Creating turnovers leads Birds to first win of season
Easily buried in the Eagles’ first victory of the season was theway their defense impacted thegamewith threetakeaways Sunday night in San Francisco.
The49erswereontheirway to the end zone when safety Rodney McLeod intercepted Nick Mullens at the six-yard line about halfway through the second quarter, the Birds nursing an 8-7 lead.
GenardAvery, who collected a sack, set it upwith one of his five quarterback hurries over 16 snaps.
In the fourth quarter, the Eagles trailed, 14-11, when cornerback Cre’Von LeBlanc blitzed Mullens and dislodged the ball with his helmet, Malik Jackson recovering at the 49ers’ 34-yard line. After Jalen Hurts took an eight-yard loss by falling on a snap that hewas unable to field cleanly, Carson Wentz went up top to Travis Fulgham for the go-ahead, 42yard score.
“We pride ourselves on turnovers,” LeBlanc said. “It starts in practice. We set a goal. We try toget three turnoversweek in and week out. The goal was towin this football game. And we knew we had to come out with some turnovers in order towin this game.”
Last but far from least was the game-winning score in the 25-20 decision by linebacker Alex Singleton, who had played just one defensive snap this season before taking over for the injured T.J. Edwards.
Singleton was in zone coveragewhenMullens attempted to force the ball to Kendrick Bourne and jumped the route.
“My heart kind of skipped a beat,” said Singleton. “I just caught it and went with it. I knew I had to get in the end zone. We talked about it all week, to score on defense. It was the only thing going throughmymind.”
Singleton capped the 30yard touchdown return by splitting would-be tacklers Mullens andMikeMcGlinchey, who he left on the ground.
The Eagles had entered the weekend a league-worst minus-7 in turnover ratio. They’ve improved to minus-5 (including a Wentz interception, his seventh of the year).
Since the start of the 2018 season, the Eagles are 7-0 in games where they don’t commit a turnover. In that time the Eagles are 13-4 when committing one turnover or fewer, as they did Sunday. They are 3-9-1 when committing two ormore turnovers, and 1-7 committing three or more.
••• Running back Miles Sanders actually predicted the Eagleswould defeat the 49ers. He said it last Friday.
“Just trying to — not trying to— we’regoing togetaWthis week,” Sanders said. “That’s all that matters.”
Sanders had 13 rushes for 46 yards and two catches for 30 yards, playing 48 snaps (77 percent).
Sanders’ absence on the last series raised questions about the glute injury he played through.
“Listen, don’t read into anything,” head coach Doug Pederson said, framing it as situational use of personnel. “You guys asked me to play our backs more, so I’m trying to play our backs more.”
Right. For the record, Pederson said Sanderswas “fine.”
••• Elsewhere on the unofficial injury report, Pederson said
Edwards (hamstring) and safety Rudy Ford (hamstring) would miss some games.
Right offensive tackle Lane Johnson had a sore ankle that limited him to 37 of 62 offensive snaps.
“There were just a couple plays early in the game where it didn’t feel right to him, sowe wanted to make sure and get it loose and keep it loose,” Pederson said. “He eventually came backandplayedwell inthesecond half.”
The injury Pederson wasn’t asked to address was to pivot Jason Kelce, who was shown having his groin area examined during a break in action. With Isaac Seumalo on injured reserve and Nate Herbig needed at guard, the Eagles can ill afford to lose Kelce.
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Even before the Eagles batted away a Hail Mary pass on the last play, they had plenty of chances to lose to the Super Bowl runner-up.
Mullens overthrew fullback Kyle Juszczyk on the first series for what could have been a touchdown because the entire Eagles’ defense was on the other side of the field, except for Nate Gerry, whowas badly
beaten in coverage.
The 49ers dropped what would have been twomore interceptionsofWentz, including a deep ball for Richard Rodgers that dropped right into the stone hands of safety Jaquiski Tartt.
Wentz ran for a touchdown, threwfor 193 yards and a score and used hismobility to limit the 49ers to three sacks. It’s a big step forward after Wentz threw his seventh interception of the season in the first quarter.
“It’s just great for our football team to be able to do this
but for Carson Wentz specifically to play better, and to really play physical in his play yesterday and efficient in the passing game,” Pederson said. “Obviously, therewasn’t a lot of yardage but the thing was he was efficient. There are a couple throws he would definitely like to have back and all of that but this is big for him, just to get that tasteofwinningagain. For everybody, me included, just to get that taste back, it gives you a little bit ofmotivation. Something to build on as wemove forward to thisweek.”
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