The Eagles looked dead in the water.
The offense couldn't move, Saquon Barkley was kept from going anywhere, and A.J. Brown and DeVonta Smith were still quiet in the gameplan.
This looked like their wakeup call, but the defense held it together just long enough for everyone to remember that Philly has two of the best receivers in football, and against some undermatched defensive backs.
Points started piling up, the L.A. Rams' sizable lead suddenly narrowed, then just as quickly, they were down.
And when it came down to field goals, down to the last second, Jalen Carter and Jordan Davis weren't letting anything over their heads.
The Eagles completed a rollercoaster comeback over the Rams, 33-26, on Sunday at Lincoln Financial Field. Jordan Davis blocked and recovered a kick for a walk-off touchdown to save the day – and push Philly to 3-0.
The Birds are still undefeated, just barely. Here's how they pulled it off...
Quick pick
The Eagles had a highly ideal start defensively.
Four plays into the game, Zack Baun tracked the eyes of Rams QB Matthew Stafford, then slid over to jump the route of receiver Davante Adams for the first-quarter pick.
From the jump, the Eagles suddenly had the ball just within Rams territory, which quickly snowballed into a "Tush Push" rushing touchdown for Jalen Hurts and an early 7-0 lead.
Offensively, the Eagles continued to lean on their increasingly controversial signature. But maybe to a fault now.
Stuck in quicksand
The Rams got on the board with a field goal, then forced the Eagles' offense into a three-and-out.
Hurts went eight yards backwards, and Saquon Barkley couldn't find a lane.
Stafford tossed a play-action bomb downfield to Adams for a 44-yard touchdown and a 10-7 L.A. lead, then the Eagles...went nowhere.
Worse yet, Lane Johnson had to exit the game with a neck injury. Matt Pryor took his place at right tackle, but the difference was felt immediately.
Facing a 3rd and 8 within the final minute of Quarter 1, Rams star pass rusher Jared Verse burst across the edge, past Pryor and to Barkley's attention in pass protection.
It left a wide-open hole for L.A. safety Jaylen McCollough to run through, and he leveled Hurts for the sack to force a fourth and long and the punt.
Barkley had nowhere to go on the ground and only had four yards rushing for the quarter, while the Eagles on the whole could only move the ball a net 24 yards and an abysmal minus-2 in passing, accounting for sacks.
The remainder of the half wasn't any better.
The Eagles went three-and-out on all three of their possessions through the second quarter. The defense held strong enough to keep the Rams to three consecutive field goals, but that still built to a 19-7 L.A. lead approaching halftime.
The Linc crowd wasn't happy. Boos met the Eagles as they ran into the tunnel.
Wakeup call
The glass half full view was that the intermission would give the Eagles a chance to breathe, with the benefit of receiving the ball coming back for the second half.
But then John Metchie III muffed the kick return and was met with a wall by the time he recovered the ball and looked up.
The Eagles were pinned back at their own 10-yard line to start, then Verse blew by Pryor again. Hurts was all alone. He got rocked, and the ball went flying out.
The Rams recovered, Stafford flipped that immediately into a touchdown pass to running back Kyren Williams around the edge.
The Eagles were in a 26-7 hole and looked to be sinking quick.
The second-best time is right now
Hurts and the offense would have a do-over on the ensuing chaos, but they were in a spot where they needed to make something happen.
A.J. Brown had been quiet all game and all season, so had DeVonta Smith and Dallas Goedert, much to the scrutiny of offensive coordinator Kevin Patullo, head coach Nick Sirianni, and to an extent, Hurts.
So it seemed like everyone was forced to a point where they opted to throw the ball up and see what happens.
Lo and behold, Hurts to Brown for a big completion downfield:
Hurts went to Smith for a 16-yard gain, then Jahan Dotson for seven more. An unnecessary roughness call for a hit on Smith over the middle pushed the Eagles up 15. Then, after Barkley finally found an opening for a couple of decent runs to take Philly into the red zone, Hurts went to Brown again, this time in the end zone, to cut the lead to just five.
Big stop, big risk, nothing for it
The seconds were ticking down in the third quarter, and the margin for error in a suddenly close game was narrowing down.
Moving into the fourth quarter, the Rams were faced with a 4th and 1 at the Philadelphia 46. They went for it on a run to Williams up the middle.
Davis and Jalen Carter stuffed the attempt. The Eagles took the ball back at midfield on a turnover on downs, setting themselves up for a real chance to take the lead.
Hurts couldn't force the ball through to Brown on the run. They gave the ball right back.
Return to sender
The trade-off allowed the Rams to push forward enough into field goal range.
Stafford went for another to Adams in the end zone on third down, trying to exploit the matchup against safety Reed Blankenship in coverage again, but Blankenship course-corrected and did enough to ensure the incompletion this time around on a throw off the mark.
L.A. sent out the field goal unit for a 36-yard attempt, looking to settle for an eight-point lead pressing late into regulation.
Carter and Davis, once again, had other plans.
They got their hands up in the trenches and in the way of a low kick from L.A.'s Joshua Karty.
The Eagles recovered. No points when up on the board. Momentum swung again, though with a taunting penalty charged to Carter in between that pinned the Eagles back at their own 9.
Take your time
But in a way, that played to the Eagles' advantage, because their offense, even if it was slowly, had gotten into sync. And taking over with under nine minutes left, there's no other team in the NFL better at controlling the clock.
And so they started chipping away.
They, finally, remembered how strong Brown is, and used that power past some undersized Rams DBs through the air, even if they did everything right (like Darious Williams probably did below)...
The Eagles drained minutes off the clock, then with 1:48 left, Hurts got the pass to Smith at the goal line for the touchdown and a 27-26 lead.
Sirianni made a call to go for two. The attempt failed. The game would come down to the defense making one more stop.
Walk it off, big man
But they looked all but cooked.
Stafford, his other star receiver Puka Nacua, and Williams pushed the Rams into field-goal range to set up the walk-off field goal kick for Karty with three seconds left.
Yet somehow, Davis got up and blocked it again, recovered it, too, then took off sprinting toward the opposite end zone for the walk-off touchdown.
The comeback, unbelievably, came complete as the stadium roared in disbelief, then relief.
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