The Linc – Lane Johnson says he was “living in hell for a long time”

Philadelphia Eagles news and links for 11/1/21.

Let’s get to the Philadelphia Eagles links …

Lane Johnson opens up candidly about his battle with anxiety disorder – PE.com
But the popularity and success don’t make up for a clinically diagnosed anxiety disorder that was unearthed when Johnson was at Kilgore College, a junior college in Texas, in 2008. For 13 years, Johnson has battled something more relentless than any pass rusher lining up across from him on Sundays. “I was living in hell for a long time,” Johnson said. In a postgame press conference on Sunday at Detroit’s Ford Field, he explained that he viewed the antidepressant medication that he was on as a crutch. He tried to wean himself off of them, but that caused withdrawal symptoms similar to the flu – a lot of nausea, a lot of vomiting. Finally, Johnson relented and left the team on October 3 – when the Eagles played the Chiefs – to drive back home to Oklahoma. The Eagles said at the time that Johnson was dealing with a personal matter. In a show of support, Head Coach Nick Sirianni wore a 65 decal on his visor.

Eagles vs. Lions: 13 winners, 7 losers, 2 IDKs – BGN
Nick Sirianni: Good game by the Eagles’ much-maligned head coach. He actually ran the ball! Turns out that can be effective. He didn’t have any glaring game management issues! The Eagles were only penalized twice! Sirianni oversaw an offense that put up 37 points (seven points came from a defensive TD) and 350 total yards.

BGN Instant Reaction Show: Eagles victorious in blowout win over Lions, 44-6 – BGN Radio
Eytan Shander and Jessica Towne Taylor discuss what they saw from the Eagles’ complete victory over the Lions, from running the ball to the aggressive defense and more.

Handing out 10 awards from the Eagles-Lions game – PhillyVoice
As a passer, Hurts was 9 of 14 for 103 yards, 0 TDs, 0 INTs. (Shrug). However, he was able to escape pressure repeatedly (perhaps at times with open receivers), and turned in some highlight reel scrambles. This was probably not a performance that will earn Hurts many points toward his quest to become the team’s franchise quarterback in 2022 and beyond. Ultimately, the Eagles are going to want a quarterback who can win through the air. But for one day Hurts was at least very fun to watch.

Motor City Madness – Iggles Blitz
I mention this for a reason. Anyone who thinks today’s win means the Eagles have solved their problems needs to pump the brakes. Enjoy the win. Sunday was fun (for a change). But… The Lions are the worst team in the NFC (maybe the NFL) for a reason. The Eagles were missing their starting RB and still ran for 236 yards. Many of those yards were easy. That made it fun to watch, but you sure can’t count on the team doing that every week. Jalen Hurts finished 9-14-103 as a passer. The Eagles threw when they wanted to. They probably could have won this game without attempting a pass.

Nick Sirianni lessens Jalen Hurts’ load and runs the ball in an Eagles win. Is that a sustainable identity? – inquirer
Sirianni wants to have an offense that is adaptable each week and takes advantage of defensive tendencies. But for too long this season, the Eagles have focused often on what they want to be rather than what they truly are, and the same could be said of Jonathan Gannon’s defense. On offense, the Eagles simply don’t have a quarterback who can throw in rhythm and accurately enough — at least not yet. But what they do have is a mobile one who can supplement the run game and hit throws when facilitated. That isn’t an indictment of Hurts; it’s just a reality. And there’s nothing wrong with winning that way, even if it may not be sustainable against better teams and quarterbacks. “Yes, you do it that way,” Sirianni said of countering defensive schemes, “but you’ve also got to do what you do well. … It’s yes to both. We want to do what a defense is allowing you to do, while doing the things we’ve been successful with.”

NFL Week 8 takeaways: What we learned, big questions for every game and future team outlooks – ESPN+
Was this performance for real, or just a product of playing the winless Lions? The Lions’ ineptitude factored in pretty heavily here. But both Sirianni and defensive coordinator Jonathan Gannon made some adjustments to their approach, and those changes helped accentuate the strengths of their units: the big men up front. With a lean toward the ground game, the offensive line was able to play downhill and exert its will, while tighter coverage in the back end and more pressure looks on defense allowed the defensive linemen to get home against Lions quarterback Jared Goff. It’s a recipe the Eagles should stick to moving forward.

D-line finally shows up and more in Roob’s observations – NBCSP
1. I have to start with the d-line because their performance was the key to everything the Eagles accomplished Sunday. They were monsters. They controlled the line of scrimmage, never let Jared Goff get going and slammed the door on the Lions’ running game. Jonathon Gannon was more aggressive than he has been, which made sense against this offensive line and this quarterback. Get after him! The Eagles pressured Goff non-stop, recorded six sacks and although Goff completed a high percentage of his passes most of them didn’t go anywhere. Josh Sweat was all over the field. Best game of his career. Really showed why the Eagles gave him that huge contract. Heck, even Derek Barnett got a sack for the first time in 11 games, Hassan Ridgeway picked up his first since opening day in Atlanta and rookies Milton Williams and Tarron Jackson recorded the first sacks of their careers. This d-line has underachieved all year. Linemen not named Javon Hargrave had just 3 ½ sacks coming into the game, and they recorded six Sunday. This is one of the highest-paid defensive lines in the league and it’s about time they started playing like it.

2021 NFL season, Week 8: What we learned from Sunday’s games – NFL.com
Eagles won this one in the trenches. Without Miles Sanders, Philadelphia bucked its prior tendency to avoid the run and instead turned to a backfield committee, relying on its blockers to clear space for success. Boston Scott and Jordan Howard combined to rush for 117 yards and four touchdowns on 24 carries, while Kenneth Gainwell and Jalen Reagor chipped in another 48 yards on 15 attempts. Jalen Hurts remained the exciting player he’s proven to be, using his legs to extend plays and pick up a little over 10 yards per run. The combined effort eliminated the need to throw the ball effectively and helped the Eagles dominate time of possession 35 minutes to 25. After looking lost in Las Vegas last week, the Eagles were very much in control of this one and can fly back to Philadelphia feeling proud of their efforts.

Fantasy Football Week 8 Recap: Immediate takeaways & analysis for every game – PFF
Drop Kenneth Gainwell: The Eagles didn’t have Miles Sanders, but instead of Gainwell moving up the depth chart, he moved down. Boston Scott and Jordan Howard split the majority of the workload. Gainwell only played six of a possible 51 snaps with the starters, and he played all 14 snaps when the Eagles put in backups in the fourth quarter. He should continue to see a few snaps each week, but it seems unlikely he has a large role this season. It’s worth noting the blowout impacted the snap counts of all skill players in this game, so there is no reason to be concerned about any of the usual star players’ snaps.

NFL standings, Week 9: Breaking down the NFL standings coming out of Week 8 – DraftKings Nation
The Eagles opened the week for the NFC East with an impressive thumping of the Lions. Washington lost a close one at home to Denver. The Cowboys beat the Vikings on Sunday Night Football, doing so with Cooper Rush starting in place of an injured Dak Prescott.

What just happened? Lions vs Eagles – Pride Of Detroit
This game was the absolute worst. I know there will be plenty of Lions fans in the comments naming a loss they saw in 1984 that was the worst ever and they’re welcome to do that. But, this was the most embarrassing loss I think I’ve seen the Lions have since I started covering the team in 2014. They’ve been blown out before on many occasions, but at least the Lions scored points early in the game. The Lions got demolished in every facet of this game. The boos sounded louder and the gaffes seemed bigger. What’s worse is that Lions fans circled this game for weeks as the game the Lions could finally win. Instead, the team put up their worst performance of the season by far. It was so bad that I oddly feel confident that it couldn’t possibly get worse than that.

The Winners and Losers of NFL Week 8 – The Ringer
I could forgive a QB for making this mistake once. They get coached nonstop to avoid sacks and interceptions. But on fourth downs, the logic is entirely reversed. An incompletion becomes a turnover on downs, so throwing the ball away is accepting the worst possible outcome. A QB should try something—anything—because even a low-percentage play is better than a zero-percentage one. Even an interception on fourth down isn’t so bad! It might actually result in better field position than an incomplete pass! But Goff hasn’t made this mistake once. He’s made it twice in three weeks. He did the same thing two weeks ago against the Bengals, in a much closer game.

Chargers open as 3-point favorites over the Eagles – Bolts From The Blue
While this matchup may look easier, the Eagles boast a top-10 defense, including the league’s eighth-best unit against the pass. On the other side of the ball, you can expect another team who wants to run the ball as Philadelphia is currently sixth in the NFL in rushing offense. Seriously, the Chargers can’t seem to catch a break from bad matchups with the run. At any rate, it’s a team with a losing record that they MUST beat in order for this season not to go into full “freakout” mode. Can they do it? Only time will tell.

Week 8: Big Day For The Bench And Backups—Trevor Siemian Helps Slay The Dragon In The Superdome – FMIA
So I did the math. Of the 32 teams in the NFL, 25 this morning have at least three wins. Only four of them are 3-5 (Indianapolis, Philadelphia, Chicago, Seattle). That means at the trading deadline, two-thirds of the teams in the league, 21 of 32, will be one game under .500 or better. How, if you’re a GM or coach, can you walk into your locker room when your team’s 3-4 and wave the white flag and say, “We got a fifth-round pick for John Doe. I just couldn’t turn it down.” You can’t. [BLG Note: The Eagles should absolutely still sell.]

Cooper Rush leads the Cowboys to a thrilling 20-16 win over the Vikings – Blogging The Boys
Cowboys Nation was in despair. With the untested and untrusted Cooper Rush at the helm, it was thought to be a bridge to far to keep the winning streak alive. But behind a remarkable 24 for 40, 325-yard performance with two touchdowns and one interception from the backup, the Dallas Cowboys fought to a thrilling 20-16 win over the Minnesota Vikings and put themselves right in the thick of the hunt for the first-round seed and a bye.

Knee-jerk Reactions: 2021 Colts are going no where, drop must-win game to Titans at home – Stampede Blue
What is the deal with Frank Reich’s play-calling in key moments? Building upon the theme with Taylor is that Frank Reich has dialed up some really questionable offensive play-calls in key moments. If the pass-run balance wasn’t enough, when the Colts won the toss in overtime there was no reason to do anything other than work the ball down the field to score. Taylor should have had free reign with the game clock no longer a factor. Late in the game, players tired, Taylor with a relatively light second-half workload. Why not feature him? When late in the second half you have an opportunity to go down and score but start deep in your own territory, why are you drawing up a screen play that will put your quarterback into your own endzone? Wouldn’t it make more sense to run the ball, create some space, and give yourself some options? Perhaps a quick-release pass could accomplish the same? No, instead, the Colts invite a dominant Titans pass-rush on a screen play. Unbelievable.

Dolphins vs Bills 2021 final score, immediate reactions for Week 8 – The Phinsider
Well, that would be the game. Tagovailoa was trying to make something happen, but it is once again too little too late for the Dolphins offense. This seems to be the script for this year, start well, give up points in the middle of the game, then try to make a comeback late. They just can never complete the come back.

Sunday Late Night Wrap Up #8: Bengals and Jets, Brady goes down, and Cooper Rush – The SB Nation NFL Show
Find out the top storylines, biggest injuries, and everything else you need to know from Week 8! Stephen Serda recaps every game that was played on Sunday as only we can here at SB Nation.

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