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Source: NFL.com

week 9 of the 2022 NFL season

1. Dallas Goedert isn’t exactly elite, but he’s not far from it either. Since Rob Gronkowski quit football (for the second time), the tight-end power rankings have largely followed this pattern: Travis Kelce is one. Mark Andrews 2. 3. All other parties. However, there is a case to be made for ranking Goedert slightly above most (if not all) competitors at the position, just below the Kelce-Andrews Line. His performance on Thursday was not the best statistically in the NFL, but it was crucial to the Eagles’ closer-than-expected victory. He had eight catches for 100 yards and one touchdown. This season, Goedert has been a screening machine, and in Week 9, it felt like the Eagles called for that play to that man in numerous high-stakes situations. And he continued to deliver. Miles Sanders’ running and the screen game to Goedert propelled the Eagles offensively on a relatively quiet night for both A.J. Brown and DeVonta Smith.
2. Dameon Pierce is an Offensive Rookie of the Year favorite. With no quarterbacks lighting it up in their first NFL season, and with OROY favorite Breece Hall out for the season, Pierce absolutely should be at or near the top of your list. Pierce had a rough game Sunday against the Titans, but he was back on track in a big way, registering career-bests in rushing yards (139) and carries (27). (27). Without wide receivers Brandin Cooks and Nico Collins playing, the Eagles tried to gang up on Pierce, but he still found ways to outrun and bounce off Eagles would-be tacklers for extra yards after contact. He might not be the league’s most dynamic running back, and his receiving skills are still developing. But Pierce, who has a promising future with the team, is unquestionably the team’s bell cow. The Texans scored big in the fourth round, but Pierce might have moved up had Florida given him more than 100 carries in 13 games the previous year. (It might also have preserved Dan Mullen’s employment.)
3. The underrated addition from the offseason was C.J. Gardner-Johnson. When Gardner-Johnson was shockingly traded from the Saints to the Eagles on August 31, it was reasonable to wonder how long it might take him to get used to the system and his new teammates. The response is roughly six weeks. He started and participated in almost every defensive snap for the Eagles in the first month of the season without incident. But recently, his importance to this defense has skyrocketed. Gardner-Johnson now has five interceptions, which puts him in first place in the NFL, after his diving grab of Davis Mills on Thursday. He had five interceptions in his first 47 NFL games, and he’s added five more in his last four contests. It wouldn’t be a stretch to say that he has been one of the top Eagles defenders over the past four games if you include the sack he recorded last week against the Steelers.
4. Javon Hargrave has recently been on a sack binge. Even though Mills wasn’t the fastest runner, Hargrave had to travel a considerable distance on his first sack to pursue Mills and make a significant third-down stop. The Texans were driving at midfield when No. 2 also came on third down and destroyed rookie guard Kenyon Green of the Texans to take down Mills for a loss. A 9-yard loss on the third play forced the Texans out of the end zone and stopped their momentum while the outcome of the game was still in question. Although Hargrave was given a roughing-the-passer call, it felt at most marginal. The bottom line is that he has been on a tear lately. Last week, he beat the Steelers (who declined to re-sign him) in retaliation and also destroyed Kenny Pickett for good measure. Hargrave has now recorded six sacks for the season, including five in the last two games. He is one of the better interior penetrators in the game and is making a strong midseason push for the Pro Bowl.
5. Jordan Davis was missed by the Eagles. If there was one major complaint about the Eagles’ performance on Thursday night, it was that their interior run defense was quite porous. There was a reason the team used a first-round pick on Davis, a human being whose impact can’t be measured by stats like tackles (14), tackles for loss (one), or sacks (zero), but by filling two gaps with his size and strength. On Thursday, they got a pretty good idea of how much Davis means, especially for a guy who was averaging 22 snaps per game. The Texans were extremely shorthanded at receiver, so the Eagles knew they had to run the ball a lot, and Houston had success running inside time and time again. Davis’ ankle injury placed him on injured reserve, and he could return as soon as Week 13 against the Titans. Between now and then, the Eagles will face some pretty good running backs, so they’d better come up with some alternate solutions during the mini-bye.