The Eagles sputtered on offense early but were picked up by an excellent pass rush, and Philadelphia heads into halftime with a 10-6 lead over the Bears.

Here's what I saw in the first 30 minutes.

The Good

• Save for one disastrous drive for Philadelphia, the Bears did not exactly pose much of a challenge with Justin Fields at the helm. The bulk of their offense consisted of quarterback runs and short passes the Eagles broke on quickly. But you can't fault them for simply taking care of business against a pedestrian opponent, because it allowed their counterparts on offense to get away with a slow start to the game.

The early play of the half for Philadelphia was a big third-down sack of Fields, and it should surprise no one that Josh Sweat made the first impact play of the day. Sweat seems to be growing in stature with each passing week, and he added to a considerable hot streak with Sunday's early sack, setting a new career high in QB takedowns.

With pressure from guys like Sweat on the edges, the work gets that much easier for the big boys in the middle of the line. Javon Hargrave picked up sack No. 9 to end a Bears series in the closing moments of the first quarter, bulldozing through the interior for another stop.

You probably don't need a reminder at this point, but Philadelphia's defensive front has been fantastic after a shaky start to the season, justifying the significant investments made in the unit. This says it all about the jump in performance:

• MORE ON THE EAGLES
• Live updates / open thread, Week 15: Eagles 10, Bears 6
  
• Eagles power ranking roundup: Week 15
  
• Mailbag: Could the Eagles have two 1,000-yard rushers and receivers, and how rare would that be?
  

When you win in the trenches, you're going to win a lot of football games. But as we've noted throughout the season, this is also a product of Philadelphia's improved secondary play, which has bought the line more time to get to the quarterback. We don't need to play "chicken or the egg?" with this group, they are operating with machine-like efficiency at all levels.

• DeVonta Smith has faded into the background at times this season, not through fault of his own but because the Eagles have so many weapons to spread the ball around to. But he has been in a groove lately, and he continued carving up opposing secondaries in a nice first half in Chicago.

Jalen Hurts deserves a lot of the credit for the improvisational play these two hooked up on in the first quarter, tossing one up with just enough arc to fall to Smith as he fell out of bounds. You still see all the things that make Smith special in that moment, though — the second-year receiver sees the play going off-script, locks eyes with the quarterback, and uses excellent footwork along the sideline to come up with the catch and extend the series.

The bigger plays came later. On Philadelphia's first scoring drive of the day, Smith streaked open over the middle and added a ton of yards after the catch, single-handedly bringing the Eagles into field goal range. They would stall out before reaching the end zone, but his half was far from over. With the Eagles down by three points and about to give the ball back to Chicago in the final minutes of the half, Smith and Hurts hooked up on a deep shot, connecting on a beautiful pitch-and-catch that put Smith over 100 yards for the day.

It has been a little something different each week for Smith, who can kill you with 1000 cuts just as easily as he has with big plays in this one. And after Smith put them in scoring territory late in the half, it was up for Hurts to do the rest. The Eagles made a terrific play call for a designed Hurts run in the final minute of the half. The Bears sent a blitz and had their secondary focused on protecting the sidelines to keep the clock running, so nobody came close to Hurts on one of his easiest touchdown runs of the year:

It was not a good half for the Eagles' offense overall, but they finally found their footing late and are in a great position to take over the game in the second half. 

• Nobody shone brighter for the Eagles than Haason Reddick, who walked away from the first half with multiple sacks, a forced fumble, and a performance that only got better as the half wore on. The Bears had no man and no plan to deal with him, Reddick using speed to run straight by the offensive line and into Fields' grill.

The Bad

• Philadelphia's first series looked like it would be another addition to the Hurts MVP reel, with Hurts delivering a beautiful, lofted throw down the sideline that fell right into Smith's hands for a first down. They had nothing early and protection wasn't holding up, so Hurts' use of his legs bought them just enough time to come up with a big play.

One play later, Hurts threw one of the single-worst passes of his season and arguably one of the worst of his career. The decision-making was fine, as it looked like A.J. Brown had the space to come down with a catch, but the ball never got anywhere close to Brown. Just a bad, bad toss from Hurts, who hasn't had many of those this year.

• There were a lot of complaints about Philadelphia's play calling in the first half, and I'm inclined to agree that they skewed a bit too pass-heavy. In this sort of environment, I always tend to believe run-heavy plans have more merit — guys do not want to get repeatedly battered when the temperature adds a bit more pain to every hit, and you have an easier time inflicting pain and suffering by running the ball and playing downhill. Miles Sanders is in the midst of a terrific season and was barely able to impact the game in the opening 30 minutes. It was a strange half from a group that has been in a play calling groove for nearly 13 straight weeks, and you would hope they find more of a balance as the day goes on.

• The Eagles were inches away from a game-breaking play early in the second quarter if only Fletcher Cox had been able to pounce on a fumble caused by Reddick. Full credit to Reddick for an excellent play, as he drilled an unsuspecting Fields for his 11th sack of the year and sent the ball flying in the wrong direction for Chicago. Even though Cox didn't get there, it felt like the damage was done and the Bears would limp off the field with no points again.

Philadelphia completely lost the plot after that play. Reddick was on the verge of his second consecutive sack when Fields broke away from the tackle, spun out of the pocket, and nearly put together one of the greatest QB runs of all-time. If Fields hadn't stepped out of bounds around the nine-yard line, the Eagles would have been on the receiving end of an all-time highlight, and as it was, they have to feel ashamed at Fields carving them up so easily while working out of such a big hole.

• The day went from bad to worse for Hurts and the Eagles after Chicago's opening touchdown. On first glance, this is another one of Hurts' worst plays of the year, a telegraphed throw that fell into the arms of the safety for Chicago's second takeaway of the day.

Watching the replay, I'm not sure you can pile on Hurts for his second interception of the day. The QB looked like he was expecting Quez Watkins to break sooner and harder on his route, and when he didn't, the turnover that followed was pretty much inevitable. 

Regardless of who the blame goes to, the Eagles' offense was miserable for basically the entire first half, and they have no excuses that are good enough against perhaps the worst defense in football. Hurts has to snap back to MVP form quickly.

The Ugly

• Ndamukong Suh took a big swing at Fields on his way to the ground and was lucky not to get called for the blow to the head.

• Coming off of the World Cup Final, which was maybe the best championship game of all time, it was pretty rough transitioning to an Eagles-Bears game that featured a penalty on the opening kickoff and two of the first three plays from scrimmage. Add on a couple of injuries for the Bears, and the first three minutes of the game took over 15 minutes. Going from the adrenaline rush of that game to an absolute slog against a bad Bears team was, well, not ideal.

While we're on the subject of those injuries, the field conditions looked absolutely horrific as soon as they showed the field on the broadcast. The middle of the field looked like a jigsaw piece they'd just slapped on at the last minute, and with the conditions in Chicago, you have to worry about the Birds making it out of this game unscathed.

• I don't care how cold and windy it is, the Bears' decision to take a delay of game and punt toward the end of the first half is one of the most cowardly things I've seen in a football game. If you can't trust your kicker to attempt a field goal from 47-ish yards in a game that doesn't really mean anything for you, why would you even roster the guy?

Follow Kyle on Twitter: @KyleNeubeck

Like us on Facebook: PhillyVoice Sports