GREEN BAY, Wis. — The Philadelphia Eagles have done this so many times that you have to constantly remind yourself to temper your criticism. That can be a difficult thing to do, especially on nights like Monday, when you spend the vast majority of your time watching an offense that more than deserves a critical eye.

There are lots of games in which performances like the ones the Eagles got from Jalen Hurts and Kevin Patullo would have led to an outcome far less satisfying than a 10-7 win over a Green Bay Packers team that many had pegged as a legitimate threat in the NFC. The quarterback was too erratic. The play caller was too conservative. The offense as a collective looked like something far less than the sum of its considerable parts.

And, yet, when the clock struck zeros, the scene looked the way it always seems to look. There they were, jogging off another football field, after another statement game, again pumping their fists and mugging for the cameras and whooping their way to another victorious locker room and another week with the best record in the NFC.

It has looked that way 23 times in their last 26 games, a run of success that has included wins over nearly half the teams in the NFL, including most of the ones around them at the top of the standings. The Steelers, Ravens, Bucs, the Rams three times, the Chiefs twice, and, now, the Packers twice. Nick Sirianni’s Eagles have consistently shown that they love nothing more than a measuring stick.

“We got to enjoy these wins,” Sirianni said. “It’s hard to come into this place, against this team, and win a game. So we have to enjoy this. But make no mistake about it. Every one of us is determined to get better and continue to rise. But I’m going to enjoy this, because I know how I feel when I’m on the other end of it.”

For a year-and-a-half now, the Eagles have been a team that defies conventional thinking. Rarely if ever has an NFL team won so consistently in the manner that they are winning games. A big part of it is the talent. That was as obvious on Monday night as it is every week.

In Saquon Barkley, the Eagles have a running back who can turn the tide of the game at any moment, as he did on third-and-7 with 11 minutes, 30 seconds left, taking a dump-off pass 41 yards to the Packers’ 36-yard-line. In DeVonta Smith, they have a wide receiver who almost always makes the catch that he made on the play after Barkley’s run, streaking past Packers safety Evan Williams and coming down with a contested catch in the end zone to give the Eagles a 10-0 lead that felt insurmountable given the circumstances.

Games like Monday night’s usually go to the team that makes the plays that are there to be made. The Packers did not do it. Bo Melton dropped a pass on fourth down that would have given Green Bay a first down inside the Eagles’ 30-yard-line. An illegal formation call wiped out a 22-yard catch by Christian Watson that would have given the Packers a first down on the Eagles 13-yard-line early in the fourth quarter. It always seems to be the other team failing to capitalize in the biggest of situations.

“That’s something that you live for in this game,” Smith said. “To be able to go out there and make those big plays to change games.”

Most games, the Eagles will end up needing more of those plays, and earlier. For the first three quarters against the Packers, Patullo’s offense was something worse than ineffective. At times, it appeared almost deal-breakingly bad, capable of little more than costing themselves a chance at repeating as champs. In order to win a Super Bowl, a team must be able to score enough points to win three or four playoff games in a row. The Eagles rarely looked like such a team against the Packers.

For three quarters, the number of the day was zero.

Zero points in the first quarter.

Zero points in the second quarter.

Zero targets for A.J. Brown for a stretch of more than 40 minutes of game clock.

Zero interest in the end zone, it seemed.

Four times they called plays well short of the sticks on third-and-long. Two outside runs by Will Shipley on third-and-12 and third-and-14. Two short passes to Shipley on third-and-10 and third-and-15. Sirianni insisted afterward that the Eagles were not waving a white flag in those situations. But it sure felt that way.

“With some of the looks they were giving us we thought we could split some of those in the run game,” Sirianni said. “Sometimes it works, sometimes they don’t. I know those will always be questioned, but I know the defense was playing good in those moments. That doesn’t mean we’re conceding, because we have a lot of faith in those run calls there. I think when you are able to run the ball in those areas, it makes the defense play a little more honest. … They had us in a lot of funky cover twos where we knew the ball would be checked down and it was just a different way to get to that. … We’ll go back and look at everything. ”

The only thing saving the Eagles was the fact that Matt LaFleur’s offense looked even less willing to force the issue. This was the first NFL game since 2023 that entered halftime without either team having scored. It was like watching one of those soccer games that makes you wonder how anybody could like watching soccer.

It is easy to say that the Eagles need to be better, that they can’t get to the end of a game having thrown just three balls in the vicinity of a game-wrecker like Brown, that they can’t enter halftime having completed just one pass of 10 or more yards. These are reasonable things to think. And they are probably true.

On the flip side, it is tough to speak in terms of necessity when the Eagles continue to win games while doing things as they do them. The best teams are the ones that win games when they aren’t at their prettiest. That the Eagles won another one is still the biggest takeaway.

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