Jalen Hurts and the Philadelphia Eagles remained unbeaten in the NFL, but said they were not good as they feel they can be after the defending National Football Conference champions dominated the Tampa Bay Buccaneers 25-11 on Monday.
“Everybody wants us to be a final product now, but it’s a growth. You want to grow every day,” Eagles coach Nick Sirianni said.
“We’re not going to be playing our best football until we get going into the season,” Sirianni said. “We’ve still got things to work on, we’ve still got growth to do.”
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Hurts threw for a touchdown, ran for another and led the Eagles on a game-ending drive that lasted more than nine minutes.
Philadelphia won their first eight games a year ago and are off to a 3-0 start in consecutive seasons for the first time since the 1992-1993 season.
“At the end of the day, it’s about catching, it’s about throwing, it’s about taking care of the football, it’s about taking away the football, it’s about tackling, it’s about blocking, it’s about getting off blocks. Those are the key fundamentals to playing football, and our guys really did a good job of putting that extra work in,” Sirianni said. “That’s going to continue to take us through the season.”
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Hurts improved to 20-1 over his past 21 regular-season games. He tossed a 34-yard touchdown pass to Olamide Zaccheaus that helped Philly build a 13-3 halftime lead, and his 1-yard scoring run on a quarterback sneak gave the Eagles a 17-point advantage early in the second half.
The Eagles led 25-3 by the time the Bucs finally got into the end zone on Baker Mayfield’s 1-yard TD throw to Mike Evans.
A 2-point conversion trimmed Philadelphia’s lead to 14 with 9 minutes, 22 seconds remaining, but Hurts and the Eagles never let Tampa Bay get the ball back.
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“At that point we’re hoping to get the ball back, score quick and make it interesting,” Mayfield said.
“We didn’t play a good ballgame. They were a lot to do with that,” Bucs coach Todd Bowles said. “We can’t mope about it.”
Hurts was four of five passing and ran for a first down on the final drive.
“Outside of some turnovers on my behalf, I think we did a really good job of executing,” Hurts said. “We’ve got to do a better job of controlling the things we can, but we’ve got three wins down and we’re going to continue to build off of that as a team and hold each other accountable. That’s the name of the game.”
The Bucs (2-1) lost for the first time with Mayfield at quarterback, turning the ball over twice after playing turnover-free against the Minnesota Vikings and the Chicago Bears.
The Buccaneers’ usually reliable defense struggled, too, yielding 201 yards rushing.
A week after running for a career-high 175 yards, D’Andre Swift ran for 130 yards on 16 attempts for Philadelphia.
Hurts was 23 of 37 passing for 277 yards and two interceptions, while A.J. Brown finished with nine receptions for 131 yards for the Eagles — one of just three NFL teams who remain unbeaten, along with the Miami Dolphins and the San Francisco 49ers.
In Cincinnati, Ohio, the Los Angeles Rams suffered a 19-16 loss to the Bengals.
Although the Aaron Donald-led defense kept Cincinnati without a touchdown in the first half, the Rams’ offense could not capitalize.
“I think the biggest thing for us tonight was missed opportunities early in the game in the red zone,” quarterback Matthew Stafford said. “If we can come away with some sevens there, it’s probably a little bit of a different game later on.”
The Rams (1-2) were one of four in their red zone trips. Their lone touchdown came in the final two minutes of the game when Tutu Atwell went in from the 1-yard line to close the deficit to three points, but the ensuing onside kick was unsuccessful.
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