Week 10: Eagles' Studs And Duds
PHILADELPHIA (CBS) --- To dominate, according to the definition, is to have a commanding influence on; exercise control over.
That's what the Eagles did to the Carolina Panthers on Monday Night, en route to a 45-21 slaughtering. The Eagles had nine sacks and five turnovers, as they manhandled Cam Newton, improving to 7-2 on the season.
In his last 17 regular season games, Chip Kelly is now 14-3, and has won nine straight contests at Lincoln Financial Field. If you're not on the Chip bus yet, we can make room, but it's getting crowded.
Duds
3. Zach Ertz
Ertz turned 24-years-old yesterday and many expected him to have a monster game, but once again, Ertz was quiet catching only one ball for 17 yards, on three targets.
2. Riley Cooper
Absent. One catch for six yards on four targets. Yuck. Coop did have a nice block to spring Darren Sproles on a first quarter eight-yard touchdown run, but that's about it.
1. Rushing Attack
The Eagles only amassed 37 rushing yards on 23 carries. LeSean McCoy had just 19 yards on 12 carries. A lot of this was game flow as Carolina played man-to-man and loaded the box all night, forcing Sanchez to beat them with his arm, which he kind of did, but I have to pick three duds and that is the only real concern this morning.
With that said, I'm not concerned. Chip does what works. He doesn't care how the Eagles move the ball, we've seen that enough times by now to realize it.
Studs
3. Jordan Matthews
Matthews led the team with a career high 138 receiving yards on seven receptions, scoring two touchdowns. He joined Jeremy Maclin as the only Eagles rookies ever with at least 130 yards and two touchdowns in the same game.
2. Mark Sanchez
In his first full game in Chip's offense, Sanchez has only his second career 300+ yard / 100+ QB rating performance. Sanchez finished the game 20-37, 332 yards, two touchdowns, and most important, zero turnovers. Sanchez's 332 passing yards was the fourth highest output in his career. He was truly impressive in his first start since December 30th, 2012.
1. Connor Barwin
Could have put the entire defense as the No. 1 stud of the game, and give a ton of credit to Billy Davis, but Barwin really was the studliest of studs on Monday night. Barwin had 3.5 of the Eagles' nine sacks. It was his second three-sack game of the season and he now has 10.5 sacks on the season, second best in the NFL. Barwin became the fifth Eagle with two three-sack games in the same season and his three multi-sack games this year are a career high.
As a team, the Eagles have 32 sacks, second best in the NFL behind the Bills (34).
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