The Eagles went to their bread and butter to finish it off, using the “Brotherly Shove” to push Hurts into the end zone for the touchdown and their first lead of the game. The tush push gave Hurts his second rushing touchdown of the night, tying him with Cam Newton for the most games with two-plus rushing TDs by a quarterback all time (10).
For the first two and a half quarters of the game, the Eagles looked outmatched on offense, as outside of their single touchdown drive in the first quarter, Philly had only two first downs and 90 yards, going three-and-out four times.
The defense had kept things close, causing two red zone turnovers and shutting out Patrick Mahomes and the Chiefs offense in the second half, giving the offense time to get things in order and find a way to win. The Eagles marched down the field to score on a Hurts 10-yard run at the end of the third quarter, and then again found the end zone in the fourth to complete the comeback from a 10-point halftime deficit.
“Yeah, just resiliency,” Sirianni said. “I mean it wasn’t pretty, there were a lot of ugly moments in it, shoot, but they just kept fighting and kept staying together, and it was a good team win, where everyone just stayed together. The defense kept making plays, waiting for the offense to make a play, and we did in some critical times.”
Despite finishing with a season-low 238 net yards, the Eagles offense grinded out the win on a rainy night in the hostile environment of Arrowhead Stadium. While Hurts was clear post-game that he and the offense as whole needs to play better, he acknowledged that being able to pull out the win on tough nights like this builds character, giving experience that can be of benefit once the high-pressure games come around later in the season.
“I don’t think we played clean tonight, I don’t think we played to our standard, nowhere near our standard, but I think the thing that you can’t test or quantify is the resilience that a team has, and the ability to persevere and see through things and overcome things, and this team has that,” he said. “And so, we’ve yet to put up a performance to our standard, but we continue to find ways to win, and when you win games like we win games, that builds a ton of character.”
However messy the win was, the Eagles nevertheless return to Philadelphia with a league-best 9-1 record, and will have a short week before they host the Buffalo Bills on Sunday.