Philadelphia Eagles: The good and the bad against the Colts

The Good

Carson Wentz played in his first game after injuring his knee nine months ago. Some argued that he wouldn’t be the same quarterback coming off of the injury and that it might take some time for him to settle back in. His response? Wentz drove the Eagles down the field on the first drive and scored a touchdown to put the Eagles up by seven.

He did have some passes that got away from him, but overall he didn’t look like a quarterback that had a serious injury less than a year ago. Perhaps the most encouraging sign was late in the first quarter when Wentz showed his escapability and was cutting and planting on the repaired knee. He escaped pressure, bought time, and fired a strike to tight end Dallas Goedert. Wentz looked to be back at 100-percent and should continue to get better as the season goes on.

On the other side of the ball, the Eagles defense limited the Colts to just 16 points and continued to be stout against the run. If you remove Andrew Luck‘s scramble for 33 yards, the defense only gave up 35 yards rushing on 12 carries. That comes out to around 2.91 yards-per-carry. That’s pretty darn good.

What was even better, was the way the defense was able to limit points after the offense turned the ball over. Two of the turnovers resulted in the Colts starting inside the red zone but resulted in a total of six points. Typically the team that turns the ball over most is the one that loses the game, thanks to the defense the Eagles were able to buck that trend on Sunday. The Eagles were able to show why the saying “defense wins championships” still rings true.