The Philadelphia Eagles are 10-2 after losing to the San Francisco 49ers at Lincoln Financial Field. Final score: 42 to 19. The Eagles actually got off to a nice start in this one in terms of moving the ball with 120 yards on their first two drives. But stalling out in the red zone twice to settle for Jake Elliott field goals only resulted in a 6 to 0 lead. Allowing the 49ers to hang out proved to be costly. San Francisco took advantage by going on two long touchdown drives to go into halftime up eight points. The 49ers then started the second half with another long touchdown drive to go up 21 to 6. Kyle Shanahan did a nice job of putting the 49ers in position to take advantage of weak points in the Eagles’ defense (see: Eli Ricks, Nicholas Morrow). It looked like the Birds might have life after scoring a touchdown on a drive where Dre Greenlaw and Eagles senior advisor to the general manager/chief security officer Dom DiSandro got ejected in a sideline scuffle after a 49ers penalty. Philly was able to cut the lead to one score. But then the 49ers came right back and answered with a huge Deebo Samuel catch-and-run after a Morrow missed tackle to make it 28 to 13. Facing 4th-and-2 from their own 32-yard line after allowing four straight touchdowns, Nick Sirianni essentially waived a white flag and punted. The 49ers took advantage to find their fifth touchdown. Fin. Adding injury to insult, Jalen Hurts left the game to be evaluated for a concussion. He did return after Marcus Mariota took over for several snaps. But it was for naught with the game already out of reach. Congratulations to the 49ers on their Super Bowl.
They played like the much better team and retroactively won the 2022 NFC Championship Game with this win. All joking aside, not a comforting feeling to see the Eagles get outclassed like that. Especially in the trenches. The Eagles will try to rebound with a very tough road matchup against the Dallas Cowboys coming up in Week 14. Their opponent will be coming off extra rest having last played on Thursday night. They’ll have to dig deep and find a way to win in order to hold on to their lead in the NFC East and the conference as a whole. It will not be easy. But the Eagles still have a very viable path to the No. 1 seed ahead of them if they don’t totally collapse. Read on for a recap and stay tuned for BGN’s postgame coverage, including the BGN Radio postgame show.
FIRST QUARTER The 49ers won the coin toss and elected to defer, putting the Eagles’ offense on the field first. Jalen Hurts had a ton of time to throw on his first dropback but checked down to D’Andre Swift, who couldn’t hang on after being hit by Fred Warner. Swift took his first carry for a yard. Facing 3rd-and-9, Hurts hit a crossing A.J. Brown for a 38-yard catch-and-run into Eagles territory. Big pop from the Eagles home crowd. The Eagles did a good job of picking up a blitz to give
Hurts time to hit a crossing Quez Watkins (!) for another first down. Facing 3rd-and-6, a bubble screen to Kenny Gainwell (!) picked up enough for a first down at the 11. Facing 3rd-and-7 from the 8-yard line, Charvarius Ward had great 1-on-1 coverage on Brown to knock down Hurts’ back shoulder pass attempt. The Eagles settled for a 26-yard field goal from Jake Elliott. Encouraging to move the ball well but annoying to only get three points. EAGLES 3, 49ERS 0. Deebo Samuel took the Eagles’ kickoff out of the end zone to the 27-yard line. Genius idea to have him unnecessarily take extra hits. Brock Purdy’s first pass was batted down at the line by big man Jordan Davis.
Haason Reddick sacked Purdy to bring up third down. Facing 3rd-and-12, Purdy got hit by Josh Sweat and airmailed a pass to the sideline for a 49ers three-and-out. Another strong start by Sean Desai’s unit. The 49ers have 52 first-drive points this season – the most in the NFL. That was a big 3-and-out forced by the Eagles. #flyeaglesfly #49ers— Don Bell (@DonBellonCBS3) December 3, 2023 The Eagles took over at their own 26-yard line.
