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Looking back at biggest comebacks in Eagles history

By Nick Tricome

Copyright phillyvoice

Looking back at biggest comebacks in Eagles history

The Eagles, all the way into the third quarter, looked like they had no business even coming close to winning Sunday’s game against the Rams by the 33-26 final that they did.

The offense looked wholly ineffective, Lane Johnson got hurt, Matt Pryor was in over his head trying to replace him, and Jalen Hurts was getting crushed because of it.

The Eagles fell into a 19-point hole in the second half, and their own Lincoln Financial Field crowd was pouring boos down on them.

It was ugly, and nine times out of ten, that’s probably a loss that has the sportstalk radio lines fuming the next morning.

Yet the Eagles stayed with it.

Pryor got benched, Fred Johnson took up the spot on the offensive line instead, and Hurts had an easier time staying upright because of it. They remembered that A.J. Brown and DeVonta Smith are two of the best receivers in the entire NFL, that Dallas Goedert is a high-end tight end in his own right, too, and started feeding the ball to them, which gradually opened up the field elsewhere.

The Eagles got a touchdown on the board, then another. Jordan Davis and Jalen Carter made some clutch stops on defense – blocked a field goal, too – then suddenly, the Birds were taking the lead on a touchdown pass to Smith late.

But the Rams still had time, and the talent and experience to push far enough and fast enough down to set up a game-winning field goal.

The Eagles needed a miracle. Davis got up and blocked another kick on a line, then recovered it to take off storming toward the opposite end zone for the walk-off win as the clock hit zero.

A wild, rollercoaster comeback was made complete, etching a new mark into franchise history and further building the legend of this era of Eagles football, which doesn’t always make it look pretty, but somehow, someway figures it out.

“There ain’t another group of guys that I want to play with when it comes to that,” Hurts said postgame. “Because there’s never a doubt, there’s never a quit, and there’s always that sense of fight to try and figure it out…We’ve been talking about taking pride in winning. We take pride in this game, as ugly as it was, and as beautiful as it ended, you know, that’s the agony and ecstasy of the game of football. You learn from it all.”

And for fans, you remember it forever.

Here’s a quick look at where Sunday’s comeback stands among the biggest in Eagles franchise history (via pro-football-reference) …

And a look back at some memories jogged by that list…

• The 2005 Eagles were banged up, spread thin, and quickly running out of gas from the run to the Super Bowl the year before. David Akers kicked through tears and a torn hamstring to beat the Raiders the week prior, Donovan McNabb was still playing but had that sports hernia coming into the picture, and the Terrell Owens relationship in Philadelphia was falling apart. But in the early going of that season, the Eagles were still willing their way to wins, which included overcoming a 24-6 deficit in Kansas City to win 37-31.

For as much tension that was building between McNabb and Owens at the time, they were still a lethal duo, L.J. Smith was still weirdly always open for those lofts into the end zone, and the bottom hadn’t completely fallen out from under that era of the team…yet.

There was a lot of dumping on Todd France in that old ESPN highlight package looking back though, huh?

Anyway, click HERE to watch those old highlights against Washington, because while the video’s embedded below, the NFL’s digital media policy is total archaic nonsense.

• A 23-point comeback over Cleveland in ’91, when Jim McMahon was under center instead of Randall Cunningham, feels like a fever dream in a season that will forever be in the realm of ‘What if?’

And ain’t this a crazy line from Chris Berman back in the day: “Who’d have thunk, on a field with Bud Carson and Bill Belichick, that 62 points would be scored in that football game?”

• Because it needs to be watched for the millionth time