It was all falling apart right in front of our eyes.
After 55 ½ minutes of defensive excellence, 55 ½ minutes of shutting down the Rams, 55 ½ minutes of stifling Matt Stafford, the Eagles’ worst nightmare was coming to life.
And in the span of 3 ½ minutes, the Eagles’ seemingly safe 13-point lead had turned into a six-point lead, the Rams were 13 yards from a game-winning touchdown and the Eagles were one more Matt Stafford pass to Puka Nacua or Cooper Kupp away from one of the greatest 4th-quarter playoff collapses in NFL history.
Eagles fans everywhere were holding their breath and a lot of guys on the sideline were as well.
“That’s where we thrive, I think,” Cooper DeJean said. “When moments get tough and adversity hits, I think our team’s built for that.
“That starts with head coach. That’s what he talks about every single week. There’s going to be adversity in every single game. It’s about fighting through it and playing the next play.”
This was a lifetime of adversity.
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Saquon Barkley’s 78-yard touchdown run with 4:36 left gave the Eagles a 28-13 lead, and at that point the Rams had just 267 yards of offense, Stafford had passed for just 194 yards and the Eagles needed just one stop to end the game and move onto the NFC Championship Game against Washington.
That one stop eventually came but not before Stafford drove the Rams 70 yards to a touchdown in under two minutes, the Eagles had an ugly 3-and-out that took 25 seconds off the clock and Stafford drove the Rams to a 1st-and-10 on the Eagles’ 21-yard-line with under a minute and a half left.
“We just needed to win the game and I love that it gets put on the defense because that’s how we want it,” Zack Baun said.
“We can win in a lot of different ways and resilience is kind of our specialty, fighting adversity. We’ve talked about adversity this week a lot. You never know what is it’s gonna be before the game, but when it happens, how are you gonna respond?”
No team has blown a 13-point lead in the final five minutes of a playoff game in at least 50 years.
The Eagles were one play from doing exactly that.
But Jalen Carter and Co. didn’t let it happen.
On that 1st-and-10 from the Eagles’ 21 with 1:25 on the clock, Stafford completed a short three-yard pass to Kupp down to the 18, and a false start on Rams guard Kevin Dotson moved the ball back to the 23. A 10-yarder from Stafford to Nacua gave the Rams a 3rd-and-2 on the Eagles’ 13.
“Obviously, we got to get a stop,” Baun said. “Who’s going to be the one to make the play? That’s what I kept telling my teammates: ‘Who’s going to be the one that’s going to finish this game off for us?'”
It was Jalen Carter, who capped an astonishing performance by putting a devastating swim move on Rams center Beaux Limmer and flattening Stafford back at the 22-yard-line for his second sack of the game.
And then it was Carter again on fourth down pressuring Stafford into an incompletion to Nakua on the right sideline, and the celebration finally began.
“Oh my gosh,” Baun said. “That dude is just a monster. The best in the league.”
Incredibly, 40 percent of Stafford’s 324 passing yards came in the final 4 ½ minutes of the game.
If it was 41 percent, the Rams win.
“It felt like as an offense, we had them on the ropes, and they probably felt it, too,” Stafford said. “We were moving the rock really well the last two drives, and then just a couple of unforced errors here and there and got behind the sticks.
“And you do that against a team like that, with a defense like that, it’s going to be a difficult, difficult thing to overcome.”
The Eagles got the win and a berth in the NFC Championship Game for the third time in eight years. They’ll be back at the Linc Sunday to face the Commanders, with a berth in Super Bowl LIX in New Orleans at stake.
But those last few minutes were stressful, to say the least.
“It was a little nerve-wracking,” Carter said. “You know, we’ve been playing good all game, and they got a good little drive and got some points on the board. But we knew we still had to stay composed and calm and didn’t let that get to us. And when our opportunity came to go back out there and get another stop, we made that happen.”
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