The Linc -Bengals game

Let’s get to the Philadelphia Eagles links …

Bengals vs. Eagles: 5 Matchups to watch – Cincy Jungle
Trey Hendrickson vs. Fred Johnson. I’m not even playing, and I’m ready to run through a wall when I think about this one. Hendrickson is an elite pass rusher, with seven sacks so far this season, which is tied for fourth most in the NFL. He picked up right where he left off last season, and with a healthy defensive line, the left tackle facing him has less help. Jordan Mailata is on IR, so that left tackle is Fred Johnson. Johnson is graded as the Eagles’ worst pass blocker, earning a PFF score of 36.2. He has given up 22 pressures so far this season, yielding three sacks. I’m positive the Eagles are going to have to do something to help Johnson, but I also expect Hendrickson to change his permanent address to Jalen Hurts’ personal space.

Eagles vs. Bengals Notebook: Quinyon Mitchell on Ja’Marr Chase, Fred Johnson looks to impress former team, and more – PE.com
Johnson, who played with the Bengals from 2019 through 2021 and who overlapped with Hendrickson in that final season, has every bit of respect for what he’s going to face on Sunday in The Jungle. “Good player, good athlete, smart, very dynamic,” Johnson said. “When they need a sack, he’s the one who makes it happen. I respect his game and he’s a very dominant player. We had our fair share of reps in practice – I know him and he knows me – and it’s going to be exciting to play against him in this game. I’ve progressed a lot since then.” Johnson is a key figure for the Eagles up front. He has replaced Lane Johnson on the right side of the offensive line this season and now he’s playing in place of Jordan Mailata on the left side. And on Sunday, he draws the tough task of Trey Hendrickson. “I’ve had a lot of growth since my Bengal days and I know what I’m facing here,” Johnson said. “Great player. I have to be on point at all times.”

Eagles Film Room: Concept of the Week – Iso – BGN
Well, I never thought I would be writing about this run play. In all honestly, this is a run play I’ve never done a lot of research on. So, I enjoyed digging into this concept this week. Iso is run with a fullback, so we don’t see it much around the league these days. Tight ends have replaced the role of fullbacks in the modern NFL. However, most tight ends cannot block linebackers downhill in the run game so Iso isn’t run very much anymore. It’s worth noting that some of the best run games over the past five years, such as the Ravens and the 49ers, have been very successful with a fullback. But, there are not many good fullbacks around the league! Enter Ben VanSumeren…

Good Test – Iggles Blitz
A lot has changed since the opener so it will be good to see how the Eagles do in another good test, especially for the defense. Vic Fangio’s group has played well in 3 of the past 4 games and seems to be on the rise. They stumbled against Tampa. Baker Mayfield torched them with quick throws that negated the pass rush and kept the chains moving. Fangio has been around a long time. He knows how to adjust and find solutions. But those solutions are a lot easier to come up with when going against broken QBs like Deshaun Watson and Daniel Jones. Joe Burrow is a whole other story. It will be interesting to see if the revamped secondary can slow down Burrow and Chase. It will be interesting to see if the pass rush can get to Burrow and/or pressure him on a regular basis. I don’t expect the Eagles to shut down the Bengals the way they did the Browns or Giants. The defense needs to come up with some key stops. It would be great if the defense could come up with some takeaways. Cincy has turnovers in 5 of 7 games so they are vulnerable in that area.

In Roob’s Eagles Observations: Looking for greatness from Jalen Hurts – NBCSP
1. The Eagles beat the Packers despite three Jalen Hurts turnovers. They beat the Saints despite not scoring a point until the fourth quarter. They beat the Browns with their defense and beat the Giants with defense and lots of Saquon. Hurts has played well at times this year and poorly at times. Most of this year, he’s been just OK. And one thing he hasn’t done is carry the Eagles to a win over a good team. And elite quarterbacks need to do that. We’ve seen some encouraging signs from Hurts lately. Three straight games without an interception, two straight without a turnover, some nice deep balls late in games when the Eagles really needed them. The next step is for Hurts to make big-time plays to win a game when the running game isn’t operating at peak efficiency, the defense isn’t shutting down a 2nd-rate offense and the Eagles desperately need Hurts to be great. The last time we probably saw that was the first Dallas game last year, when he completed 74 percent of his passes, ran for a touchdown, threw TDs to A.J. Brown and DeVonta Smith in a big third quarter and beat Dak Prescott for the first and only time so far. That was almost a year ago. You never know how games are going to go, but with Joe Burrow, Ja’Marr Chase, Tee Higgins and Chase Brown, that Cincinnati offense is capable of scoring a lot of points, and there’s a very good chance the Eagles will need Hurts to be great Sunday to win the game. That’s the next step for Hurts. This isn’t the Browns or Giants. He’s got to be elite when the Eagles need him to be.

NFL Week 8 picks, schedule, odds, injuries, fantasy tips – ESPN
Bold prediction: The Bengals will win by more than seven points. Cincinnati has by far the best passing offense in this game — it ranks fifth in EPA per dropback — and that’s the most important facet to dominate. Plus, I’m going to need more than a blowout over the Giants to be convinced by the Eagles again.

NFL Week 8 Preview: Schedule, storylines and matchups to watch – PFF
Matchups to watch: Bengals WR Ja’Marr Chase vs. Eagles CB Cooper DeJean. Another week, another shoutout to the incredible play from the dynamic receiving corps in Cincinnati. After his performance this past week in Cleveland, Chase holds the league lead in receiving yardage (620) and touchdowns (6). His 10 missed tackles forced on receptions and 14 explosive catches rank in the top-two at the receiver position in 2024. Given Chase will often move inside to attack defenses from the slot, first-year corner DeJean will be responsible for checking him. This past week, the young corner earned his highest coverage grade of his career (87.4), having recorded a trio of coverage stops.

Quiet Eagles rookie who doesn’t say ‘a whole lot’ saves his talking for games: ‘He plays with swagger’ – NJ.com
“He got some moves on him,” Wilson said. “I saw that today at practice. Actually, that’s the craziest thing. I was dying laughing. I was like, ‘Man, he doesn’t need to be dancing.’ But he can dance, that’s the funny part. I think he was dancing to (rapper) BlocBoy JB with Reed Blankenship, step brothers right there. It was funny as hell. He was doing the ‘Shoot’ dance move with Reed. I was like, ‘Ok.’” Campbell said DeJean “doesn’t say a whole lot” but trash talks his teammates and gets “an edge” from it. He believes DeJean is a better trash-talker than Eagles rookie cornerback Quinyon Mitchell, who talked smack to Eagles wide receivers A.J. Brown and DeVonta Smith during training camp and jawed at Buccaneers wide receiver Mike Evans in a Week 4 loss. “It’s a more quiet trash talk,” Campbell explained.

NFL Week 8 bold predictions: Bryce Young upsets Broncos! A.J. Brown and Ja’Marr Chase go OFF! – NFL.com
A.J. Brown has been the most efficient deep-target receiver in the NFL this season. Ja’Marr Chase is putting up numbers on a weekly basis. Both face defenses that not only struggle against the pass but specifically on deep throws (20-plus air yards). In what should be a high-scoring game, both Brown and Chase go for 200 yards and a touchdown.

The Best NFL Bets for Week 8 – The Ringer
The real question for me is whether or not the Eagles passing offense is fixable. Jalen Hurts dropped back 21 times in the win against the Giants, and he was either sacked or scrambled on seven of them. Other than the deep go ball completion to A.J. Brown for a touchdown on Sunday, Philadelphia’s passing offense looks like it has taken a step backward in 2024. The same problems that existed with the pass game last year have continued into this season despite the offensive coordinator change to Kellen Moore. If this game does become a back-and-forth passing contest, that heavily favors Cincinnati. The Bengals offense took a step back in the last two weeks against the Giants and Browns after a red hot start to the 2024 season. These two teams are power rated similarly for me, so once accounting for home field advantage, I’m in line with the market on this game. One stat that concerns me and keeps me from betting on Cincinnati: The Eagles rank sixth defensively in havoc created, while the Bengals are 30th. Verdict: Lean Bengals -2.5

Brotherly love and competition underscores Sydney and Chase Brown’s Eagles-Bengals meeting: ‘It’s the dream’ – Inquirer
Their sentiments around the game are mixed. Sydney said that “it’s the dream” they aspired to achieve as children. At the same time, his competitive side came out when he admitted that he’s at a far different point in his season than Chase is as an offensive starter. “I’m still coming back,” Sydney said. “I’m on my second game. So I’m still trying to earn my role back and be in a position to where I can say it is brother-versus-brother. ‘Cause right now, it’s more like, he has his big-time starting role on offense, and I’m still trying to figure out what I’m going to be doing, more so on special teams and stuff.” If the twins come into contact on the field, Sydney predicts a healthy exchange of trash talk after the play. Otherwise, their first face-to-face interaction of the afternoon might not come until the final whistle blows. Then, Sydney and Chase will meet at midfield to swap jerseys, tokens of the mutual support it took to reach that moment. “They’ll smile for that picture,” Creneti said. “But one of them will be pissed off.”

What Nolan Smith’s emergence says about the Eagles defensive front – The Athletic
The sacks only tell part of the story. Smith’s involvement in base packages spell out Fangio’s belief in him as a complete player. Of Smith’s 47 snaps in 3-4 alignments, he’s defended the run 26 times, dropped back in coverage 12 times and rushed the quarterback nine times. It’s his role against the run that’s perhaps most notable. Huff, who signed a three-year, $51.1 million contract, is almost exclusively deployed in nickel packages, which doesn’t yet fully fulfill the organization’s expectations that he can develop into an every-down defender. […] Huff is almost purely a pass rusher. He’s only dropped back in coverage on five snaps, according to TruMedia. Smith (17), Sweat (13) and Graham (10) are the most frequent edge rushers involved in coverage. Smith’s versatility, specifically, has freed up opportunities for “simulated blitzes” — pressure schemes that aim to fool quarterbacks by exchanging a linebacker, nickel, etc., for a lineman or edge rusher in a four-man rush — that have yielded sacks. Against the Browns, Smith dropped back in coverage while nickel Cooper DeJean blitzed from the other side. DeJean hit Deshaun Watson, who was finished off by Milton Williams and Thomas Booker IV.

Jayden Daniels listed as questionable for Sunday vs. Bears – PFT
Daniels is officially questionable for the matchup with Chicago. He was limited in Friday’s practice after he didn’t participate on Wednesday or Thursday. Daniels said after the session that he wants to play, but the decision isn’t really up to him. Head coach Dan Quinn told reporters in his Friday news conference that Washington worked Daniels pretty hard on Friday and now the club wants to see how he responds over the next couple of days.

Which Commanders defensive player is having the best season? – Hogs Haven
A very strong majority — 78% of those responding to our survey question — identified LB Frankie Luvu, a key offseason free agent signing, as the player on the defensive side of the ball who is having the best season. To appreciate Frankie Luvu, you probably have to see him play. It’s almost impossible to talk or write about the veteran linebacker without using the words “energy” and “excitement”, though those traits don’t always show up on the stats sheet.

Cowboys injuries: Micah Parsons, DaRon Bland ruled out vs. 49ers – Blogging The Boys
The Cowboys were hopeful that Micah Parsons could play this week after suffering a sprained ankle against the New York Giants in Week 5, but Parsons hasn’t done enough to get healthy enough to play. Unfortunately, Parsons will not be available in this crucial game. After practicing before the bye week, DaRon Bland (foot) seemingly had a setback and sat out this week of practice before being ruled out. Linebacker Eric Kendricks (calf) practiced in a limited capacity on Friday, and his status for this week is questionable. Despite missing practice Friday, kicker Brandon Aubrey is expected to play. Caelen Carson is questionable.

Do the Giants have a Deonte Banks problem? – Big Blue View
This past Sunday, when Banks gave up pursuit of a scrambling Jalen Hurts, allowing the Eagles quarterback extra yardage, Henderson’s irritation was evident for everyone to see. While coaches need to hold their players accountable, sometimes the best messages for players come from other players. Giants defensive leaders have been clear that the lack of effort from the second-year cornerback, a first-round pick in 2023, will not be tolerated. “It’s not acceptable. He knows it,” said star defensive tackle Dexter Lawrence. “We addressed it and that’s the type of thing that we don’t accept it as a defense.” Lawrence said on Wednesday that “it’s been addressed. We won’t see anything like that, again.”

3 NFL upset picks for Week 8 – SB Nation
The NFL is approaching the halfway point of the season, and the Super Bowl picture is starting to materialize. Big surprise: the Kansas City Chiefs are again very good, still standing as the league’s lone undefeated team. Their biggest challengers look like the Baltimore Ravens and Buffalo Bills, teams helmed by the two best QBs on Earth not named Patrick Mahomes. Looking for a sleeper in the AFC? The Houston Texans feel like a solid bet at 5-2 as they head into a matchup with the Colts. The NFC looks a lot more wide open. The reigning conference champion 49ers have been crushed by injuries. The NFC North is loaded, and they’re all set to beat up on each other in the second half of the season. Is anyone in the NFC East really that good? With Week 8 approaching, here are three upset picks we like.