Category: Eagles/NFL

Eagles defensive tackle Moro Ojomo was lined up across from Sam Cosmi, so he had a clean look at Washington’s right guard to notice when he pulled from the right side of the formation to the left.

The Commanders were trying a two-point conversion to tie the season opener with the Eagles with 1 minute, 1 second left on the clock. As Cosmi pulled, center Nick Allegretti moved to his right to try to get a piece of Ojomo, who quickly engaged with right tackle Josh Conerly.

There are keys to follow in these situations, Ojomo said after the Eagles’ 24-22 win.

“You got to play fast, man, and you can’t play indecisive,” he said.

Conerly had to bounce to the right to block Nolan Smith on the edge, and Ojomo didn’t let Allegretti get his hands in a good enough position to stop him. Ojomo spun free. Cosmi was in the second level already and never saw Ojomo cutting across the formation to get a clean hit on tight end John Bates, who caught a shovel pass from Jayden Daniels at the 5-yard line and never made it back to the line of scrimmage.

The Eagles’ defense bent. It allowed a 12-play, 63-yard drive that threatened to send the game to overtime. But Ojomo’s quick thinking and spin move made sure the Eagles escaped a sloppy Week 1 game with a victory.

“It was amazing, but it was more amazing because we did it together,” Ojomo said.

It is easy to imagine the result being different. The Commanders had 20 first downs to the Eagles’ 10. The new-look Eagles offense had too many three-and-outs and too few successful blocks, but it made enough key plays when it mattered.

The Eagles are Super Bowl contenders largely because of their potential on defense, and they won Sunday because of a few key plays made by arguably the defense’s biggest strength: its interior.

Ojomo sealed it in the end, but the Commanders may not have needed to go for two at the end of the game if Jalen Carter hadn’t gotten a hand on Drew Stevens’ point-after attempt late in the second quarter.

Carter was in the backfield on the decisive two-point conversion at the end of the game, too, after he knifed past left guard Chris Paul and backup left tackle Brandon Coleman. Carter got a piece of Bates and slightly knocked him off course.

The Eagles, playing without new edge rusher Jonathan Greenard, didn’t often pressure Daniels from the edges, though that could have been partially because the assignments called for more containment against the elusive quarterback. The bulk of the pressure Sunday came from an interior unit that has the potential to be the best in the NFL. Carter and Jordan Davis received big-money extensions from the Eagles in the offseason.

Ojomo’s rise from seventh-round 2023 draft pick to budding star has him in line for a big payday next offseason.

The Eagles have a strong duo at linebacker in Zack Baun — who was all over the field Sunday and had 12 tackles — and Jihaad Campbell. They have a secondary with two All-Pro players in Quinyon Mitchell and Cooper DeJean (though the latter struggled Sunday). But the strength of the defense starts in the middle of the front.

“It doesn’t matter how we affect the game, but we want to affect the game,” Ojomo said.

Stevens’ next attempt after Carter blocked his PAT came midway through the third quarter with Washington trailing, 14-9. He sized up a 54-yard field goal try knowing the trajectory of his last kick hadn’t been good enough. Stevens kicked it slightly higher, but it was off course and missed wide right.

“There’s no way he would’ve made it if he kicked it straight,” Ojomo said. “I think he was just scared.”

Carter, who did not speak with reporters after the game, now has four blocks through three seasons and one game — two on point-after attempts and two field goals.

Carter, Ojomo said, has “a knack for the ball” in those situations.

“It’s who we are,” coach Nick Sirianni said, “and he’s affected the game multiple times.”

Ojomo called Sunday’s performance from the defense “scrappy” and said there were “a lot of things to improve on.”

In the end, he made the play that won the game, but there was at least one play that he wanted back. Ojomo nearly had Daniels down for a sack before Daniels slipped away and scrambled.

“You only get there so few times,” Ojomo said with a smile and a shake of his head. “I told him I’m going to get him on the next one. So watch out for that.”

Just 24 hours ago, Lincoln Financial Field was transformed into Beaver Stadium East as a sea of blue and white infiltrated the stadium for Penn State’s 27-9 win over Temple. But Sunday morning felt different.

Familiar midnight green and black jerseys covered the asphalt of the tailgating lots, DJs set up in front of green RVs, Eagles chants could be heard over music, and brave Washington fans scattered throughout the lots as they prepared to watch the Commanders take on the Eagles in their season opener.

“I bleed green, cut me, it’ll be green paint everywhere,” said Philly native Teddy Warren. “This is my time of year. I do nothing but this right here. The whole year [goes] by, we do nothing. Soon as Eagles football starts, everything is shut down. I don’t even go on vacation. This is vacation.”

From elevated grill dishes to recreational sports in the parking lots, here’s everything you missed from the Eagles’ home opener tailgates:

‘Rain, snow, sleet, or shine, we out here’

Gray clouds covered the South Philadelphia sports complex, light rain hit the already soaked pavement of the parking lots, and puddles formed along the curbs. But that wasn’t stopping fans from the home opener festivities.

“Doesn’t matter the weather, we’re going to be here,” said 38-year-old Plymouth Meeting native Jordan Anthony.

Anthony and Anthony Fanelli, 35, arrived at the tailgating lots at 7:30 a.m. They patiently waited for kickoff while passing a football.

“Last year, we were at both the snow games,” Fanelli said. “Freezing weather, but it don’t matter. We’re out here bleeding green. That’s what we do.”

Anthony and Fanelli weren’t the only fans unaffected by the rain. Warren has been tailgating Eagles games for 18 years, and he’s seen it all, including in 2010 when a game against the Minnesota Vikings was rescheduled because of an unexpected blizzard.

“Rain, snow, sleet, or shine, we out here,” Warren said. “I was out here when we was supposed to play Minnesota. Guys out here with snowblowers. That’s all. They bringing snowblowers just for that. Snow was up to the knees. I was out here in my tank top, cooking, deep frying.”

Barbells and basketball nets

By 1 p.m., the gray skies had faded and the sun peeked out, giving fans the perfect tailgate weather three hours before kickoff.

Eagles fans had the perfect recipe for success: beer (lots of it), water (less of it), and a basketball net attached to an arcade bus and bench press with 135 pounds attached to the bar.

In Lot D, the basketball hoop was on the back of Alex’s Arcade Bus, which has been in operation for a year. It features six televisions with multiple gaming consoles, including PlayStations and a Wii.

“As you can see, it’s a full-time job,” said West Philly native Marcell Porter. “It takes at least three of us to run it and that’s just the basketball court. Not even counting the Xbox and PlayStations. When we put those on, we can’t get the kids off it.”

Porter is an auto body technician and did all the infrastructure for the bus within two months. The bus, decorated with gaming characters like Chun Li, Mario, and Sonic, is used for kids’ birthday parties, but tailgates are among their driving forces to attract new customers.

“This is where we get most of our customers, most of our people,” Porter said. “Once people see our bus, they play basketball, they look at our QR code, and send us pictures.”

But if basketball wasn’t your thing, fans could make the long walk over to M Lot to The People’s Bench to see how many 135-pound reps they could get out pregame.

William Schaeffer, Dalton Kristiniak, and Craig Michelbacher — the creators behind the popular social media account The People’s Bench — returned to the tailgating lots after getting a lot of attention during the playoffs.

Philly native Daryus Watson, 26, was tempted by the bench and got an extra nudge from Remiah Hughes.

“I know that he’s able to do it,” Hughes said. “He be helping me. We be in the gym sometimes, and I know he can definitely do it. And I wanted him to be up on the board.”

Watson needed 44 reps to make it onto the leaderboard, but he finished with 40.

“It was a great experience,” Watson said. “I haven’t benched in a long time. Ended up getting to 40, so I’m happy with that. I wanted to get on the board, but I didn’t have enough in the tank.”

The grill masters come out

Derrick Simmons tossed his towel over his shoulder and peered inside his large smoker trailer to check on the ribs, chicken, hot dogs, and sausages he had been prepping before the game.

“This is just my pit,” Simmons said. “We cook anything on this jawn, black bear that we get from Merry Hill, North Carolina, deer, we throw whatever on this joint. We mess around with that farm-raised catfish too.”

The Philly native has family ties to North Carolina. He decided to purchase the smoker about 10 years ago, following requests from his family to host a number of family cookouts.

“We just out here celebrating the Birds,” Simmons said. “We going to beat down on Washington. Get the food, get the eats. And you got to eat. The folks out here, you haven’t heard it from me, but they like to drink. So you got to feed it. You got to feed it. You got to start out by eating.”

And Simmons wasn’t the only one throwing down in the tailgating lots. Dylan Marck was standing behind his grill at his usual spot in M Lot, cooking Wagyu New York strips and smoked pecan rosemary chicken. Marck, a self-taught chef, has been serving high-end cuisines such as lobster, pressed duck, steak — and even camel — at Philly tailgates since 2022. And this season, he already has a few new ideas in the works.

“The one thing I’m kind of interested in doing is pizza,” Marck said. “But the temperature has to be right. The dough is very finicky, and it’s very sensitive. So if we hit a nice window where it’s like 70 degrees, not too hot, not too humid, we’re going to bring a pizza oven out and do pizza.”

A celebration and a Commanders-to-Eagles switchover?

A sign that read “Happy 40th birthday, Sam” hung from a tent in D Lot, where Sam Bartoshesky and Bladen Potter, 28, sat ahead of the game. Both made the trip from Dewey Beach on Friday to spend the weekend in Philly for Bartoshesky’s 40th birthday.

“Forty is a tough thing to turn,” Bartoshesky said. “It’s just a different stage in life. But the one thing I really wanted to do is just be in my favorite city and just have all of this energy around me. It’s so fun, and you get all different walks of life here, but everybody comes together for one thing, and that’s to celebrate the Eagles.”

The city has even won over Potter, who grew up on the outside of Washington rooting for its football team. She also went to high school with Commanders receiver Stefon Diggs. But that connection still isn’t enough to keep her from making the switch to the Birds bandwagon.

“I have recently fallen in love with the city of Philly,” Potter said. “I just love camaraderie and community. … I’m finding myself falling more into that community. So I don’t have a jersey or anything yet. But I could see myself soon trading allegiances, as horrible as that may be to the Commanders, I’m so sorry.”

Eli Stowers won’t be making his regular-season debut any time soon.

The rookie tight end, a second-round pick out of Vanderbilt, was ruled out for Sunday’s season opener against the Washington Commanders with quadriceps and hamstring injuries. He has been placed on injured reserve, requiring him to miss at least the next four games.

Stowers had been dealing with a hamstring issue since the last week of training camp, but the quadriceps injury is a new development. After he reported discomfort in his leg, digital imaging showed that he had sustained a quadriceps strain that will sideline him for the next several weeks as he undergoes treatment and rehabilitation.

On Friday, Stowers had been optimistic about his availability for Week 1. He said after practice that it was “the plan” for him to play against the Commanders. However, he was listed as questionable to play on the final injury report released later that afternoon.

Stowers had a relatively quiet training camp and preseason performances. He finished with three receptions for 12 yards in two games, as he was sidelined for the final preseason game. Still, the rookie tight end was pleased with his development in various areas throughout the summer.

“With the playbook, the route tree, the schemes, the blocking schemes, pass blocking, really every single aspect,” Stowers said Friday. “Special teams. I think training camp was a really good learning experience for me, and I was really encouraged to see me get better in every single aspect, because that’s really what my goal was.”

With Stowers sidelined, Makai Lemon could be the only Eagles rookie to contribute in a non-special-teams role on Sunday.

The Eagles will have three tight ends at their disposal on game day — Dallas Goedert, Johnny Mundt, and EJ Jenkins. They do not currently have a tight end on the practice squad. Stowers joins fellow tight end Grant Calcaterra on injured reserve.

Additionally, the Eagles elevated Britain Covey from the practice squad to the game-day roster. The Eagles communications department listed Lemon as their first-string punt returner on the depth chart that was released Tuesday, but could turn to Covey, 29, as he has returned punts over the last four seasons.

Last year, Covey had 11.3 yards per punt return, which was above the league average of 10.2.