PHILADELPHIA — It wasn’t only the Septemberesque sunshine, mild temperatures and extended tailgating hours that gave off so many familiar vibes at Lincoln Financial Field Sunday. There were other less pleasurable pursuits.
Like that of an exhausted Eagles defense trying to prevent dashing young Panthers quarterback Bryce Young from ruining everybody’s day.
Along the way, such misdemeanors as pocket indecision for Jalen Hurts, and brief reappearance of frustration by A.J. Brown, who made four catches on only four targets but effectively spiked a helmet at the bench along the way, had served to refresh the September spirit.
There was also the often fruitless chasing of Young, who at the very least proved the past Panthers month wasn’t a fluke, while threatening to find a way to end the Eagles’ two-month-long winning streak.
Offensively, the home team spent a lot of this throwback day looking like the 2-2 pretenders of the season’s first full month, rather than the Super Bowl contenders of the past eight straight winning weeks. But befitting a “trap game” definition, this one would come down to one final Panthers pursuit in which the Birds’ battered but not beaten secondary guys would be asked for one more bailout.
That wouldn’t be so easy, since … “I was tired, man,” Darius “Big Play” Slay would say.
And then there was CJ Gardner-Johnson, who had twice been apparently injured and twice fought his way back into the game. On his state of body during that final call to duty: “I was just gassed.”
The two warhorses had already given everything they had to give Hurts and Co. time to assume offensive control over a Panthers team that had lost seven of its first eight games, yet over the past four had gone 2-2 with only three-point losses to defending Super Bowl champion Kansas City and tough Tampa Bay.
With that in mind and a 22-16 Eagles win having just been completed with so many taped fingers crossed on one final, fourth-down play, it was easy to do the usual verbal pat on the heads of the valiant losers.
“This team’s good,” Slay said of the 3-10 Panthers. “They’re just a couple plays short … and that last drive there, they were just one play short.”
One play, perhaps, but with two superb chances to pull it off.
First there was Young, getting enough protection, spotting fast, youthful receiver Xavier Legette race right past both Slay and Gardner-Johnson toward an open end zone. There was a release of a perfect pass, then celebrating an apparent touchdown catch … only to see it wasn’t a catch at all.
Legette was spotted first by an official, then by the cameras letting loose the football only an instant before he hit the turf all by himself at the 2-yard line.
Incomplete … with a touch of divine intervention?
“I misjudged the ball,” Gardner-Johnson said. “If I had jumped, I’d have picked it. But … shoutout to the ref.”
Asked if he felt relief when he saw the official indicate a Legette drop, Gardner-Johnson said, “Ah, a lot. But it’s physical ball. Things happen.”
Perhaps the way Gardner-Johnson had introduced himself to Legette early in the game wound up playing a part in that drop in the game’s last minute. He had tattooed the young receiver with a perfect tackle that had sent him briefly to the medical tent early on.
No concussion there, but on the other side, Gardner-Johnson’s violent piece of football perfection had an effect on him, too. After all, he’d end up making two trips to the Eagles’ medical tent.
“I’m playing hard for the guys, just going out there and showing I still have it in me,” Gardner-Johnson said. “Regardless of how I’m feeling, it feeds onto everybody else.”
While he refused to say whether that highlight of a hit had left a physical reminder with him, Gardner-Johnson insistent his second early exit from the game didn’t have anything to do with that. Instead, it was just “friendly fire” with an accidental attack from the flank.
“My ass hurts, Bro,” Gardner-Johnson said. “I got hit there. Excuse my language, but that (stuff) hurts. I’m not going to say any names but we’re going to talk tomorrow.”
Aside from the suspected coccyx crash, Gardner-Johnson had a stroke of fortune on that Legette drop on the Panthers’ second-and-4 at the Eagles 32 with under a minute remaining. But just after, on a fourth-and-9 at the 37, the elusive Young scrambled back, escaped to the left, and seemed to have wily 34-year-old possession receiver Adam Thielen open for a first down, still with time to win the game.
But Slay, with maybe his last gasp, stretched out and made a play on that pass to allow the Eagles to escape with a ninth consecutive win. Again, there was something very familiar about it all, since longtime Detroit Lion Slay and longtime Minnesota Viking Thielen had gone head to head so many times before.
“I just knew one thing about Thielen, playing him so long when he was at Minnesota, that he’s a great scramble (receiver) … he keeps working toward the quarterback. I came from all the way from the other side … I was gassed, and I was like, ‘Hey, if he throws the ball, I’m going to make this play over here.’”
Just as the nickname says he will.
“Thankfully I did,” Slay said of the last Big Play, “because that (previous) post ball … I was gassed. I was so gassed. And (Legette) ran a good route. I was trying to guess. I guessed wrong. But the Lord blessed me (with) another chance to make another play.”
Contact Rob Parent at rparent@delcotimes.com
Source: Berkshire mont
Be First to Comment