Philadelphia Eagles: How 2 plays may have saved their season

Here’s a story about one play at the end of the first half and one at the beginning of the second half that may have saved the Philadelphia Eagles season.

‘Ultimate Team’ is a game mode in EA Sports’ Madden NFL franchise. Do you ever wonder where they got a cool name like that from? Maybe it came from the ultimate team game, professional football. In Week 8 of 2019’s season, the Philadelphia Eagles came up with the ultimate team win in Orchard Park over a good Buffalo Bills team.

Much of the credit for this one falls on the Eagles walking into the locker room at halftime with a lead for a change. In a game that seemed to be trending in the direction that the Bills wanted it to, Philly made a play at the end of the first half. Then, they made another at the beginning of the second, and in both of those, we may have found two plays that will go a long way in helping turn the season around if Philly goes on to make some noise in 2019.

Let’s take a look at both of them.

With the final moments of the first half ticking away, Philly trailed Buffalo by a score of 7-3. The first play after the two-minute was a designed run by Bills quarterback Josh Allen. Brandon Graham got there, forced a fumble, and set the Eagles up with first and ten inside the Buffalo 25-yard line with 1:53 remaining.

Take a look at the optics.

They’d capitalize with a touchdown pass by Carson Wentz to Dallas Goedert and a two-point conversion on a pitch to Miles Sanders to close the curtain on the first 30 minutes. Just like that, Philly was up by a score of 11-7.

Philly got the ball first in the second half, and we saw a wrinkle, a two-man backfield. We’ve all been critical of bland offense and predictable play-calling by ‘The Birds’, but on this one, we got something new. Rather than the usual ‘throw the ball when Miles Sanders is in and run the ball when Jordan Howard is in’ theory, in what was, arguably, Philly’s most electrifying play of the season so far, Howard played the fullback role while Sanders took the handoff.

Howard threw the key block, and Sanders accelerated to just under 21 miles per hour as he took this one 65 yards for the first rushing touchdown of his career. That’s worth a look.

What a way to get that first one huh? The game was never in doubt after that. Ladies and gentlemen, there’s a lot of football left. Most likely, the only team that makes the playoffs from the NFC East will be the team that wins the division, but if the Eagles go on to make some noise in the remainder of 2019’s regular season, then, there’s no doubt about it. It was these two plays that provided the spark.