Good:
-Barkley only put up 60 yards and 3.3 YPC, that would've been his 3rd lowest rushing yard total and 3rd lowest YPC last season, including the playoffs
-Run game variety and the OL's interior run blocking
-Kenneth Murray looks like a legit find in this defense, if Overshown can somehow stay healthy they're going to be two very effective weapons against mobile QB's as spies
-Outside of the random Dotson bomb Hurts was 18/22 for 101 yards, and only had 14 yards rushing in the second half
-Kneeland is going to be a stud, he whipped their TE's in the run game, beat Lane Johnson several times in both the run game and pass protection, and of course had the sack (or half sack)
-AJ Brown and Devonta Smith combined for 4 catches for 24 yards
-Kenny Clark is as advertised, he kind of just quietly does the dirty work but there is no chance in hell we bottle up Barkley like that without him. I quite literally would rather have Clark than Parsons in these matchups with this version of the Eagles, given how the rest of the roster is structured, even if that's not true in probably 80% of the games. I just wish he was 3 years younger
-Ezeiruaku is probably only going to be a "designated pass rusher" this year but the way he beat Mailata cleanly in the 4th shows me he has the type of pass rush ability I was expecting out of him, it just might take some time to really put it all together. He's going to put up double digit sacks at some point in his career
-Javonte Williams looks capable as a grinder who can keep the offense on schedule but we need Blue to get it together so we can have some explosiveness out of the backfield
-Fowler flashed a bit as well when he beat Mailata around the edge, but I think he needs to be a designated pass rusher as well, Kneeland and Williams should be the starters who play the majority of the snaps in base/neutral situations
-James Houston is apparently a very capable deep rotational piece
-Dak was really good, despite the recent protestations
-We should just make Aubrey the highest paid kicker in the league and get it over with, the guy is too special
-Very few sloppy penalties overall
-Toia looked surprisingly passable, even if Barkley's big runs (and they weren't even that big) came when he was on the field
Bad:
-Lamb obviously but he'll get it together, cost us this one though
-Sanders needs to be inactive as soon as Blue is ready, and gone as soon as Mafah is back off IR
-Guyton is very inconsistent, sometimes looking completely incompetent like last year and looking somewhat decent at others. Steele is also still quite mediocre, I think OT is going to be our biggest need next year with our two 1's one way or the other
-Both Diggs and Bland had free runs on Hurts and whiffed, not great considering Eberflus loves blitzing CB's out of the slot
-Pickens is an enigma because he's a perfect fit opposite Lamb and I think really opens things up for the passing game overall, but he's still an idiot. On an incomplete deep ball in the first half he grabbed the DB's ankle after the play for literally no reason, and then later on had a completely unnecessary personal foul on a routine block on a run play that turned a 2nd and 7 in the red zone to a 1st and 22 just outside of the red zone. Not sure what to do with him but for now you just have to ride the rollercoaster
-The Turpin stuff feels a bit forced but it's clear they like him ahead of Tolbert
That 2021 Tampa game was sort of exactly how I felt about tonight's game, we unexpectedly played well (arguably even better) than the supposedly stronger team on the road celebrating a Super Bowl from the previous year, and losing by the thinnest of margins. The defense is what I'm really encouraged about though, the pass rush won't be quite as explosive but they look like they're going to be much more fundamentally sound overall.
