The most underrated play of the Eagles Super Bowl Championship season

Stu Burguiere
Sep 6, 2018 · 8 min read

If you’re thinking about the most important single play in the Philadelphia Eagles magical run to the Lombardi Trophy in 2017–18, there are no shortage of candidates.

The Super Bowl is the easy place to start. Of course, Philly Special (aka Philly Philly) is probably the most memorable. You have Zach Ertz diving into the end zone for the go ahead touchdown, the impossible throw and catch from Nick Foles to Corey Clement, the athleticism and focus of Alshon Jeffery’s first touchdown catch, the strip sack by Brandon Graham of Tom Brady, the gutsy fourth and one conversion on their own 45 with 5:39 left in a one point game, and my personal favorite, Tom Brady’s unsuccessful hail mary, as that beautiful football finally touches the ground with the clock showing nothing but zeroes.

The first time I exhaled during the game.

You could easily go to the playoffs and mention the goal line stand by the defense in the final minute against Atlanta which may have ended the whole dream. On fourth down from the two, Julio Jones couldn’t quite come down with the go ahead score, despite an underrated throw from Matt Ryan. Or, in the regular season, Jake Elliott’s amazing 61 yard field goal to beat the Giants.

But, the most overlooked play of the miracle season, happened in the middle of mourning its worst moment. It was the final play of the season for Carson Wentz.

Of course, everyone remembers Wentz getting hurt against the Rams. But, it’s easy to forget he stayed in the game for four more plays. Before we examine the play itself, let’s look at why it was so important.

They really needed this play to win the game.

After the play that caused the injury of Wentz, a diving touchdown called back by penalty, the Eagles had the ball at the 12, first and goal. Wentz was hobbled, but remained in the game, handing off twice to Corey Clement to get down to the two yard line. After and incomplete pass to Alshon Jeffery, Doug Pederson decided to go for it on fourth down, trailing 28–24 late in the third quarter.

The game was a wild back and forth, ending in a one possession Eagles win 43–35. However, the score is misleading. The Eagles scored a touchdown on the last play of the game on a fumble recovery resulting from a desperation series of laterals by the Rams. For all intents and purposes, the score was actually 37–35, and every score was desperately needed. Even a field goal instead of the touchdown would likely have left the Eagles with a loss.

While it’s impossible to know what would have occurred if the Eagles came away with nothing on that drive, they would likely have lost the game if not for Carson’s Last Play (tm).

They really needed to win this game.

The Eagles finished the season as the number one seed, a bye, and home field advantage throughout the playoffs. It’s probably impossible to overstate the importance of this as the Eagles offense tried to piece things together and find its stride with Nick Foles at quarterback. But, it’s easy to forget that this was far from a foregone conclusion, especially in week 14 against the Rams. In fact, the Vikings were the number one seed going into the game.

The Eagles finished the season at 13–3, winning the tiebreaker with the Vikings, who also finished 13–3. It doesn’t take a mathematician to figure out the obvious, without the Rams win the Eagles would have been 12–4, and played the NFC Championship on the road. At home, the Eagles blew out the Vikings, but would that have happened in Minnesota? Especially when the next game would be held in the same building two weeks later? At the very least, it would have been a much more difficult game.

However, this surface reading of the situation doesn’t really tell the story, because the Eagles mostly sat their starters in week 17 against the Cowboys. If the Eagles had lost to the Rams, they would have been forced to play everyone in week 17. Just this would have had a major impact. Players would lose the time to rest and heal, and a win would not have been a foregone conclusion.

At the time, the Eagles looked like anything but future Super Bowl champions. After the Rams game, they first squeaked out a five point win against a terrible 3–13 New York Giants team in the middle of complete collapse, controversy, and the firing of their head coach.

Then, the Eagles narrowly defeated a 6–10 Raiders team (about to fire their head coach as well), in what was also effectively a one score game. (Like the Rams game, they would return a fumble for a touchdown on the last play of the game. Personal note: I lost my fantasy football championship on that final play, which is the happiest I have ever been losing anything.)

While the Eagles had blown out the Cowboys with Wentz earlier in the season, the offense appeared to be hopeless in the Raiders game, and the Cowboys would have been motivated to seriously hurt a division rival.

But, it could have been worse. In this alternate reality, the Rams win over the Eagles would have moved them to a 12–4 season. But, the Rams had the same situation as the Eagles, sitting their starters in their week 17 loss against the 49ers. If the Rams played their starters and won, they would have finished 13–3, ahead of the Eagles at 12–4. This would move the Eagles to a three seed in the playoffs, they would lose their bye, play an extra game, and then face two games on the road just to make the Super Bowl. Could it have happened? Sure. But, the odds were seriously stacked against it.

The play itself.

Wentz, his knee bending in all sorts of ways it wasn’t supposed to, takes the snap out of the shotgun. The line delivers excellent protection for Wentz, who is essentially immobile at this point. Wentz first looks right, finds nothing, then comes back to the middle. The protection finally breaks down, and Wentz is out of time. As he makes the decision to throw the ball, this is what he sees:

As you’ll notice, there’s not much to see. The shallow receiver is a blanketed Nelson Agholor, with Alshon Jeffery just gaining a bit of separation in the back of the end zone. Note, Jeffery is in between two defenders. This is what their movements looked like:

As the pressure comes from the left of Wentz, he is forced to rush the throw, off of his back foot, across his body. Between the pressure and his injury, his lower body is completely uninvolved, and he is not able to get much on the throw at all. This throwing position and motion will not be featured at a future Carson Wentz football camp.

Once the ball is in the air, the play does not look much more hopeful. Keep in mind, Jeffery is at least the third option on this play, and the only reason Jeffery is free of his double coverage is because he’s broken off the route and coming back to the ball (definitely no push off). Wentz can’t know exactly where he’s going. He has to have predicted the perfect location behind Nickell Robey-Coleman (defender 1), and in between defenders 2 (Lamarcus Joyner) and 3 (Marcus Peters).

Finally, a seam opens up big enough for the ball to fit through. Defenders 2 and 3 don’t have time to react and change direction, leaving defender 1 with the only chance to get a hand on the ball. With his momentum carrying him towards the middle, he is forced to reach back to try to swat the ball away. You can see how close he comes to succeeding. Also note Jeffery, who has just changed directions, brought himself back up to speed, then has to slam on the breaks again, and somehow lean back towards the middle of the field.

Here is the view from the backside as the ball sails past the defender.

While Carson Wentz deserves a ton of credit for his toughness facing injury, field vision, and ability to thread the needle under pressure, it’s Jeffery who is the real star. The catch he makes seems to defy physics.

After bending like a pretzel to be able to get into position to make the catch, he gets his hands on the ball and attempts to squeeze it for the touchdown. But, the ball initially seems to be heading for the ground as Joyner flies in for a last gasp attempt to knock it away.

Jeffrey, with his momentum taking him to the right, reaching back to the left, while falling to the ground, has a couple of fingers on his right hand touching the ball. His left hand is only making contact with the top half of the ball, and his thumb is in no man’s land.

As the ball progresses, he gets one hand under, while his left hand somehow controls the ball with his knuckles.

Jeffrey then appears to use his fingers to walk the ball back into his grasp. Keep in mind, this is all occurring while a player is landing on him.

Finally he is able to get control and hold on, while on his knees.

All while a full grown man is crashing into him.

The degree of difficulty of this catch is otherworldly. Considering the catch, the throw, the injury, the game situation, and the playoff implications, the entire play was basically a gift to Philadelphia directly from the heavens.

Here is the play in its entirety (starts at about 5:28).

Somehow, everything went right. The Eagles scored, went on to win, snagged the number one seed, won a playoff game, a NFC championship game, and a Super Bowl.

As Philadelphia attempts the near impossible task to repeat, I leave you with the greatest frame of video in the history of sports. Go Birds.

Stu Burguiere

Written by

Host, The Wonderful World of Stu & Pat and Stu EP / Head Writer, Glenn Beck Program

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