The Linc – Eagles’ Super Bowl loss put A.J. Brown on a mission

Philadelphia Eagles news and links for 11/20/23.

Let’s get to the Philadelphia Eagles links …

A.J. Brown’s road from Super Bowl loss to a record season – ESPN
Eagles receiver A.J. Brown has a running bit with his trainer, Joey Guarascio, where he’ll show up at Guarascio’s facility in Boca Raton, Florida, unannounced. Guarascio’s phone rings and Brown will be on the other end, announcing he’s at the door. In early March, Brown flew down to begin his offseason training. The greeting was the same, but the vibes were different. The wounds from the Eagles’ 38-35 loss in Super Bowl LVII to the Kansas City Chiefs were fresh. Brown was distraught in the aftermath of that game — he declined to address the media that night, and the pain in his voice, which barely rose above a whisper, was evident when he spoke at his locker back in Philly a couple days later. Little time had passed before the demands of the next season came calling. “You can tell that it stung, because he really didn’t want to talk about it,” said Guarascio, the head strength and conditioning coach at Florida Atlantic University who served in the same role at Ole Miss when Brown played there. “I picked the hint up like, OK, it’s still a sore subject. And I know that in his mind, he wanted to be MVP, he wanted the fairytale ending to it. I know that was one of his main drivers this whole offseason, to prove to everyone that he can be the best receiver in the NFL.” Heading into Monday night’s Super Bowl rematch against the Chiefs (8:15 p.m. ET, ESPN/ABC), Brown’s mission is on track. He ranks second in receiving yards (1,005) behind only Tyreek Hill of the Miami Dolphins (1,076) and is coming off a historic stretch in which he became the first player in NFL history to post 125-plus receiving yards in six consecutive games, eclipsing a mark previously held by first-ballot Hall of Famer Calvin Johnson.

Derek Barnett downgraded to out for Eagles vs. Chiefs – BGN
There’s been one change to the Eagles’ depth chart as the team prepared to make their way to Kansas City for the Monday night matchup with the Chiefs. The team announced that defensive end Derek Barnett was downgraded to out for personal reasons.

FROM THE SB NATION NFL SHOW: Can the Eagles stop Patrick Mahomes and Travis Kelce? – BGN Radio
The SB Nation NFL Show’s TGIFootball crew debates whether the Eagles will be able to continue the Chiefs’ struggles on offense this season.

Eagles mailbag: Is Jalen Hurts’ 2023 season more impressive so far than 2022? – PhillyVoice
They were 13-4 and had a negative point differential. It was pretty easy to see that they were going to be vulnerable in the playoffs. The 2023 Eagles are not the 2022 Vikings. They have wins over quality opponents like the Cowboys and Dolphins, and they’ve mixed in a few comfortable-ish wins along the way (Rams, Buccaneers, Vikings, and the second Commanders game once they finally got going, for example). We’ll find out over the next five weeks how this team stacks up against other Super Bowl-caliber teams, but I don’t think the Eagles should feel bad about their 8-1 record after nine games.

Game Preview – PHI at KC – Iggles Blitz
Big Red has always been masterful at fixing issues with his extra time. Desai will study the Chiefs offense and have an idea of how to attack them. But we don’t know what he’ll see on Monday night. Reid will have some new wrinkles. He’ll break tendencies. The Chiefs are never easy, but coming off a bye makes them even tougher. Hurts and the Eagles offense will have their hands full with the KC defense. Steve Spagnuolo’s defense has allowed the fewest points in the league. No one has scored more than 24 points against them. They are also 4th in yards allowed. Nothing comes easy against the Chiefs. Chris Jones is still their best player. Jurgens returns just in time to face arguably the best DT in the league. Welcome back, right? George Karlaftis and Mike Danna are the disruptive edge rushers. That trio has combined for 17 sacks. The secondary has been terrific this year. KC played young DBs a lot last year and that experience has paid off this season. CB Trent McDuffie seems to make a play in every game I watch. LB Nick Bolton came up huge in the Super Bowl, but he’s on IR. The Chiefs still have a trio of LBs who can make plays so don’t feel too sorry for them. The Eagles feel like the better team, but playing Mahomes in KC when the Chiefs are coming off a bye is one heckuva tough task. Be careful about betting your lunch money on the Eagles in this one.

5 things to watch as the Chiefs host the Eagles on Monday Night Football – Arrowhead Pride
As previously mentioned, the Eagles’ run defense is arguably the league’s best, and that’s because of the monsters they can play along the defensive line. That’s not the most favorable matchup for a Chiefs’ offensive line that has struggled to get a push on run plays in recent games — specifically later in the downs: the Chiefs have failed to convert on six of the team’s 14 rush attempts on third or fourth and short this season. The Chiefs’ coaching staff will need to have a pretty deep bag of play calls prepared for those situations, focused on ways to negate the talent of Philadelphia’s front. The Eagles do rank 25th in third-down conversion rate allowed, so Kansas City has a chance to control the game on these crucial downs if the unit executes.

Week 11: Goff 2.0; Allen leads Bills in must-win; Jackson on the reality of the game – FMIA
That’s why Mahomes needs Rice and Moore, who run 4.5- and 4.4-second forties, respectively, to beat coverage. And Mahomes may need to force the ball to Travis Kelce regardless of the Eagles’ coverage plan. No Kelce against Miami (just four targets) really put a damper on KC’s passing attack. For the Eagles, it’s a good time to play Kansas City … but after two weeks of prep, I don’t expect Reid and Mahomes to come out struggling.

Monday Night Football: Eagles-Chiefs Week 11 betting preview (odds, lines, best bets) – PFF
QB Patrick Mahomes, Kansas City Chiefs: Under 284.5 passing yards. Betting the under on the league’s best quarterback coming off a bye, what could possibly go wrong? This bet is mainly due to how quickly this game could pass us by. The Chiefs complete passes at a very high rate, while the Eagles have every opportunity to run the ball down the Chiefs’ throat. Patrick Mahomes has an average depth of target of 7.3 yards this season, the fifth-lowest mark in the league, and the Chiefs are facing a defense that is stacked at every level. It takes a lot to get to this sort of number, and while Patrick Mahomes is exceptionally good, the game state and style will play a big part in how Monday night goes. Expect plenty of long, drawn-out drives, limiting the production of each quarterback.

Spadaro: Eagles-Chiefs, 6 storylines to watch on Monday night – PE.com
3. The weather is an intangible. What can the players and coaches expect with the weather when the ball is kicked off? How about temperatures in the upper 30s, maybe low 40s, and a very good chance of some kind of precipitation? Could be a steady rain. Could be a drizzle. Could be more. We don’t know. But we do know that the Eagles have prepared as much as they could during the week for the possibility of rain and wind and coldest temperatures of the season to date that could impact decisions in the kicking game, the passing game, etc. It’s just something to watch, one of many intangibles going here.

Cowboys vs Commanders: Dallas opens as 10.5-point favorites for Week 12 – Blogging The Boys
The Cowboys will be at home which is an enormous advantage for the team recently as they are riding a 12-game win streak at AT&T Stadium. Dallas has been blowing teams out in most of their wins this season, so the 10.5-point spread doesn’t seem that out of line even if it is an NFC East game.

The Washington Commanders lose to the New York Giants 31-19 – Hogs Haven
The Washington Commanders got embarrassed at home again, this time it was a 31-19 loss to the New York Giants that was capped off by a Sam Howell pick-6 as the team tried to come back from a 5-point deficit. Washington now falls to 4-7, and calls for Head Coach Ron Rivera’s firing are going to intensify.

The Commanders lost a game and cannot shower after – SB Nation
The Washington Commanders might have just endured their worst loss of the season, as they gave up three touchdown passes to Tommy DeVito as the New York Giants came into FedEx Field and knocked off the Commanders by a final score of 31-19. The loss dropped Washington to 4-7 on the season, and saw the Commanders’ record in the division fall to 0-4. Well, at least the players could look forward to a nice shower after the game, to wash some of the disappointment away. Yeah … about that. According to multiple reports, the water was not working in both the home and the visiting locker rooms, meaning neither the Commanders, nor the Giants, could take a shower after the game.

4 things we learned from the Giants’ 31-19 win over the Commanders – Big Blue View
The Commanders, though, are every bit the thorn in the side of the Philadelphia Eagles. Philly is 5-3 vs. Washington the past four years, but the Commanders almost always play them tough. Last year they gave the Eagles their only loss until late in the season. This year they lost to Philly by one score and lost the other one in overtime. Meanwhile the Giants are 0-4 in their last four games against the Eagles, and other than the Davis Webb swan song at the end of last season, all the others were absolute blowouts by the Eagles. This year’s Giants have yet to face the Eagles, but I fully expect the grinch to steal Giants’ fans Christmas in Philadephia and for the snowballs to be flying at MetLife during the final game against the Eagles this season. How can this happen? They say that the NFL is a game of matchups, and clearly the Giants do not match up well with the Eagles in two very important ways: The Giants’ putrid offensive line is always dominated by the Eagles’ fearsome pass rush, and the Giants’ pass rushers are always stuffed by the Eagles’ generationally good offensive line. Add in the great Eagles’ wide receivers, and I get it. So why doesn’t the same thing happen to Washington when they play the Eagles? The Commanders do not have a good offensive line either, so how come they can move the ball against Philly? Washington has a defensive line about as good as the Giants’, yet they get consistent pressure on Jalen Hurts while the Giants do not. And why do the Giants dominate Washington? The Commanders can hold off the the Eagles’ rush but not the Giants? The Commanders can’t stop the Giants’ league-worst offense but they can neutralize the Eagles’ playmakers? It defies the laws of physics

Hours after Week 11 victory, Browns sign Joe Flacco – Dawgs By Nature
The Cleveland Browns season continues to be close to miraculous. With injury after injury piling up, the Browns ran their record to 7-3 on the year with a Week 11 victory over the Pittsburgh Steelers. With Deshaun Watson out for the season, Dorian Thompson-Robinson took the helm against the Steelers. While DTR wasn’t perfect, he had two drives for the Cleveland victory. The quarterback room will not stay the same, however. After working out Joe Flacco on Friday, along with 10 other players, the former Super Bowl champion and first-round pick will be joining the team for Week 12.

Separation season: Which teams helped/hurt their playoff chances Sunday? – NFL.com
That was an absolutely brutal loss to the Rams. The Seahawks dropped to 6-4, losing ground in the NFC West to the victorious 49ers. They dropped from the fifth seed in the NFC, where they started the week, to sixth, saved from the seventh seed by the Vikings’ loss Sunday night, which kept Minnesota firm in the conference’s final playoff spot. The Seahawks’ next four games are San Francisco on Thanksgiving Day, at Dallas, at San Francisco and Philadelphia. And worst of all, Geno Smith suffered an elbow injury, which could keep him out of Thursday’s game.

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