‘Unstoppable’

The Philadelphia Eagles showed off their revamped team in the 34-29 victory over the Green Bay Packers.

On the latest episode of “Q&A” of “Inside The Birds”, former Eagles Jason Avant and Quintin Mikell offered their perspectives of the Week 1 win. 

GETTY IMAGES: RB Saquon Barkley had a dynamic debut in his first game with the Philadelphia Eagles.

Kellen Moore

Quintin Mikell: “I noticed experienced, composed play calling. Play calling that made sense, that put stars in position to make plays…a smart play caller, creative, he spread the ball around, got his playmakers the ball in position to do damage. That’s really all you want. You have all of these weapons: use them.”

Jason Avant: “The one thing that you saw consistently was guys running wide open. It wasn’t a bunch of contested catches, it wasn’t a bunch of insane hero ball type of plays…a lot of times, these guys were arm free and in space. On third downs, there was a lot of room and space for Jalen Hurts to be accurate…You saw the motion, you saw the attention to detail in how fast the ball was snapped, you saw the balance. Besides the mistakes of Hurts, this offense looked unstoppable at times…It looked like we went from a J.V. offense to an NFL offense again.”

Saquon Barkley

Avant: “He looked like the person that they were designing the offense for which I like because you don’t pay a guy that type of money and not feature him. You have to give him the same looks that Christian McCaffrey has because he is probably your most special player because he is the hardest to guard when it comes to running the rock, when it comes to pass coverage, he has the best matchup each and every time.”

Jalen Hurts

Mikell: “At times he looked brilliant, accurate, looked like he had poise. And some plays it was just like ‘what were you thinking there’? That first interception he threw, we’re barely into the first drive and I don’t know what he saw. He threw the middle read and there were like five DBs right there.”

Vic Fangio

Mikell: “The biggest thing I noticed from watching the tape was seeing linebackers playing downhill and shooting gaps, almost looking like pressures sometimes. I love the fact that linebackers are playing more aggressive, the d-line is always going to be good, the secondary is mixing up coverages. You have some young talent mixed in with some older talent. It’s coming together very nicely and the biggest thing that Vic Fangio brings to the table is that experience and the ability to teach and show different things to an opposing team and that is something that has been missing for a very long time.”

Avant: “The defensive gameplan was solid…but run integrity was not there. [The Packers] averaged 7.8 yards-per-carry versus us and they refused to run it at times…our run fits were all the way off and that’s a Fangio thing. You have to get the guys ready to play.”

– Benjamin Paul is a staff writer for InsideTheBirds.com.