Cornerback Quinyon Mitchell knew his Philadelphia Eagles teammate Jordan Davis was fast, but not that fast.
“I think he hit like 14-15 mph,” Mitchell told Yahoo Sports postgame.
Davis actually reached a max speed of 18.59 mph after blocking a potential game-winning 44-yard Los Angeles Rams field goal and rumbling 61 yards for a scoop-and-score Sunday that helped shake a rocking Lincoln Financial Field in the final moment of a 33-26 stunner.
“Eighteen? Goddamn,” Mitchell said. “Yeah man, he was moving.”
So were the Eagles, who erased a 26-7 deficit with 26 unanswered points of their own. The final six were tacked on by Davis’ return, and in the process he staved off what might have been an uncomfortable week of discourse for the defending Super Bowl champions.
Davis, who’s in a contract year and shed 26 pounds from the end of last season to the start of this year’s training camp, ramped up to a speed no NFL player weighing at least 330 pounds has recorded since at least 2017, according to the league’s Next Gen Stats.
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Mitchell added: “He’s always been fast. I mean, I think you’ve seen his 40-yard dash.”
It went viral in 2022, before Davis went from supersized Georgia Bulldogs backfield wrecker to Eagles first-round draft pick. But Mitchell misremembered the time his now-teammate ran at the NFL scouting combine that year.
“He ran a 4.78?” Mitchell asked after he heard the three numbers again.
He did, and, according to Davis, he hadn’t ran that fast again until Sunday.
“Didn’t know I was going to go that fast, didn’t know I was going to make it all the way to the end zone,” the trimmer-but-still-mammoth-sized Davis said at the podium postgame.
“I just started running, and my legs carried me from there.”
(Mitchell Leff via Getty Images)
Before that, it looked like Matthew Stafford was going to lead another game-winning drive. The Super Bowl-winning Rams quarterback is top five all-time with 49 of them.
Stafford swiftly pushed Los Angeles into field-goal range, sucking more of the joy out of DeVonta Smith’s go-ahead, fourth-and-goal touchdown reception with every completion he made.
A 9-yard toss to Puka Nacua here, a 12-yard pass to Nacua there and then a 9-yard throw to wideout Jordan Whittington to top it off. Los Angeles was already in striking distance of reclaiming a defining victory early in the NFC playoff race.
Kicker Joshua Karty had already made four field goals on the day. He also already had one blocked, a 36-yarder midway through the fourth quarter that was disrupted by Davis’ interior linemate and former Georgia teammate, Jalen Carter.
“A lot of people look at field-goal block as just another play, just another down, put your hands up, get off the field, check a box,” Davis told reporters postgame. “But the way we talked about it on the sideline, especially after his last kick, we knew his angle. … And we just hit the gap, put our hands up at the right time, and then I seen the ball on the ground.”
In the game’s most critical moment, Davis did the honors.
He leapt, swatted the kick and followed the miss like a basketball player hunting an offensive rebound. Rams holder Ethan Evans tried to hop on it, except it squirted loose. Davis picked it up.
When asked about that moment, Eagles head coach Nick Sirianni started playing back a memory from his first preseason leading the team. It was Aug. 28, 2021, and a scoop-and-score in the final minute gave the Eagles the lead, only to then afford the New York Jets enough time to tie the exhibition with a Hail Mary.
The backups were in. The game didn’t count. Sirianni remembers it, though. And he maintains that, in that type of “no-mas” situation, it’s better to go down.
On Sunday, he made an exception.
“When there’s no time on the clock and there’s nobody out in front of you, I’m always OK with something like that,” Sirianni said.
Besides, there are more important things for him to teach on tape. The Eagles’ offense had its worst half of Sirianni’s tenure against the Rams in Week 3. A unit coordinated by the already scrutinized Kevin Patullo mustered a measly 34 yards over the opening two quarters. In that span, the Eagles had four three-and-outs that amounted to a combined -3 yards. Quarterback Jalen Hurts, who came into the game averaging just six air yards per pass attempt, was 4 of 8 for 17 yards. Three-time Pro Bowl receiver A.J. Brown had only one target, after being targeted just nine times through the first two weeks. Smith, meanwhile, wasn’t getting much more attention with only two first-half receptions to his name.
If it wasn’t for Vic Fangio’s bend-but-don’t-break defense forcing field goal after field goal, the Eagles wouldn’t have had a chance to stage a rally.
Fangio’s defense was also responsible for a shutout in the final 29 minutes of game time that allowed Patullo’s offense to get its act together and, in Brown’s words, let its “killers do they thing.” Hurts finished with three touchdown passes. One of them went to Brown, and the game-winner went to Smith.
Without those two blocked field goals, there’s no Eagles comeback.
And without a fourth-and-1 tackle for loss in the fourth quarter authored by (who else?) Davis and Carter, there might not be an Eagles comeback, either.