Eagles react to drawing the Packers in the wild card round originally appeared on NBC Sports Philadelphia
The Eagles already beat the Packers once this season.
Four months ago. On another continent.
“I feel like a lot of stuff has changed,” center Cam Jurgens said. “I feel like it’s been a year since we played them last … in Brazil, my God. Reset and get ready for this postseason.”
Because the Eagles’ backups dispatched the lowly Giants, 20-13, in just 2 hours and 53 minutes on Sunday afternoon, the Packers-Bears and Commanders-Cowboys games were still finishing up as the Eagles celebrated their 14th win in the home locker room at the Linc.
So some players didn’t even know the Eagles drew the Packers in the wild card round until they heard the news from reporters. But it’s official: The 2-seeded Eagles will host the 7-seeded Packers on Sunday at 4:30 p.m. in the NFC wild card round.
A rematch of the Eagles’ 34-29 victory over the Packers on Sept. 6 in São Paulo, Brazil.
But a lot has changed since then. For both teams.
“Everyone makes their adjustments throughout the season, tries to figure out who they are as a team, as a defense, as an offense,” linebacker Zack Baun said. “You throw in wrinkles here and there and you see what sticks. We’ve changed and I know they have too.”
After that Week 1 matchup at Neo Quimica Arena, the Eagles rolled to a 14-win season and an NFC East title. Meanwhile, the Packers got battle-tested in the tough NFC North and got into the playoffs as a wild card team.
This figures to be a good matchup for the first round.
“Yeah, both teams are different from that day until now, no doubt,” head coach Nick Sirianni said. “We’ll use that. You use everything. That’s something that when we go play a team that we played the previous year, we’ll use that, too. That’s from year to year. So of course we’ll use that. They’ll use that. We understand that. It’s a really good team. Really well coached.”
Even though it has been months since they last played the Packers, the Eagles are excited to dive into the game tape from Week 1.
Because although both teams have changed, that film study will still be really beneficial.
“Of course,” Jordan Davis said. “You can take anything, depending on who the coordinator is from like 1970 if they’re still coaching. It’s a lot of things we know they have a tendency to do. It’s a lot of things we know they’re particularly fond of, you see what they want to go to. That comes with the experience of when we played them the first time.
“We’re grateful for that but at the end of the day, we know they’re gong to have some tendency breakers and they’re going to try to do some things to throw us off. We just have to make sure that we play smart and also look at the film they had after the game. Because that was the first game. Everybody changes. This is a different team that we’re seeing. We just want to make sure that we get that squared away.”
It’s not hard to see how the Eagles have changed since Week 1. Even with that win over the Packers, they entered their Week 5 bye week with a shaky 2-2 record but went 12-1 in the final 13 games of the season.
On offense, the Eagles leaned heavily into their incredible rushing attack behind the best offensive line in football and a running back in Saquon Barkley who ended up rushing for 2,000 yards. By the end of the season, the Eagles threw fewer passes and had more rushing attempts than any team in football.
“Way different,” Jurgens said. “It’s always tough that first game. You don’t know what they’re going to come out in. I feel like midway through the year, we started to find a good run identity. We changed a little bit in that aspect.”
On defense, the Eagles really figured things out under Vic Fangio and ended up with the NFL’s top-ranked defense this season. And they did it with a ton of young players.
How did the Eagles change on defense?
“Maybe not the scheme-wise,” Baun said, “but personally we just feel more confident in our communication.”
In that Week 1 win in Brazil, Baun had his coming-out party. He had 15 tackles, 2 sacks, 1 TFL and 2 QB hits. That was the first game of a Pro Bowl season for Baun in his first year as a starting inside linebacker.
Baun thinks that game was a springboard to his incredible season.
“It was a good baseline for sure,” Baun said. “It set the standard for my game the rest of the season.”
In that Week 1 win, Saquon Barkley scored three total touchdowns, Jalen Hurts threw for 278 yards, A.J. Brown had 119 receiving yards, Baun was a menace and Reed Blankenship called game with a late interception.
But the Packers weren’t pushovers. Jordan Love threw for 260 yards, Jayden Reed had 138 receiving yards and a touchdown, Josh Jacobs ran for 84 yards and the Packers picked off Hurts twice.
“I’m expecting a hard game,” Davis said. “It’s the playoffs, at the end of the day. We know what they’re about. We’ve seen them already. They were a good team when we played them the first time. We have to make sure we’re on our Ps and Qs because that game was close too. But at the end of the day, it’s a playoff mindset. It’s a new season going into next week. We just have to treat it as such.”
The Eagles were technically the home team in Week 1 but it was more like a neutral site game in Brazil with fans of both teams filling the stands. That won’t be the case next weekend.
The Eagles know what to expect from the Linc.
“Pretty rowdy. I’d imagine pretty rowdy,” Grant Calcaterra said. “I’m excited about it.”
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