Eagles Handle Familiar Foes
Over the past two weeks the Philadelphia Eagles faced the team that gave them their toughest game in last year’s playoffs and the team they beat in the Super Bowl.
Both the Los Angeles Rams and the Kansas City Chiefs had revenge, if that’s what you want to call it, on their minds when they played the Eagles.
And both did what they did a year ago — lost.
Role Reversal This Week
This week the role is reversed for head coach Nick Sirianni and his Eagles. They will travel to Tampa Bay, leaving a day early in fact, to play a Bucs team that has had their number of late.
Tampa Bay is 6-1 against the Eagles in the last seven meetings between the two teams, including two playoff wins for the Bucs.
Tampa is 4-1 against the Eagles with current head coach Todd Bowles as either the HC or DC. The Bucs beat the Eagles, 33-16, last season. Beat them, 32-9, in the 2023 playoffs; 31-15 in the 2021 playoffs and 28-22 in the 2021 regular season. The Eagles only win came early in the 2023 season, 25-11.
Consider this: Philadelphia quarterback Jalen Hurts is 45-12 in his career. He’s 1-4 against the Bucs.
Sirianni and Patullo on the Matchup
“Yeah, dating back to 2021– I think we played them in ’21 and twice they beat us. We played them in ’23, we split with them, and then obviously they beat us last year,’’ Sirianni said. “So, another team kind of like the Chiefs where we’ve played them a bunch over these past five years. You’re always looking at those old games to kind of identify the things that they did well, the things that you did well to see if you can repeat them. That’s always on our mind when we are playing a team is what do we think they did well that they would repeat? What do we think that they won’t do because we hurt them on it, and vice versa.’’
What Bowles and the Bucs have done is blitz. Against Hurts, Bowles has blitzed on 93 of 199 his dropbacks. Hurts QB rating against that blitz is just 69.8. All three of the Eagles opponents the season have blitzed as well, but none as much as what the Bucs do.
“I think the first half of the season always, people have all offseason to game plan you. So they’re looking for ways to stop you,’’ Eagles offensive coordinator Kevin Patullo said. “We’ve played all these teams multiple times, they know us really, really well and so they’re just looking for stuff. They’re wanting to try new things and seeing what they can do against us. I think that’s a little piece of it, and I think just by nature, if you look around the league, I think pressure’s up a little bit in general. So you can see and just hear what’s happening around the league. I think that’s a little bit of a trend and it’ll probably continue.
“I mean really when you look at it as a whole, I think it’s pretty much every down now teams are doing something to create something that they want to get done, whether it’s one line of defense, whatever their identity is defensively. So yeah, I think it’s just happening more frequently in general. And like I said, if you look around the league, I think you see more of it.’’
Evans Out for Tampa
What the Eagles won’t see Sunday is Tampa’s future Hall of Fame wide receiver Mike Evans, who will be out with a knee injury.
“I don’t know if you can replace him,” Bowles said Monday. “Other guys can do other things, and we’ll try to tailor it toward those things, but you can’t replace a Mike Evans.”
Tampa played three games without Evans last year and went 0-3 so Bowles might be onto something. It’s going to take a big game from Tampa QB Baker Mayfield to overcome the loss of the star receiver.
“They’re very balanced,’’ Eagles defensive coordinator Vic Fangio said. “They run it good, they throw it good, they have really good receivers. The quarterback is playing really good. He’s a scrambler. He scrambled, I think, 11 times this year for close to 120 yards already, so that’s always an issue. I’ve always liked [Buccaneers QB Baker] Mayfield. I think he’s a good quarterback. Why these teams that had him didn’t keep him, I don’t know. But GMs make mistakes, just like coaches do. I’ve always liked Mayfield.’’
Notes
The Eagles are 3-0 for the third time in four years. The Bucs are 3-0 for the first time since 2005. …The Eagles have scored 20, or more, points in 20 straight games. That’s the longest current streak in the league. Tampa has the second longest streak at 18 games.
