‘Whatever It Takes’

The Philadelphia Eagles finally put forth a win to feel good about in their 28-3 stomping of the divisional rival New York Giants.

On the latest edition of “Q&A” on “Inside The Birds,” former Eagles standouts Quintin Mikell and Jason Avant discussed the Week 7 victory.

GETTY IMAGES: Philadelphia Eagles QB Jalen Hurts had a limited but impressive performance in their victory over the Giants.

Saquon Barkley

Quintin Mikell: “After everything that went down and all the things the fans and media were saying, it had to be very frustrating for him. [We’re] talking about a good person, a leader, he gave everything he could for that organization, just a class act type of person, for the way things went down I know he was running angry and pissed off. I had a feeling that he was going to come out and have a big day.”

Jason Avant: “When you are playing your former team, you want to destroy them, you want to go out and play a game like Saquon had just to remind them you messed around and found out…now he shows you what it’s like when you have help up front.”

Pass Rush

Avant: “Two games ago, they were 29th in the league when it came to sacks. They have jumped all the way up to seventh.”

Mikell: “It’s a mixture of playing bad offenses, better personnel. Scheme-wise, the players are starting to understand this defense. You couple that with a defensive front that is very formidable and you can give them time to get there.”

Cooper DeJean

Avant: “I definitely think DeJean is a better athlete than (Avonte) Maddox and is a better overall tackler and is a better football player when it comes to awareness. That’s the one thing you can look at on film, even if he’s not making the play he is forcing the play back.”

Offense

Mikell: “I don’t think they should be a run-first team, they should be a whatever it takes to win-first team. There’s going to be some games where no matter how hard you try, they are not going to let you just come down and dink and dunk and take big shots down the field, so you adjust the gameplan, get under center, and run the ball when you have to. That’s exactly what happened this week.”

Avant: “I think we should be a run-first team because there is a significant advantage because our offensive line blocks the run extremely well. There were chasms for Saquon. It took him a while and then he popped one. The run game takes a little bit of time to get cooking, but he can take one of those small crevices and make it a 40-yard run. We run block better than we pass protect.”

Jalen Hurts

Avant: “10-for-14 is really good, ball placement and completion percentage is up. But he misses a lot of targets, and the reason is he wants a big play.”

Nick Sirianni

Avant: “I think Sirianni should be himself, just not with fans, especially our fans. If you want to get into with a coach or opposing team and players, just know that there’s a target on your back. You have to be the big brother in the room. Him being less in the media helped the team out this week.”

Mikell: “It gives him an edge, there’s some people that need something to be angry at. It gets him focused on one single thing. With everything that has happened with all of the changes and new coordinators, he has kind of lost himself, so I’m all for crazy Nick.”

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