The defending Super Bowl champions Philadelphia Eagles resume their preseason with a Week #3 matchup against the Cleveland Browns at the FirstEnergy Stadium in Cleveland, Ohio on 8/23/18.
The Eagles are winless in the preseason so far at 0-2. Philadelphia lost to the Pittsburgh Steelers 31-17 in week 1 and then they dropped a 37-20 decision to the New England Patriots on 8/16/18 in a Super Bowl rematch.
On the other hand, the Browns are 1-1 in their preseason campaign. The Browns were up 17-13 in their week 2 encounter with the Buffalo Bills before Nate Peterman connected with Nick O’ Leary for a 35-year score which gave the Bills the lead that they would hang on to. Cleveland lost 19-17 to even their preseason record.
Despite losing to the Patriots, the Eagles had a very productive game from quarterback Nick Sudfeld. Sudfeld led the Eagles by going 22-39 for a total of 312 yards passing with three touchdowns and 1 interception. Nick Foles got a little action and went 3-9 for 44 yards while Joe Callahan went 2-3 for 7 yards.
JayJay Ajayi led the Philadelphia running game with six rushes for a total of 23 yards. The entire team though would only total 43 yards on a night where New England played regular season defense. Stephen Gibson had 5 catches for 90 yards while Dallas Goedert had 51 yards on five receptions.
On Defense, Tre Sullivan led Philadelphia with 8 tackles while Jeremy Reaves had 6 of his own tackles. Aziz Shittu also added two tackles in the Eagles’ loss. Philadelphia has allowed a total of 68 points in their first two preseason games and that’s something they would want to work on this game and the regular season moving forward.
Baker Mayfield passed for 79 yards on a 7-13 completion while Tyrod Taylor went 4-7 for 44 passing yards but neither quarterback scored a touchdown for the Browns. Carlos Hyde led the Browns offense with 64 rushing yards on 9 rushes with one touchdown scored. Nick Chubb led the Browns with 11 rushes for a total of 53 yards on the ground.
Da’Mari Scott had two receptions for 41 yards while Devon Cajuste caught one pass for 26 yards. The Cleveland offense had a total of 17 first downs in the game and they would go 2-3 in the red zone. The Browns’ offense has struggled with a total of 211 penalty yards in two preseason games.
James Burgess Jr. paced the Cleveland defense with 5 tackles while Larry Ogunjobi had two tackles. Derrick Kindred recorded one sack as the Browns’ defense allowed the Bills to convert on only 1-3 in the red zone while giving Buffalo a total of 32:51 minutes of possession time.
The Eagles will look to control the Browns’ running game which had its way against the Bills last week and given the Philadelphia manpower, they have what it takes to do that. The Eagles will look to take control of this game early on and put the Browns away right from the get go.
With their starting quarterback still on the mend, we’re going to see pretty much of the lineup we saw last week from the Eagles. Against a Browns defense which is still struggling, that would be enough to take this game and start packing up the momentum as the regular season continues to get nearer. The last time these two teams met, it was Philadelphia who was victorious 29-10 way back in September 2016.
If Nick Foles shoulder strain isn’t that bad, he’s going to get more minutes in this matchup. Otherwise, the Eagles will ride with Sudfeld as they’ve done so in the preseason. Sudfeld leads the preseason with 452 passing yards so far so he’s doing a good job really. As for Cleveland, they will continue to shuffle their quarterback rotation in this contest.
I think this game goes down to leadership and experience. The Browns have shown some promise but the Eagles have the more experienced crew. We’re picking the Philadelphia Eagles to beat the Cleveland Browns on 8/23/18.
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