By Matt Schneidman, Zach Berman, Brooks Kubena and Amos Morale III
Points were hard to come by Monday night at Lambeau Field. But the Philadelphia Eagles scored enough to pick up their seventh win of the season, a 10-7 victory against the Green Bay Packers.
The game featured the first scoreless half since 2023. Eagles kicker Jake Elliot broke the stalemate in the third quarter with a 39-yard field goal.
The Eagles padded their lead in the fourth quarter when quarterback Jalen Hurts connected with DeVonta Smith for a 36-yard touchdown pass.
The Packers answered with a touchdown of their own, a 6-yard score from Josh Jacobs, and found themselves within a score-tying field goal attempt with seconds to play, but Brandon McManus’ 64-yard attempt was no good.
Eagles do enough
The Eagles offense did not carry the momentum from the bye week into Monday’s game, but it did enough to win. It spent much of the game in an extended lull, with ineffective early-down plays and uncreative third-down plays. Yet part of the draw of the Eagles is their star power, and those stars made big plays in the fourth quarter. Saquon Barkley’s highlight-worthy spin move turned a 5-yard gain into a 41-yard gain.
Smith, one of the smallest players on the field, showed why he’s a jump-ball artist when he made a leaping catch for the first touchdown of the night. It took only two plays. You might have wondered where it had been for most of the game. That’s the vexing part of the offense. It’s not a matter of whether it can be explosive — its talent is the envy of the league — but it doesn’t do it consistently enough. — Zach Berman, Eagles beat writer
Another quiet game for A.J. Brown
Even when Brown doesn’t have a big performance, he’s still in the news. Brown was targeted twice on the Eagles’ opening drive and not again until the final minute of the game. He’s had fewer than four targets in only three games since arriving in Philadelphia in 2022 — and he exited one of those games with an injury. Unless there’s a cryptic social media post, Brown’s usage won’t likely be a major point of discussion. But when searching for ways to make the offense explosive, getting Brown the ball would be a good place to start. — Berman
Enjoying the luxury
The Eagles relied on the stellar play of their defense to buy their offense time in a narrow win over another NFC contender. Those conditions are a luxury. The Eagles clammed up offensively on a drive that could have put the game away. The Packers had the ball at their 10 with 2:18 left, plenty of time to send the Eagles home in misery. But the Eagles defensive front confronted Packers quarterback Jordan Love with a series of stunts, and eventually, on fourth-and-1, pass rusher Jaelan Phillips knocked loose and recovered a fumble from Jacobs that ended the game.
The Packers entered Monday night with an offense tied for the fifth-most yards per play in the NFL (5.9). The Eagles held the Packers to 3.9 yards per play. The Packers reached the red zone just once — and they scored their only touchdown. Love was flustered for most of the game. He was 19-of-32 passing for 158 yards — his lowest yardage since a Week 18 loss to the Chicago Bears last season.
A defensive front reinforced by the newly acquired Phillips sacked Love three times. Linebacker Nakobe Dean fielded a pivotal two-play sequence in the second quarter in which he blitzed twice. He sacked Love on the second, and Love lost a fumble while trying to get rid of the ball. On a night the Eagles offense looked mostly listless, the defense nearly pitched a shutout in allowing its fewest points of the season. — Brooks Kubena, Eagles beat writer
Packers defense impresses
New York Giants general manager Joe Schoen is leading his team’s search for a new coach after Brian Daboll’s firing Monday. He might pull Packers defensive coordinator Jeff Hafley aside for a chat when Green Bay visits MetLife Stadium on Sunday. Hafley’s unit dominated the defending Super Bowl champions for the majority of Monday night’s game, but there’s only so much a stout defense could do for an inept offense. Perhaps the best chance the Packers have of retaining Hafley is if they fire coach Matt LaFleur and promote Hafley. And perhaps that’s now not as far-fetched as it once seemed. — Matt Schneidman, Packers beat writer
Where are the points?
Four of the Packers’ first seven drives entered Eagles territory, but none of them ended in points. Green Bay has averaged only 6.43 points in the first half over its past seven games, and those struggles seeped into the second half Monday. It wasn’t until their eighth drive that the Packers scored — with less than six minutes remaining — on a 6-yard touchdown run by Jacobs to cut their deficit to 10-7.
The Packers got the ball back with 2:18 remaining, down by 3 on their own 10-yard line, but they advanced only 34 yards before a Jacobs shotgun run was stuffed on fourth-and-1. The Eagles even gave them a prime opportunity to send the game to overtime, but the offense could only set McManus up with a 64-yard field goal attempt that didn’t even come close. — Schneidman
