Birds’ balanced offense just keeps getting better

PHILADELPHIA » Enjoying a solid season and feeling the freedom of the bye week, Malcolm Jenkins told on himself Sunday.

Jenkins said he started Jay Ajayi in his fantasy football league based only on the knowledge of his teammate’s skills set, not on what he’d seen at practice or heard from the Eagles’ coaching staff. Cross his heart.

“I wasn’t sure what the role was going to be this week,” Jenkins said. “I took a chance and he came through for me. I was definitely excited about that touchdown. He’s an explosive player. He’s been proving himself long before he got here. I think everybody was excited to see him in an Eagles jersey playing for us.”

Ajayi rushed for 77 yards, including a 46-yard touchdown in which he ran away from the pile and launched himself over the plane to stake the Eagles to a 31-9 lead. It turned into a 51-23 romp over the Broncos.

If Jenkins was so smart, he should have played Corey Clement, who scored three touchdowns, two rushing and one on a 15-yard screen pass that left the Broncos and their top-ranked defense bumping into each other.

And what about starting a quarterback like Carson Wentz, who killed it with four TD passes, giving him 23 on the season? Wentz completed 15 of 27 attempts for 199 yards and a 118.7 passer rating.

The single season Eagles record of 32 touchdown passes was set by Sonny Jurgensen in a 14-game season in 1961.

The Eagles didn’t miss injured tight end Zach Ertz, who leads them with six TD receptions.

Tight ends Brent Celek and Trey Burton combined for five receptions worth 80 yards and one score, a 27yard grab by Burton.

Wentz is 10-1 in his 11 starts.

“It was a great effort,” Wentz said. “The beautiful thing about what we did today is we were balanced. We spread the ball around both in the run game and in the throw game. We thought Ertz was going to be able to play. We didn’t miss a beat. We had Celek and Trey step up and make some big plays. That’s just how we’re wired – next man up.”

*** Lane Johnson held Von Miller without a sack, and last then somehow corralled his opponent’s autographed jersey.

The Eagles’ offensive line controlled the line of scrimmage using a Chiefs kind of game plan to neutralize Miller, who recorded one sack, only it was rushing against left tackle Hal Vatai.

“He’s very disruptive,” Johnson said of Miller. “I just wanted to neutralize him the best I could. I had a very good game against him.”

Wentz used the hard count to draw Miller offside once, and the Broncos to commit three such penalties in all.

“They jumped offside three or four times,” Johnson said. “That was something we saw Andy (Reid) and the Chiefs do against them and that worked in our favor today.”

Johnson left the game for a spell to have his tailbone checked out. He returned to the game, even though it was a romp because he wanted to stay part of what has been an epic 8-1 Eagles start.

“We’ve had guys who have had their backs against the wall,” Johnson said. “When you’ve got hungry guys that are willing to prove themselves, put it on the line every week, you get