PHILADELPHIA − The Eagles continued to have their Paul Revere ride type of season.
One week after beating the Packers by land, the Eagles buried the Tennessee Titans by air.
Jalen Hurts threw for 380 yards and 3 touchdowns, two of them going to A.J. Brown, who burned his former teammates from 40 and 29 yards out, leading the Eagles to an easy 35-10 win over the Titans on Sunday.
In all, the Eagles (11-1) had 386 yards passing as Hurts fell seven yards shy of his career high after completing 29 of 39 passes. This came one week after the Eagles rushed for 363 yards in the 40-33 win over the Green Bay Packers.
The Eagles became the first team since the Raiders, then based in Los Angeles, to get at least 350 yards rushing and 350 yards passing in successive games.
It couldn’t have gone much better for Hurts’ MVP chances. And it couldn’t have gone much better for Brown, who downplayed all week facing his former team after acrimonious contract negotiations led to his draft-night trade to the Eagles.
After the game, Brown let loose, sort of.
First, he explained his two TD celebrations, where he pointed, then hugged the goal post, as if he was talking to the Titans:
“Today, you know, I’m going to have to give you this whoopin, but I still love you,” Brown said with a laugh. “That’s why the hug came in at the end.”
Then he added: “Like I said earlier, I wanted to retire a Titan, and I tried to do everything in my power to remain a Titan. But it’s a business, and in that situation, I had to grow up … I ended up getting traded, and I had to learn it was a business.
“And of course, I wanted to make them regret the decision.”
Brown finished with 119 yards receiving, and DeVonta Smith, who opened the scoring with a 34-yard TD on the opening drive, had 102 yards. They became the first Eagles receiving duo to each top 100 yards receiving in a game since Nelson Agholor (116) and Zach Ertz (110) did it in a Dec. 2018 game against Houston.
Hurts and most of the starters sat out most of the fourth quarter.
Brown had to get his first touchdown catch twice, each time from 40 yards out. The first one, down the right sideline, was overruled after a replay review showed Brown’s second foot landed out of bounds.
No worry, Hurts went right back to Brown on the next play, this time to the other side. Brown was wide open after he ran over the defender.
Brown saved his best for later, when he pulled in a 29-yard TD pass in the third quarter by grabbing the ball off the shoulder of his Titans’ defender. Brown admitted afterwards that he wasn’t expecting the ball to come to him.
“I gave him a chance to make a play,” Hurts said, adding with a laugh. “They don’t listen sometimes, that (always) be ready, the ball could come your way. He made a play on the ball. That’s a big boy catch. That’s a grown man’s catch.”
It was easy to see why the Eagles went to the pass. The Titans came into the game with the 31st ranked pass defense, allowing 267 yards per game. Hurts passed that by one yard at halftime, when the Eagles took a 21-10 lead.
Hurts hadn’t surpassed 200 yards passing in any of the previous three games, mainly because the Eagles were so successful running the ball.
After Smith’s opening drive TD, the Titans answered with a 25-yard touchdown pass from Ryan Tannehill to rookie Treylon Burks, the player the Titans used with the first-round pick from the Eagles in exchange for Brown.
Burks suffered a concussion on the play and did not return.
The Eagles kept it going in the second half. Their first drive took just 1 minute, 18 seconds and it consisted of just four plays, all passes by Hurts. He completed all of them, capping the drive with the 29-yarder to Brown.
The next scoring drive took a season-high 9 minutes, 51 seconds. The Eagles originally settled for a field goal, but Tennessee was flagged for offsides, setting up a 4th-and-1 from the Titans’ 4. The Eagles went for the first down and got it on Hurts’ sneak.
MILES-TONE IN REACH:Why Titans’ Derrick Henry is a cautionary tale if Eagles give Miles Sanders a big contract
Then Miles Sanders scored from 2 yards out with 11:27 remaining.
The defense, meanwhile, stopped Titans’ running back Derrick Henry, holding him to 30 yards on 11 carries. They sacked Tannehill 6 times, led by Josh Sweat with 2.
“That was a pretty complete game for us,” Eagles coach Nick Sirianni said in an understatement.
Covey’s big punt return day
Britain Covey came into the game averaging just 6.8 yards per punt return, not ranked among the top 25 in the NFL. Yet on Sunday, Covey had returns of 29, 25 and 20 yards, all longer than his previous high through the first 11 games of 15 yards.
DeVonta delivers early
While all the attention was on Brown facing his former team, it was DeVonta Smith who dominated early. He caught a 20-yard pass on 3rd-and-5 from the Eagles’ 27. Then he scored from 34 yards out on Jalen Hurts’ pass.
It was Smith’s longest reception since he had 44- and 45-yard receptions against Washington on Sept. 25.
Smith had 4 catches for 93 yards in the first half and 102 for the game. The yardage total is the most for Smith since he had 169 yards in the game against Washington.
“I think DeVonta has been going the whole year,” Sirianni said. “He is just very steady. This guy is a phenomenal route runner.”
Eagles have a penalty party
The Eagles’ offensive line didn’t get off to a good start. It was called for two false starts on the opening drive. By the end of the first quarter, four of the five starters were called for penalties.
Jason Kelce, Landon Dickerson and Lane Johnson were each called for false starts. Isaac Seumalo was called for a hold, but that offset a Titans’ penalty for pass interference, so it didn’t officially count.
Left tackle Jordan Mailata joined the penalty party in the second quarter with a false start.
In all, the Eagles committed 12 penalties for 80 yards.
“We have to get that cleaned up,” Sirianni said.
Contact Martin Frank at mfrank@delawareonline.com. Follow on Twitter @Mfranknfl.
