Skip to content
Eagles
Link copied to clipboard

5 reasons the Eagles beat the Steelers

LET'S GET PHYSICAL

Under defensive coordinator Jim Schwartz, the Eagles' secondary has been playing in-your-face football. Doesn't matter who the receiver is. They're up in his grill, battling him for every ball.

A defense that gave up a franchise-record 36 touchdown passes last year hasn't given up any yet in three games. On Sunday, they held Ben Roethlisberger without a touchdown pass for only the sixth time in his last 60 regular-season starts. He averaged just 5.84 yards per attempt.

Antonio Brown caught 12 passes for 140 yards. But five of those catches (for 60 yards) came after the game was well out of hand. Brown was the only Steeler with more than 50 receiving yards. He had seven of his team's 11 receiving first downs, but no reception longer than 20 yards.

DOUGIE'S PLAYCALLING

OK, everybody out there who didn't think Doug Pederson might be in over his head when the Eagles hired him last January please raise your hand. Anybody? Nobody?

Slowly but surely, we are realizing Pederson isn't just Andy Reid Lite. He has done a masterful job of gaining the players' trust.

And his play-calling has been outstanding, particularly when you consider that he only found out eight days before the start of the season that de facto GM Howie Roseman had traded away the guy he thought was going to be his starting quarterback.

Last week against the Bears, he came out in no-huddle and attacked the defense with a lot of quick high-percentage throws that allowed his rookie quarterback, Carson Wentz, to get into an early rhythm in his first NFL road game.

Pederson has shown multiple looks to the same play so that opposing defenses can't get a bead on what they're doing.

On Sunday, the Eagles countered the speed and aggressiveness of the Steelers' defense with a lot of misdirection and screens that were very productive and kept Pittsburgh's front seven on their heels the entire game.

THIS KID CAN'T BE A ROOKIE

Carson Wentz continues to amaze. This was supposed to be the game that brought him down to earth. That exposed his rookie acne and turned his poise into panic.

The Steelers' zone coverages were going to befuddle the young quarterback.

Only they didn't. He completed 74.2 percent of his throws. He averaged 9.7 yards per attempt. He threw two touchdown passes. He ran his streak of passes without an interception to 102, which is the most ever by a rookie to start his NFL career. His 125.9 passer rating was the highest ever by an Eagles rookie quarterback.

He put a 12-yard touchdown pass to Jordan Matthews right on the numbers. Went right back to Dorial Green-Beckham after he dropped a pass and connected on a 19-yard completion to him on a third-and-12 play late in the first quarter.

In a play that will be shown a few thousand times in the next two weeks, he scrambled from the pocket and hit Darren Sproles with a perfect pass that he turned into a 73-yard touchdown catch-and-run.

He pushed all of the right buttons, made all of the right decisions.

Again.

THE LITTLE GUY

Last week, Darren Sproles ran the ball 12 times, which is not what the 33-year-old running back does best.

What he does best, what he's always done best, is catch the ball in space and make tacklers look silly.

That's what he did against the Steelers. Took a misdirection screen pass from Wentz on the Eagles' first possession and scooted 40 yards to set up a Caleb Sturgis field goal that gave the Eagles a lead they would never relinquish.

Later, he and Wentz teamed up on that improvised 73-yard touchdown catch and run early in the third quarter that pretty much made it game, set and match.

And you may have also noticed that it was the 5-9 Sproles who effectively neutralized cornerback William Gay on a third-quarter blitz on Wentz's 24-yard second-and-nine completion to tight end Brent Celek on yet another Eagles touchdown drive.

"I love that guy,'' offensive coordinator Frank Reich said. "Maybe one out of 10 guys score (that touchdown) with that ball. But that's Sproles.''

THE DOUBTERS

Athletes love to say they don't read the papers or listen to sports talk radio or pay attention to social media.

Which might occasionally be true. But even when it is, you can damn well bet somebody close to them – wife, girlfriend, father, brother, agent, posse member, personal nutritionist, car detailer, et. al – is keeping abreast of what's being said and written and passing it on to the guy.

Eagles players are well aware that most people expected little from them this season. They know all about the grim 5-11 and 6-10 forecasts.

And like every team, they are using it as nobody-believed-in-us fuel. So, take a bow, Joe Cynic. You played a pivotal role in Sunday's win.

"We knew what everybody was saying,'' cornerback Nolan Carroll said after the game. "They were saying we beat two average teams (Cleveland and Chicago). Nobody really gave us a chance. We're the only ones who gave ourselves a chance. We knew we had the ability to win.''