The Philadelphia Eagles had a run of bad luck after losing to the San Francisco 49ers 42-19 in their Week 13 game. The Eagles finished 11-6 and dropped from the top NFC seed to No. 5 in the standings.
Edge-rusher Nick Bosa of the 49ers made a joke at the time claiming that the team gave the rest of the league a blueprint on how to defeat the Eagles. He might have been correct, given that they dropped six of their final seven games, including their Super Wild Card Weekend encounter against the Tampa Bay Bucs on Monday.
Bosa responded slyly when asked on Tuesday if he was accepting any blame for the Eagles playoff defeat, in which the Bucs held them to 276 yards of total offense, a far cry from their regular-season average of 354.4 yards per game.
According to NBC Sports Bay Area, Bosa remarked, “I actually saw the clip and I was like, ‘Damn, I probably shouldn’t have said that.” “But it turned out quite nicely.”
The 49ers don’t have to worry about repeating their performance from Week 13 in a potential rematch of the NFC Championship game from the previous year, since Philadelphia’s season is already gone.
In that game on December 3, the 49ers forced quarterback Jalen Hurts to throw three interceptions and limited Philly to 333 yards of total offense.The 49ers defense forced Hurts to try and beat them from the pocket instead of with his legs and his ability to evade rushers, totaling 46 pressures, 37 hurries and six QB hits on his 52 drop backs, per Pro Football Focus. “We made Jalen stay in the pocket,” Bosa said in December. “Jalen is looking at the [pass] rush every play. So you just have to be disciplined and not give him that quick escape route where he can get to his guys quick. And it paid off.” The Bucs employed a similar game plan on Monday. They finished with 31 pressures, 25 hurries, two QB hits and three sacks, and Hurts ran the ball just one time for five yards. More must-reads:
