It is the injury the haters have craved.
Lane Johnson said he suffered a neck stinger on the Eagles’ first possession against the Rams while executing one of two Tush Push plays. He seemed unaffected after both plays but did not return for the next series.
It was the second Tush Push of the day and the eighth in the Eagles’ last two games, since they ran six in Kansas City last week.
» READ MORE: Eagles’ Nick Sirianni now is 4-0 against Rams ‘genius’ Sean McVay after a 19-point comeback win
After that game, the Chiefs complained that the Eagles routinely false-started when running the play, which led to the NFL alerting its officials to watch for the infraction.
After the first Pushes on Sunday, Rams coach Sean McVay complained to officials that right guard Tyler Steen moved early on the first Push and the Eagles lined up offsides on the second. He was right. The officials warned the Eagles to tighten up.
The penalties are less relevant than the injury.
The NFL nearly banned the Tush Push in the offseason, mainly because it’s ugly, because teams can’t stop the Eagles’ version, and nobody runs it as well as the Eagles, but also because, according to some coaches — mainly Bills coach Sean McDermott — of a heightened threat for injury. The problem with that argument is that no one had gotten hurt.
Now, someone has.
Johnson is a sure future Hall of Famer, and his sore neck is precisely the sort of evidence that will probably doom the Tush Push the next time it comes up for a vote, most likely in the spring. That would require a new proposal to ban it, but that shouldn’t be hard, since 22 of 32 teams voted to ban it last spring, leaving it just two votes shy of extinction.
The wild game obscured the bigger issue.
» READ MORE: Eagles grades: Jalen Hurts sparks comeback as passing game comes to life in time to beat the Rams
Matt Pryor replaced Lane Johnson, but poorly, until the Eagles’ second series in the third quarter, when Fred Johnson took over and led an Eagles comeback win over the Rams. So much happened — turnovers, blocked field goals, a 61-yard return for touchdown by a 336-pound man — that Johnson’s absence and its reason largely went overlooked.
Between the uncalled penalties and the injury to a high-profile player, it will not be overlooked this week.
Nick Sirianni protects Kevin Patullo, A.J. Brown
First-year offensive coordinator Kevin Patullo left the coaches’ locker room Sunday evening with a troubled look. For the third straight week, the offense looked stagnant for much of the game. A win, yes, but still.
Sideline cameras caught quarterback Jalen Hurts passionately addressing Patullo on the bench late in the third quarter after the offense appeared to open up in the second half.
After the game, Hurts told Fox sideline reporter Pam Oliver, “We’ve got to get out of this, ‘playing not to lose.’ We’ve got to come out aggressive and play our game. You saw our game in the second half.”
This is the second time in five games Hurts has criticized the general scheme, which relies heavily on a running attack featuring Saquon Barkley. Opponents often sell out to stop Barkley, which forces Hurts to pass. After Hurts’ productive NFC Championship game win last season, he famously quipped, “They let me out of my straitjacket a little bit.”
In the locker room postgame Sunday, Eagles receiver A.J. Brown, who had held his tongue to this point, said the Eagles’ offense sometimes is “Conservative. And I don’t think it should be like that.”
» READ MORE: Amid the jubilation, an Eagle sounds a warning about the lessons of 2023 and the missteps of 2025
Sirianni spent a considerable time in his postgame availability commending Brown, who has complained about exclusion in the past, for not complaining during the first two weeks that he’d been thrown to just nine times in two games. He was thrown to 10 times Sunday.
As far as protecting Patullo, Sirianni did so by excluding himself.
Sirianni has been credited in the past with helping shift offensive plans during the season and during games. But on Sunday, when asked about the role he played in the abrupt change in strategy, he bent over backward to credit Patullo, his longtime collaborator and his inexperienced, hand-picked successor to Kellen Moore, now the head coach in New Orleans.
“I am not going to take any credit for that,” Sirianni said. “Jalen, Kevin and the offensive staff did a great job of finding things that worked and got us out of the rut that we were in.”
Hard to believe, Harry.
Big play day
Sunday afternoon was a big day for Eagles defenders from their Super Bowl LIX title team.
Mammoth defensive tackle Jordan Davis ran down Matthew Stafford for a no-gain sack that forced a punt, blocked a field goal and ran it back 61 yards for a touchdown, had a tackle for loss, and combined on a fourth-down tackle that forced a turnover on downs. He added five more tackles and now has 16 after three games, more than half of the 27 he made in 17 games last season.
His linemate and fellow first-round pick, Jalen Carter, also blocked a field goal.
And they weren’t even the biggest news of the day.
Isaiah Rodgers, a backup cornerback in 2024 now starting for the Vikings, returned an interception 87 yards for a touchdown, returned a fumble 67 yards for a touchdown and forced a total of two fumbles, the first time an NFL player ever achieved that superfecta.
Rodgers’ path to glory Sunday is remarkable: He was a part-time player his first three NFL seasons, in Indianapolis; got suspended for the 2023 season for gambling, but the Eagles signed him anyway to stash; then won a Super Bowl ring last year with the Birds, mainly as a backup. That led to a two-year, $15 million deal with the Vikings.
But Rodgers’ comeback will pale by comparison if his former Colts teammate makes something more of what happened Sunday.
Carson of old, renewed?
Former Eagles franchise quarterback Carson Wentz, now the backup in Minnesota, started Sunday in place of injured JJ McCarthy. He threw for 173 yards and two touchdowns, completed 14-of-20 passes, and left in the third quarter with a 129.8 passer rating as the Vikings’ defense led them to a 48-10 win over the visiting, Joe Burrow-less Bengals.
That’s his best rating since Nov. 4, 2021, or almost four years. Of course, he’s started just 17 times since then. But he’s only 32, he has minimal wear and tear, and he’s expected to start as many as three more games while McCarthy’s ankle heals.
The first will be against the Steelers in Dublin, Ireland; the second, against the Browns in London. Each very winnable.
» READ MORE: A.J. Brown wants the Eagles to ‘let your killers do they thing’ after second-half air explosion vs. the Rams
Then the Vikes return to the States to host — you guessed it — the Eagles.
By then there’s a very real chance Wentz could have started in three wins for a playoff-caliber team. Perhaps Vikings coach Kevin O’Connell can succeed in polishing Wentz where Doug Pederson, Frank Reich, and Andy Reid have failed. If Wentz uses this audition well, at the very least it would again set him up for a promising future in a league populated with QBs like Joe Flacco and Spencer Rattler.
Jordan Carter = James Willis + Troy Vincent
For Eagles observers of a certain age, Sunday’s 61-yard return of a field-goal block for a game-sealing touchdown recalled an upset at Dallas on Nov. 3, 1996, as the Cowboys defended their third Super Bowl title in four years.
With 32 seconds and a three-point lead, Eagles’ linebacker James Willis intercepted Troy Aikman in the end zone. Like Jordan Davis, inexplicably, instead of taking a knee and guaranteeing a win, Willis started running the ball back.
Much worse, at the 10-yard line, with 25 second left, Willis lateraled the ball to teammate Troy Vincent. Vincent then ran the ball all the way back for a 31-21 win.
Micah’s coming
A week before Micah Parsons returns to Dallas, from where he was traded just before the season, the Packers lost, 13-10, to a moribund Browns team that had lost eight consecutive games. The Pack blew a 10-0 lead in the last 3:38, thanks to an interception and a blocked field goal and fell to 2-1.
The Cowboys, meanwhile, were shut out in the second half in their 31-14 loss at Chicago and fell to 1-2. A third loss for the Cowboys seems likely, since they lost their best player, CeeDee Lamb, to an ankle sprain Sunday.
Indiana Jones
After Aaron Rodgers finally settled with the Steelers and Russell Wilson with the Jets, it seemed like Daniel Jones’ move from the Giants to the Colts would be a footnote.
But no.
Jones is 3-0, has three TD passes, ranks third with 816 passing yards and a 111.7 passer rating and first at 9.3 yards per attempt. He also has three rushing touchdowns and — wait for it — zero turnovers.
It is the first time in his seven-year career that he’s had a passer rating over 100 for three consecutive games. It also is the first time he’s not played for the Giants.
Reid 1, Kelce 1
Hurts and Patullo weren’t the only sideline entertainment Sunday. Chiefs coach Andy Reid hit Travis Kelce with his shoulder on the sideline.
This recalled their infamous tiff in Super Bowl LVIII two years ago, when Kelce went ballistic on Reid and bumped him.
After the game Sunday, Reid said he appreciates Kelce’s “passion.” Kelce, in continual defiance of league rules, did not speak with the press afterward.
Of course, these days, the less Kelce, the better.
Extra points