By Brandon Simmons
Can Eagles Win without Hurts
The Philadelphia Eagles are preparing for a huge game against the Dallas Cowboys this Saturday but will have to do it without starting QB Jalen Hurts. Hurts suffered a sprained shoulder injury in the Eagles’ win over the Chicago Bears Sunday. Given the short turnaround for this weekend’s game, Hurts’ status became in doubt, opening the door for backup quarterback Gardner Minshew. Minshew, who is in his 2nd year with the Eagles, has extensive starting experience from his days with the Jacksonville Jaguars, but none of the games he had in his entire career will be as big as this one.
The Eagles chances at winning this game are going to be real slim without Hurts under center. Minshew has a ton of starting experience, so he’s not being thrown into the fire, but his last start came last season against the Dallas Cowboys, and it was not pretty. The Eagles gave up over 50 points in a 51-26 beatdown at the hands of Dallas. However, a lot of defensive starters were missing from that game since it was a regular season finale, as well as some starters. This will not be the case this time around. One big difference that will be present is wide receiver A.J. Brown. Brown will certainly provide that vertical threat alongside Devonta Smith against a secondary that has suffered a couple of injuries. Still, that Cowboys defense has been tough all year but that Cowboys team has been eyeing this game for a long time. They are amped for it and knowing that their opponent’s starting QB will not be available, gets them even more hyped. Overall, the Eagles are improved from their meeting last season – and even beat the Cowboys earlier in the year – but they are going to have a tough time getting a victory in Dallas this Saturday with no Hurts.
Bengals Can’t Be Bullied
The Cincinnati Bengals have faced some “big brother” competition the past few weeks and beat both of them. Cincy is currently on a 6 game winning streak, which includes wins over the Kansas City Chiefs and Sunday’s victory over the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, 2 of the previous 3 Super Bowl champs. Cincy is kind of coming into their own as perennial contenders, it’s still surprising to see them beat teams who were established with this label for a few years now. However, none of that seems to matter to the Bengals as they look to make a return to trip to the Super Bowl and get the title left behind.
The Bengals are a young team that can not be pushed over. It’s not just Quarterback Joe Burrow, but he has a quality receiving group led by wide receiver Ja’Marr Chase. But defensively, they are not to be slept on in any manner. They are the 10th ranked scoring defense, which can be a problem when you go up against a high-scoring offense such as Cincy. Even though this group is relatively new to the contending space with the Chiefs and Bucs – aka the Tom Bradys – but they are making their presence known and establishing it as a stronghold that can’t be moved.
NFL Wasting Money on Fired Coaches
ESPN’s Adam Schefter posted on Monday that NFL owners were wasting hundreds of millions of dollars on coaches that were no longer there. Schefter reported an $800 million were spent on coaches who were no longer with the organizations that hired them. When doing the math – calculating that number against the league’s annual revenue from the last 5 years – it came about to around 1% which might not seem much until you reaize the owners are paying that out of their pocket.
This has to be a big issue if it’s brought up during the owners meetings and being reported. Coaches come and go all the time, but people fail to realize how much bread the owners actually pay these coaches. Also, it would make sense that the owners be warned of excessive spending, since they have to spread that paper around to other areas of the team. A couple of reasons this could’ve been prompted, were there the departures of Jon Gruden from the Las Vegas Raiders and Matt Rhule from the Carolina Panthers, both getting put out of 7 year and 10 year deals prematurely. Now their owners are dishing out hefty salaries to them. A new head coach should really only get bout 3 years minimum, just enough time to build some of his team up and then focus on execution. No decision should be made earlier than the end of his contract or at least 1 year left of it. Firing somebody less than that is a waste of time, and obviously money.
Shoutouts/Shutouts
Shout out to the Minnesota Vikings for completing the largest comeback in NFL history. Saturday, the Vikings hosted the Indianapolis Colts but fell to a 33-0 deficit at halftime. Well, Vikings came out in the 2nd half literally making it a whole different game, outscoring the Colts 36-3 in regulation then kicking the game winning field goal in overtime to win 39-36. It became the biggest comeback in NFL history, which overtakes the 1993 Wild Card game between the Houston Oilers and Buffalo Bills.
Shut out to Matt Ryan’s position on the end of comebacks. The Indianapolis Colts QB is now on the end of 2 of the largest comebacks in NFL history. Before Saturday’s infamous accomplishment, Ryan was on the wrong end of biggest Super comeback as his Atlanta Falcons were up 28-3 but ended up losing 34-28 to the New England Patriots. The worst part of being a QB is being the face of aa team when things go wrong but nevertheless, Ryan will have those stains on his resume.
Shout out to the Las Vegas Raiders for winning on a bogus play at the end of the game. Sunday, against the New England Patriots, the game was tied when the Patriots handed the ball to Rhomandre Stevenson. Stevenson was running down the field, but realizing he was running out of time and field space, he threw a lateral to Patriots wide receiver Jakobi Meyers. Meyers was quickly trapped by Raiders defenders so he threw a lateral pass but it was intercepted by Las Vegas defensive end Chandler Jones and returned for the game winning touchdown.
Shut out to whoever drew that play that up. It’s understandable to run the ball and probably catch the defense off guard but the Raiders were already in prevent protecting the end zone heavy. A lot of people piled on Meyers for that throw but the smart play would’ve been to take a knee and get into overtime. Instead, the Patriots have to take a loss in a tight playoff race.
Week 16 is here to distract you from the gift wrapping and relatives with egg nog breath. The game of thhe week will be the Dallas Cowboys hosting the Philadelphia Eagles. The irony of this rematch is that Dallas did not have their starting quarterback, Dak Prescott, in which Philly won 26-17. The Eagles will not have their starting QB, Jalen Hurts, for this week’s game; however, they will have tight end Dallas Goedert after activating him from IR. It should help out Eagles QB Gardner Minshew but until then…I’ll holla.