A.J. Brown helps Eagles burn Titans
PHILADELPHIA − The Philadelphia Eagles continued to have their Paul Revere ride type of season.
One week after beating the Green Bay Packers by land, the Eagles buried the Tennessee Titans by air.
Quarterback Jalen Hurts threw for 380 yards and three touchdowns, two of them going to A.J. Brown, who burned his former teammates from 40 and 29 yards out, leading the Eagles to an easy 35-10 win over the Titans on Sunday.
In all, the Eagles (11-1) had 386 yards passing as Hurts fell 7 yards shy of his career high after completing 29 of his 39 passes. This came one week after the Eagles rushed for 363 yards in the 40-33 win over the Packers.
The Eagles became the first team since the Raiders, then based in Los Angeles, to get at least 350 yards rushing and passing in successive games.
It couldn’t have gone much better for Hurts’ MVP chances, or if Brown was really seeking revenge against his former team after the acrimonious trade last spring, when Brown expressed his frustration over not getting a new contract.
Hurts and most of the starters sat out most of the fourth quarter.
And Brown had to get his first touchdown catch twice, each time from 40 yards out. The first one, down the right sideline, was overruled after a replay review that showed Brown’s second foot landed out of bounds.
No worry, Hurts went right back to Brown on the next play, this time to the other side. Brown was wide open after his defender fell.
Brown saved his best for later, when he pulled in a 29-yard TD pass in the third quarter by grabbing the ball off the shoulder of his Titans defender.
But really, the Eagles entire wide receiving corps enjoyed success against Tennessee, which came into the game with the 31st ranked pass defense.
Brown finished with 119 yards receiving, and DeVonta Smith, who opened the scoring with a 34-yard TD on the opening drive, had 102 yards. They became the first Eagles receiving duo to each top 100 yards receiving in a game since Nelson Agholor (116) and Zach Ertz (110) did it in a December 2018 game against the Houston Texans.
Hurts orchestrated all of it. He had 268 yards passing in the first half, when the Eagles took a 21-10 lead. He hadn’t surpassed 200 yards passing in any of the previous three games, mainly because the Eagles were so successful running the ball.
But the Titans came into the game ranked 31st in pass defense while they were third against the run. So the Eagles took to the pass attack early, then kept it going.
HOUSTON – The boos started on the second play of Sunday’s game. That’s when Deshaun Watson ran onto the field with the Cleveland Browns offense for the first time.
Watson, returning to Houston on the same day he returned to the field after an 11-game suspension and a nearly two-year hiatus, heard the boos. Those boos, though, faded as the game went along and the Browns pulled away for a 27-14 victory over the Houston Texans.
“They’re supposed to boo,” Watson said afterward. “I’m a Cleveland Brown now. They’re supposed to boo.”
There may have been a segment of the Houston fans whose boos were solely because of Watson wearing a Browns uniform now. However, that taking a way-too-simplistic look at the 700 days between his last time starting an NFL game − for the Texans on Jan. 3, 2021 − and Sunday’s return to NRG Stadium.
Yes, there was a trade dispute in the spring of 2021 that led him to not play for the duration of that season with Houston and may have created some of the ill will. What led to a lot more of the vitriol had nothing to do with football. It’s the same thing that led Watson to have to wait until Sunday to play for his new team. The allegations of sexual assault and sexual misconduct during massage appointments by more than two dozen women led to 26 lawsuits, 23 of which have been settled and one which was dropped in March 2021, and ultimately led to his 11-game suspension.
As was the case when he made his first public comments since the suspension on Thursday, he wouldn’t directly answer questions about the women, including if, with his suspension over, he felt remorse for what he had done.
“Like I said before, that’s something legal and clinical, we’ve been asked it before and they don’t want me to address anything like that,” Watson said. “Of course it was a tough situation. The suspension was tough, but at the same time my main focus is trying to be 1-0 as a football player today.”
You can say Watson went 1-0 Sunday, the same way any starting quarterback receives credit for the win when his team gets one. However, whether it was due to being rattled or rusty or whatever, it was a very choppy performance for the quarterback the Browns spent three first-round picks, two other mid-round picks and, as critical as anything, $230 million guaranteed over the next five years.
Watson never really found his rhythm from his very first pass, which was a short curl route to Amari Cooper that Houston’s Steven Nelson broke up. He would finally complete a pass on his third try, a 15-yarder to Anthony Schwartz that still resulted in a fumble to set up a Texans field goal.
By the time Watson threw his final one, also an incompletion to Cooper, he was 12 of 22 for 131 yards with an interception in the end zone. He finished with a quarterback rating of 53.4.
“I would just say I felt every single one of those 700 days, honestly,” Watson said. “However long I’ve been out, I felt every single one of those days. Getting back in shape and everything is definitely what I needed today.”
The in-game reaction Watson received was much more audible that what greeted him during the pregame. He made his first appearance on the field a little less than two hours before kickoff to go though light throwing. Watson spent time talking to members of the Texans, be it players, coaches or support staff, before returning to the locker room after about 30 minutes. He stopped to sign several autographs on his way back to the locker room.