Ten in a row, the longest winning streak in franchise history. A few big steps closer to number 1. A confident victory over a 10-3 team.

This was a monster win for the Eagles, 27-13 over a very good Steelers team that had won seven of its last eight after a somewhat challenging week. And with the Commanders, Cowboys and Giants all set to play before the end of the regular season, there’s a real chance for the Eagles to end this thing on a 13-game winning streak.

They threw the ball beautifully. They played excellent defense. And they even won without a big contribution from Saquon Barkley.

This was spectacular stuff.

1. We talk about free football all the time and without it you can’t beat good teams. This means the offense and defense work together and take advantage of their big plays. So we have six minutes left in the third quarter, the Steelers have already reduced their 14-point lead to seven and they are systematically driving within the Eagles’ 30 points with all the momentum in the world. Then Najee Harris fumbles a Russell Wilson pitch, Darius Slay pounces on it, the Eagles take control of their own 26-yard line and then drive 74 yards in 13 plays for a touchdown that gives them an early lead of 27-13 makes it fourth quarter. The defense is on her heels, gets the ball back, passes it on to the offense, which immediately takes advantage with an impressive attack to take a 14-point lead. That’s what great teams do. Not only do they get contributions from both sides of the ball, they also make both sides of the ball work together and we saw that on Sunday and that’s a very good sign.

2. Fancy a passing game? Here is your passing game. This was a statement from Jalen Hurts, AJ Brown, DeVonta Smith, Nick Sirianni and Kellen Moore that the Eagles’ passing game is alive and well and fully capable of taking over a game against a top defense if needed. After racking up 112 and 83 net passing yards against the Ravens and Panthers over the past two weeks, the Eagles’ passing game came alive on Sunday with 104 yards, all in the first quarter. Hurts looked sharp from the start, Moore continued to increase his passing from mid-range and the Eagles played more through the air than they had since the bye. Yes, the last two weeks have been ugly in terms of the passing game, but we’ve seen Jalen have a lot of great games in the past and there was no reason why Kellen Moore was really focused on being balanced against the Steelers, that he could do it. I’m not coming back. With these weapons? We kept saying that there would come a day when the Eagles would really have to rely on their passing game. It was that kind of game, and Hurts, his line and his receivers responded to the challenge and came out great.

3. As for Hurts, he was exceptional against the NFL’s fifth-ranked defense. He completed 25 of 32 passes for 290 yards with two touchdowns, no interceptions and a passer rating of 125.3 – his eighth game over 100 during the 10-game winning streak. Hurts is so good at diagnosing weaknesses in his game and fixing them, whether it’s interceptions early in the year, holding on to the ball too long the last few weeks, or something else Problem that arises along the way. Every quarterback deals with issues at some point, the elite ones figure it out. On Sunday, Hurts drove the ball vertically, made quick decisions and unloaded it. He completed six passes of at least 20 yards and four more of 16 or more yards. His 21-yarder on 3rd-and-6 from the 7-yard line to AJ Brown with 9½ minutes left was the biggest throw in the ointment. Here are Hurts’ numbers during the 10-game winning streak: 157 for 225, 1,962 yards, 14 touchdown passes, 12 rushing touchdowns and over 400 rushing yards with an impressive 115.5 passer rating. Elite.

4. Man, it was great to see DeVonta Smith play a truly meaningful role for the first time in a long time. It’s been a strange year for Smith. He got off to a good start, then got hurt, then disappeared from the offense, then got hurt again, then came back last week and didn’t play a role against the Panthers. So it was huge to see him play an important role in a big win over a quality opponent. Smith caught 10 of 11 targets for 109 yards and a touchdown – the most catches of his career and his most yards since the Bills game last November. The Eagles need Smith and they need Hurts to feed him like that. He’s too good not to be a factor, especially while Dallas Goedert is out. And one thing isn’t said often enough about the 170-pound Smith. He may be a little slimmer, but there isn’t a single catch where he doesn’t struggle for extra yards against D-backs who are 20 or 30 pounds heavier. age is hard.

5. That was a masterstroke on defense and of course the Steelers were shorthanded and missing George Pickens, but that’s a Hall of Fame quarterback on the other side of the line of scrimmage with a three-time 1,000-yard rusher running the ball and The Eagles held them to 163 yards, 10 first downs, 3.3 yards per rushing attempt and 107 net passing yards. That’s 10 straight games in which the defense has allowed 20 or fewer points, their longest streak since 1998. That’s the best defense in the NFL, and they showed it on Sunday.

6. How about the last ride? Holy cow. The Eagles took the lead at their own 3-yard line with 10:29 left in the fourth quarter and a 14-point lead. A penalty brought them back to the 2-yard line, and then Hurts and Co. went to work, scoring 21 plays – 21 games!!! – and time is running out. They didn’t score a goal, but they didn’t need to. They ran out the clock and ended the game with a knee by Jalen Hurts. Stathead has only tracked drive information since 2001, but 21 games is the Eagles’ most in history, and 10:29 is their third-longest drive in the same 24-year period. And it was also the most games in a continuous round trip since records began. The Eagles were 4-5 on the third down drive, along with a fourth down conversion. Hurts was 5 of 7 for 78 yards on the drive with completions of 19, 21 and 22 yards and a pair of rushing conversions. And the O-line just crushed the Steelers’ vaunted defensive line as the clock ticked down. Think about a 10 ½ minute drive. That’s 18 percent of the entire game. I don’t know if you can love a ride that doesn’t score points any more.

7. I can’t say enough about how Kenny Gainwell has embraced his role as a substitute and how well he has responded when opportunities have come his way. He’s such a valuable guy in this offense, and he had 10 touches for 60 net yards on Sunday and converted four of those 10 touches into first downs, including a huge physical catch and a run through traffic for 14 yards on a 3rd-and-goal. and-9-Late in the third quarter, while this was still a one-possession game. That was the touchdown that gave the Eagles a 14-point lead. Despite playing only 24 percent of the Eagles’ offensive snaps, Gainwell had 361 scrimmage yards in 13 games. The challenging thing about Gainwell’s role is that he never knows when – or if – he will act. He didn’t even get a touch in the Ravens game. It’s a role that not many people can handle. But he is always ready and whenever the ball is in his hands good things happen.

8. He didn’t make any long field goals, but Jake Elliott made both field goal attempts, shots from 34 and 41 yards. He also made a 49-yarder, which would have been his longest throw of the year, but it was negated by a Steelers penalty. He also completed all three PATs without issue, and that might not seem like a big deal, but given the issues he had? Just seeing him throw seven kicks in a row was pretty important for this team, and I’m sure for Elliott too.

9. The Eagles outscored the Steelers 401-163 on Sunday, and let’s put that in perspective: That’s the largest yardage difference by any team over the Steelers in 26 years. More than a quarter of a century. The last time they were outrebounded by more than 238 yards was late in the 1998 season, when the Bengals – behind 367 passing yards from former Eagle Jeff Blake – outrebounded them by 272 yards (483 to 211). Mike Tomlin has coached 307 games since becoming head coach of the Steelers in 2007, and his teams have never been outgained by 238 yards. The previous high in Tomlin’s 18 seasons was 236 for the Ravens at M&T in 2020 (457 to 221). The Steelers’ 163 total yards are their fewest since they had 126 yards against the Ravens in 2011. The Eagles just beat this team.

10. Nolan Smith has quietly made a number of plays during the 10-game winning streak, and his sack Sunday gives him 5 ½ during those 10 games after managing just one as a rookie and none before the bye. Smith is really fun to watch. At 6-2 and 240 pounds, he’s not the biggest, but he’s tirelessly physical, very tough against the run and always finding new ways to get to the quarterback. In addition to his sack, he had two tackles for loss, two quarterback hurries, a pass breakup and four tackles. Monster game. With Josh Sweat on one side – he picked up his eighth sack on Sunday, the second most of his career – and Smith on the other, the Eagles have a pretty good one-two punch at edge rusher. And they were able to get Bryce Huff back in time for the Cowboys game, and he started playing better when he got hurt. But Smith has come so far after such a lackluster rookie season, and he’s only going to get better. Suddenly, this first-round pick looks pretty good.

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