Somewhere around the turn of the 1950s, not that there is any particular audio evidence, then-NFL commissioner Bert Bell was credited with a statement that became a policy, and a policy that became a legend.
Since then, only a scattered handful of teams have been able to draw it into debate.
The Eagles, who improved to 5-0 Sunday with a 23-14 victory against the host Los Angeles Rams, have a chance to be one of those teams.
Bell’s declaration – so repeated by so many for so many years that it once birthed a movie title – was that, “On any given Sunday, any team can beat any other team in the NFL.”
Not necessarily. Not the way the Eagles are playing. Not with how they played Sunday. Not with how they have rolled more than a quarter of the way into a post-Super Bowl season undefeated.
In a game they trailed for all of 32 seconds, the Eagles came at the Rams in shifts, with different players taking different turns dominating the game. Early, it was Dallas Goedert. Late, it was Haason Reddick. When passing was needed, A.J. Brown was there. When it was time to run, D’Andre Swift was irrepressible. Jalen Hurts was consistent throughout, but only because the offensive line was so forceful that the Rams’ defense too seldom was able to blunt a drive.
In particular, Aaron Donald, who has consistently disrupted offenses during his 10th-year career, was pushed wherever the offensive line decided he should be pushed. In limiting him to five tackles, the Eagles’ offensive line made the presumptive Hall of Famer useless.
“Man, there is nobody else I’d like to have than those five, six, seven guys that are in that rotation,” Nick Sirianni said, “and to have (offensive line) Coach (Jeff) Stoutland coaching them up.”
The Eagles unloaded four scoring drives of at least 10 plays, winning with relative comfort on a day when DeVonta Smith caught only one pass – a situation that opened opportunities for Goedert, who had 117 receiving yards and a touchdown.
The Eagles simply have too many offensive threats for any defense to handle.
”It all depends on what the defense is going to do to us, who the defense wants to stop and what the game plan looks like going into the week,” Goedert said. “It changes every week. We’ve got a very special offense. We can run the ball. We have great running backs. We have great receivers on the outside. So you just have to be ready for your opportunities when they come.”
With a scent of truth – but also as a function of Sirianni’s policy of small increments of improvement – the Eagles are reluctant to declare themselves fit to run it back to the Super Bowl. And it’s been settled by acclamation that their toughest regular-season games are still to come. Miami will visit. There will be a Super Bowl rematch in Kansas City. Buffalo and San Francisco will be in the Linc. There will be two Dallas Weeks. Such are the charms of a first-place schedule.
But Sirianni’s team has won 22 of its last 25 regular-season games, and 26 of its last 30 in a league theoretically built on the promise of an upset. The Eagles are one of those historically rare teams that do not stumble.
“It’s very rewarding to get a win against a really good team, a team that won the NFC and the Super Bowl two years ago,” Hurts said. “So we want to keep going.”
A week earlier, the Eagles won in overtime, but not the easy way. First, they had to stop the Commanders, then they needed a walk-off field goal. By playoff-seeding time, it will look like a blowout.
“We won in a different way than we’ve had to win so far this year,” Sirianni said at the time. “I think that builds character. I think that builds a tighter team. I think that builds trust. Defense comes out, they make a stop, the offense goes out and drives the ball into a position to score and the special teams converts to make a play.
“Those are all team-building things.”
By Sunday, the Eagles had built enough to barely give the Rams a chance, winning on the road with whatever way they chose to win on the road. Their mistakes were minimal. Their confidence sharp. Their execution exceptional. Their record still perfect.
“This is a result-based business,” Hurts said. “So you’re judged on what you do and the outcome of what you do. No one really cares how you do it. They just want to see if you win or if you lose or if it works or if it doesn’t. However we find a way to do that – whether it’s 150 yards by one guy toting the ball or if a guy has a hot hand, whatever it is – wining is the main thing. There is nothing more important than that. And challenging yourself every day to work to a standard that you desire is a priority as well. And, so, we just continue to grow.”
If so, the best is ahead for a team that may not be solved, no matter how a long-ago policy reads.
Source: Berkshire mont
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