It took one offensive snap for everyone to realize that Week 1 was not going to be a perfect performance from the Philadelphia Eagles. Saquon Barkley slipped and fell in the backfield, and we were all thinking, “Okay, get the bad plays out early,” and then Jalen Hurts said, “Okay,” as he threw a completely avoidable interception two plays later.

Then the defense held a powerful Green Bay Packers offense out of the endzone on two consecutive drives where they had great field position. We learned a lot about this team on their trip to Brazil, some things were good, some things were bad. The cool thing about week 1 is that it’s just week 1 and there are 17 more weeks

Some players we thought would rock, played like real rocks. Some players we thought would play like real rocks, rocked. There were winners and losers on both sides of the ball.

As soon as HBO announced they would be making an offseason version of the series focused on the New York Giants, you knew things were going to look bad for their general manager, Joe Shoen… and then this matchup happened.

Saquon Barkley had the best Eagles debut since Terrell Owens in 2004. It was simply flawless — three touchdowns on 24 carries for 109 yards and two catches for 23 yards. It was sickeningly beautiful. Watching a player who’s been a thorn in your side for years come to your team and immediately turn into a chainsaw is something else.

A couple of caveats: First, the field was anathema to the general idea of ​​gardening. There was someone, somewhere in an NFL office who said, “Yes, we should absolutely have 300-pound football players playing a collision sport that requires instantaneous, powerful cuts on the same turf as 170-pound football players playing a non-collision sport that relies largely on straight-line speed. That’s a good idea,” and that person should be sent to the moon with a single glass of water and a granola bar. Nothing else.

Everybody was slipping, tripping, sliding everywhere. It was very reminiscent of Super Bowl LVII and we know that when a playing surface is that bad, it can neutralize the best pass rush in the NFL… So that aspect is there.

Second, Jordan Love is a very difficult quarterback to tackle. According to Next Gen Stats, he was sacked just 1.8 times per game in 2023 (his first season as a full-time starter). He is evasive when pressured.

That said, the Eagles pass rush was a no-show. The only player to get a sack was Zack Baun who had two, and one of them wasn’t on Love. Yes, they got pressure, collapsed the pocket, and messed things up, but there has to be more to it than that.

Edge rushers are the most important players on defense, and Bryce Huff didn’t exactly inspire confidence at the position. When the Eagles traded Haason Reddick to the Jets, the general thinking was that Huff, a $17 million-a-year player, would be a replacement. It’s only been one game and he can only go up, but “he can only get better” isn’t something you want to say about a highly paid player.

Jordan Davis was also a bit of a non-factor. Aside from the very first play of the game where he botched a run, he didn’t do much. If you just look at the box scores, you won’t see a Jordan D. You will see a Jordan M though, and that’s because Mailata made a tackle after an interception. Normally, you’d want a defensive tackle drafted in the first round to make more tackles than your offensive tackle (for a few reasons), but that’s not the case for the Eagles in Week 1.

Based on what we’ve seen from him in his career, he starts seasons much stronger than he ends them. A solid game in Week 1 would have been great, but unfortunately he’s part of a position group that has underperformed.

As for Josh Sweat, he played fine, not good and not bad. The problem with him is that changing his number from 94 to 19 looks terrible. His stock has gone down because of visual vibes.

These are two players at two very different stages of their careers: Slay is 33 years old, in his 12th year in the NFL, winding down his career and serving as a mentor to the younger players in the Eagles’ cornerback room. Mitchell is a rookie who just played his first game and is taking in what’s coming his way.

We saw an immediate and dramatic decline in performance from 30-year-old James Bradberry from the 2022 to the 2023 season. It wasn’t inconceivable that Slay could have the same decline… and buddy… Slay still has it.

There were a handful of plays where Slay was covering Christian Watson, the Packers’ big speed guy, and Slay stuck with him the whole time. It was great to watch because those were the same situations where Bradberry’s regression was most apparent.

Quinyon also had a good game. The Packers clearly had a plan to attack Quinyon right away, and they did. On their first drive, Jordan Love made a shot to the endzone, but Mitchell had Christian Watson covered, so he couldn’t make a play on the ball. Sure, he had a few rough reps, but that’s to be expected as a rookie.

He also played well downhill. We know Cooper DeJean craves contact, but it’s cool to see Quinyon willing to throw his face in people too. He played a ton of snaps and looked like a veteran most of the time.

Jalen’s play was incredibly inconsistent and thankfully the hits were clutch. The misses? Woof. They were a different kind of bad.

The reason Jalen gets a loser point here is because of what his mistakes did to our confidence in his decision-making. We know Jalen is a great player. We know he is a freak athlete and he makes good decisions for what feels like the majority of the time. He just made some really terrible decisions in Week 1 and he paid for it.

Both interceptions were terrible. The first one came on a late throw to a covered receiver, and the second one came on a late throw, across his body and into the middle of the field. Those are mistakes he absolutely should not be making. When he throws the ball to a receiver who is not on the screen, we should always be thinking, “Oh baby, how open is AJ?” Not, “Wow, where’s the nearest DB?”

Even the play for his second interception was a terrible call that he should have been punished for. He threw late into the flat, where cornerback Keisean Nixon completely finished off Jahan Dotson. If Nixon had any hand-eye coordination, that should have been a pick-six. Luckily, he has mud for hands.

Overall, Jalen’s play was more good than bad. Only the bad parts were really bad and relatively easy to avoid.

In Zack Baun’s press conference after signing with the Eagles in free agency, he said something along the lines of how he was excited to get his hand in the dirt and get after the quarterback. He basically thought he was going to be an edge rusher.

Vic Fangio had other plans that were completely different and a lot better. In Week 1, Baun played every snap of the game at linebacker. He was dominant the entire game. He was flying around, making plays, getting in the backfield; he looked like a true linebacker and that’s a sight to behold.

Now you can argue about what makes a good linebacker. You argue that it is easy for linebackers to play downhill and that playing in coverage is harder and more important. You would probably be right, but considering the hell we have been through recently, it was great to see Baun play the way he did. He recorded 15 tackles and 2 sacks.

Hopefully Baun can keep up this level of tenacity, because it could help shore up a weak spot in the Eagles defense. A good linebacker is a lot of fun to watch, and Baun was a good linebacker against the Packers.

This one hurts. The Eagles lined up four times for the Brotherly Shove and compared to what we’re used to, it was bad.

The first time it wasn’t successful. The second time Jalen’s hard count put the Packers up, so it’s up to you whether that’s a successful shove. The third time it was successful. The fourth time the snap was fumbled and Saquon recovered it.

The Brotherly Shove worked 37 out of 40 times in 2023 (92.5 percent success). Week 1 was a 50 percent or 25 percent success rate, depending on how you count the penalty. That’s disheartening, to put it politely. Honestly, it really sucks.

There could be a few things to this failure. The most obvious reason is that Jason Kelce may have been the key. If that is the case, then there is no hope and it will feel like the offense has been beating its head against the wall all season.

It could also be because the offense isn’t getting the practice reps they need. You could look at the fumbled snap as evidence of this. Snaps get better with practice and if there was a bad snap, it could be because they weren’t getting enough reps.

It’s also possible that teams have learned how to stop it, but that requires insider information. Jason Kelce was literally the scapegoat of the BS and there’s no way he’s walking around sharing Jeff Stoutland’s secrets. The man is too honorable to do that.

Jonathan Gannon on the other hand? He quit last year and that rat is probably more than willing to take down the team he used to coach.

Overall, the seriousness of the Week 1 winners outweighs the losers. Plus, the losers are all fixable…except for Josh Sweat’s number. It seems like he’s likely to keep that up all season.