NFL
NFL Week 10
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The Philadelphia Eagles have beaten the Green Bay Packers 10-7 at Lambeau Field on “Monday Night Football.”
The Eagles are the first team to hold the Packers to seven or fewer points at Lambeau since 2018.
After a scoreless first half, the first in the NFL in nearly two years, Philadelphia finally broke the deadlock with a field goal in the third quarter. The Eagles increased their lead when Jalen Hurts hit DeVonta Smith for a 36-yard touchdown early in the fourth quarter.
Green Bay fought back with a Josh Jacobs rushing touchdown, but couldn't score again. Brandon McManus badly missed a 64-yard field goal attempt as time expired.
The Eagles won their third straight game and improved to 7-2, while the Packers suffered their second straight home loss and fell to 5-3-1.
Share your reactions with us by emailing live@theathletic.com and be sure to check out this week's live coverage schedule on The Athletic.
The Philadelphia Eagles were able to rely on the stellar play of their defense to buy their offense time in a narrow win over another NFC contender. Those conditions are a luxury. The Eagles clammed up offensively on a drive that could have put the game away. The Packers had the ball at their 10 with 2:18 left on the clock. Plenty of time to send the Eagles home in misery. But the Eagles defensive front confronted Packers quarterback Jordan Love with a series of stunts, and eventually, on fourth-and-1, safety Reed Blankenship knocked loose and recovered a fumble from Josh Jacobs that ended the game.
The Packers entered Monday night with an offense tied for the fifth-most yards per play in the NFL (5.9). The Eagles held the Packers to 3.9 yards per play. The Packers reached the Eagles' red zone just once.
Love was flustered for most of the game. He finished 19-of-32 passing for 158 yards — his lowest yardage since a Week 18 loss to the Chicago Bears last season. A defensive front reinforced by newly acquired edge rusher Jaelan Phillips sacked Love three times. Linebacker Nakobe Dean fielded a pivotal two-play sequence in the second quarter in which he blitzed twice. He sacked Love on the second, and Love lost a fumble while trying to get rid of the ball. On a night the Eagles offense looked mostly listless, the defense nearly pitched a shutout in allowing its fewest points of the season.
Even when A.J. Brown doesn't have a big performance, he's still in the news. Brown was targeted twice on the Eagles' opening drive and not again until the final minute of the game. He's only been targeted fewer than four times three times since he came to Philadelphia in 2022 — and he exited one of those games with an injury.
Unless there's a cryptic social media post, Brown's usage likely won't be a major point of discussion. But when searching for ways to make the offense explosive, getting Brown the ball would be a good place to start.
The Eagles offense did not carry the momentum from the bye week into Monday's game, but they did enough to win the game. They spent much of the game in an extended lull, with ineffective early-down plays and uncreative third-down plays. Yet part of the draw of the Eagles is their star power, and those stars made big plays in the fourth quarter.
Saquon Barkley's highlight-worthy spin move turned a five-yard gain into a 41-yard gain. DeVonta Smith, one of the smallest players on the field, showed why he's a jump-ball artist when he made a leaping catch for the first touchdown of the night. It took only two plays. You might have wondered where it had been for the most of the game. That's the vexing part of the offense. It's not a matter of whether they can be explosive — their talent is the envy of the league — but they don't do it consistently enough.
Four of the Packers' first seven drives entered Eagles territory, but none of them ended in points. And this week, Green Bay's first-half offensive struggles of the last month and a half (they have averaged 6.43 points per first half over their last seven games) seeped into the second half. It wasn't until the Packers' eighth drive when they scored, with less than six minutes remaining in the game, their first points coming on a 6-yard touchdown run by Josh Jacobs to cut their deficit to 10-7.
The Packers got the ball back with 2:18 remaining down by three on their own 10-yard line, but they only advanced 34 yards before a Jacobs shotgun run was stuffed on fourth-and-1. The Eagles even gifted them a prime opportunity to send the game to overtime, but the offense could only set Brandon McManus up with a 64-yard field-goal attempt that didn't even come close.
New York Giants general manager Joe Schoen is leading his team's search for a new head coach after Brian Daboll's firing on Monday. He might pull Packers defensive coordinator Jeff Hafley aside for a chat when Green Bay visits MetLife Stadium next Sunday.
Hafley's unit dominated against the defending Super Bowl champions for the majority of Monday night's game at Lambeau Field, but there's only so much a once-again stout defense could do for an inept offense. Perhaps the best chance the Packers have of retaining Hafley is if they fire head coach Matt LaFleur and promote Hafley. And perhaps that's now not as farfetched as it once seemed.
Despite their loss tonight, the Packers’ playoff odds have only decreased slightly, down to 81 percent from 87 percent before the game.
Green Bay’s odds of hosting a wild-card round game took a similar hit, down to a 31-percent chance from a 36-percent chance pregame.
The most likely scenario for the Packers right now is getting in as a wild-card team — their chances of doing so currently sit at 48 percent. Green Bay also has a 19 percent chance of missing the playoffs entirely.
Check out our simulator here to see how the rest of the Eagles’ games could effect their playoff chances!
WR DeVonta Smith on the fourth-down decision by the Eagles’ coaching staff on the team’s last drive, which ended in an incompletion from Jalen Hurts to A.J. Brown and gave the Packers a chance for the tie:
💬 “We got all the trust in those guys. Whatever 1 (Hurts) and 11 (Brown) want to do, if that’s what they called and want to do, we roll with it.”
WR DeVonta Smith on his touchdown in a low-scoring game:
💬 “It takes a lot of focus. You gotta make those big-time plays. With the offense and the way we were struggling, all of us was saying, ‘Somebody’s gotta go out here and make a play.’ Saquon (Barkley) got the big run before me, and I got the big catch.”
Eagles WR DeVonta Smith on the defenses in tonight’s 10-7 game:
💬 “Those are two great defenses. Both sides came out and played their best ball. I think at the end of the day, it came down to making a few plays that made a difference. At the end of the game … as an offense, we pride ourselves on finishing with the ball in our hands. We didn’t do that, but the defense went out there and closed it out.”
The defending Super Bowl champions are right back in prime time six days from now. The Eagles return home to host another NFC North opponent, the Detroit Lions, on “Sunday Night Football” in Philadelphia.
Expect some more points in that one, especially with head coach Dan Campbell taking over offensive play-calling duties for Detroit.
Green Bay will have a great opportunity to snap its two-game slide as the Packers head on the road to face a New York Giants team that just fired its head coach earlier today. The Giants may also be without promising rookie quarterback Jaxson Dart, who exited Sunday’s loss in Chicago with a concussion.
That game will kick off at 1 p.m. ET on Fox.
Matt LaFleur speaking after the Packers' loss: “Obviously didn’t do enough offensively.” He said there are no moral victories from tonight, but he was proud of the team's effort until the end.
Asked why the offense hasn’t been humming consistently since the start of the season, he responds: “I don’t think I’d be answering the question if I had the answers for it.
“You gotta find a way to score more points and it starts with myself and there’s a level of execution that goes with that, as well.”
On choosing to attempt a field goal over a Hail Mary on the final play: “The information I got was that (Brandon McManus) was close when he took the swing at the 64-yarder.” He adds that trying a Hail Mary definitely crossed his mind.
Finally, on center Elgton Jenkins’ ankle injury: “It doesn’t sound promising.”
Using our wonderfully handy playoff simulator here at The Athletic, we were able to tell you before the game that Austin Mock’s model showed the Eagles with a 23 percent chance of earning the NFC’s No. 1 seed and a bye to the divisional round, and a 75 percent chance of hosting a wild-card round game. (Philadelphia, with its wide lead in the NFC East, was already at a 99 percent chance of making the playoffs before this win.)
With the Eagles’ win tonight, those numbers have jumped to a 35 percent chance of the No. 1 seed and a 64 percent chance of hosting a wild-card game, per our simulator.
Check out our simulator here to see how the rest of the Eagles’ games could effect their playoff seeding!
Above are the updated NFC North standings. The Detroit Lions and Chicago Bears remain tied for the division lead.
The Green Bay Packers, after their loss tonight, are in solo third place. They sit 1/2 game back of the Lions and Bears. Green Bay has one game against Detroit, two versus Chicago and two versus Minnesota remaining.
So far, their lone division game was a win over the Lions in Week 1.
Above are the updated NFC East standings. With the Eagles improving to 7-2, they are 3 1/2 games clear of the Dallas Cowboys, who are in second place.
Notably, Philadelphia has a very low point differential (+26) relative to their strong record.
Eagles WR DeVonta Smith on the ESPN postgame show speaking about the Philadelphia fans in Green Bay:
💬 “Best fans in the world, man. They’re going to come out, no matter where we’re going, they’re going to be there.”
On the biggest play of the game, the Philadelphia Eagles defense was not fooled at all…
That's a bad look for Matt LaFleur and Green Bay.
Aside from Josh Jacobs and the improvisational ability of Jordan Love, there are too many inconsistencies on the Packers offense – especially with Tucker Kraft out for the year.
All eyes remain on Matt LaFleur.
Talk about a strong first impression …
In his first game as an Eagle, Jaelan Phillips paid immediate dividends for Philadelphia, recording six total tackles including a tackle for loss on Green Bay's fourth-and-1 attempt with Josh Jacobs late in the fourth quarter.