used to be a different football league met Sunday, and to the mandatory, predictable result.
The Haves crushed the Have Nots. The Serious demolished the Sad. The Eagles defeated the New York Jets, 31-6.
The NFL, which for most of its first century trafficked in parity, somehow had lost that fountain of pride. Not unlike college football, which every week seems to allow one glamour franchise or another to run it up on Akron, the NFL has grown tolerant of the kind of football that Sunday pushed many in a capacity crowd to evacuate the Linc early, assured they wouldn’t miss much.
Though the Jets had the option to unload the standard NFL rationalization for being inept and mentioned that they were down to third-string quarterback Luke Falk, their record already was part of a sorry trend. As the week began, there were seven winless teams. Only a Monday Night extravaganza between winless Pittsburgh and Cincinnati would reduce that barge of sludge to a half-a-dozen by the official start of Week 5. It was an historic string of emptiness so late in a season, matched just twice in the postmerger era. And it was opening for games played with imprecision formerly tolerated only in the preseason.
The Eagles were the better team and worked hard enough to win Sunday, but there was something about the Jets’ beginning-to-end futility that shed a floodlight on the continuing trend. One team meant business. The other had no business playing major-league football.
“It depends on what your goals are,” Malcolm Jenkins was saying amid the lukewarm buildup for a game few expected to be competitive. “It depends on what you are motivated by. This team is motivated to get better every week. We really compete against ourselves. It really doesn’t matter who the opponent is, we want to show up as our best selves. We want to go out and compete on Sunday regardless of who the opponent is.”
The Eagles did that, scoring a touchdown on their first possession, returning a first-quarter interception for another six points, and inflating a 21-0 lead before halftime. Ten times, they sacked the quarterback, including once when Orlando Scandrick simply dragged the ball out of Falk’s hands and ran 44 yards for a touchdown. It was the kind of dominance display that led to the high school football option to run the clock and minimize the injured muscles, bones and feelings.
“I guess we have to mold together and find out what this team is made of,” Falk said. “We have to find out who we are.”
After a 1-2 start, the Eagles had that burden, too. But they won a message game in Green Bay, then did what they had to do Sunday when a walkover was necessary. Their next three games on the road, at Minnesota, Dallas and Buffalo, the Eagles could no more afford to stumble against the Jets than the baseball team on their block could to lose regularly to the Miami Marlins.
The Eagles will enjoy more chances against the low-majors. They have a second game against the Redskins, who lost by 26 at home to the Patriots Sunday to drop to 0-5. The Dolphins, who have yet to win, will visit in Week 13. Wait around long enough, in other words, and the next hapless opponent will stumble by for a visit.
“We take it one week at a time,” said Carson Wentz, in quite the turn of a phrase. “We realize we are on the road for three weeks now. But we are going to rally back and try to keep this train rolling.”
The Eagles collected 10 sacks, were scored on only after a muffed punt and on a trick play, and were never in danger of losing. That’s what the teams that will be buyers at the Oct. 29 trade deadline must do against the mob already squeezing into the line of sellers.
“You can never take any team for granted in the NFL,” said Jordan Howard, whose firstquarter touchdown established the theme. “They are in the NFL for a reason. And they have a great defense with a bunch of hungry, young dogs. You have to bring it from the jump. This was a good momentum win for us. So we just have to keep it going.”
Josh McCown played for the Jets last season, and Sunday played a couple of late series in relief of Wentz. New York having changed coaches and other philosophies, he wasn’t in a position to outline every nuance of the gap between the operations. But he has been on Pattison Ave. long enough to know there was one.
“Obviously this group won a Super Bowl a couple years ago,” he said. “This is where a lot of franchises, not just the Jets, are trying to go. They just got Sam Darnold. This group got Carson a couple of years ago. So you try to build it around your young quarterback and get it going. And I think that’s the idea.
“I really believe those guys will get it going. But it’s just different stages. They are in the early, infancy stages of trying to build that thing. And this group here is a little bit more established and has had Carson a little bit longer. Any given Sunday. We will have our hands full Sunday.”
Some other Sunday, maybe. But not Week 5 of 2019. And not in the new, unbalanced NFL.