Sports

Eagles snap counts: The Jalen Carter ejection ripple effect originally appeared on NBC Sports Philadelphia

Jalen Carter didn’t play a snap on Thursday night before he was ejected for spitting on Cowboys quarterback Dak Prescott in the Eagles’ 24-20 win.

That’s a significant change to the Eagles’ defense.

Not only is Carter one of the Eagles’ best overall players, a guy who demands double-teams, but he also plays a ton. In his first year under Vic Fangio, Carter played 84% of the Eagles’ snaps in the regular season and 88% in the playoffs.

Here’s how the defensive tackle snaps were split on Thursday night after Carter’s disqualification:

Moro Ojomo: 55 snaps (90%)
Jordan Davis: 53 snaps (87%)
Byron Young: 22 snaps (36%)
Gabe Hall: 5 snaps (8%)

Entering this game, the Eagles had five defensive tackles active. Rookie fourth-round pick Ty Robinson was a healthy scratch.

Those 55 snaps for Ojomo were a career high. His previous high was 44 snaps against the Giants in Week 18 last year. Davis’s career-high is 62 in that OT game against the Bills in 2023, but this was a much higher percentage. Young’s career-high was 24 snaps as a rookie with the Raiders, but he came close on Thursday night.

A huge topic in the offseason was about Davis’s conditioning level and whether or not he’d be able to play more snaps. He didn’t have a choice in Week 1. And the fourth-year DT had a really strong game with 6 tackles, a TFL and a batted pass.

“Jordan’s been working his ass off to get to where he’s at,” Zack Baun said. “He should be very proud of himself and I hope he knows that the work he put in wasn’t for nothing. I thought he did a really good job. And then Moro stepping in and stepping up. He did a good job as well.”

Other defensive notes

• Cooper DeJean, Quinyon Mitchell, Reed Blankenship and Zack Baun played all 61 defensive snaps. DeJean played outside cornerback in the Eagles’ base package and moved inside on nickel downs.

• The Eagles split their starting safety responsibilities in this game. Sydney Brown was next to Blankenship in the base package and Drew Mukuba was on the field in nickel. Mukuba played 51 of 61 snaps (84%) in his NFL debut, while Brown played 14 snaps (23%).

• Adoree’ Jackson got the start at outside cornerback and played 42 of 61 snaps (69%). He would have played more but he missed some time while getting checked for a concussion. Jakorian Bennett played 7 snaps. Jackson had a rough game, giving up 5 catches on 7 targets for 103 yards.

• Nolan Smith led the way for the edge rushers with 52 snaps (85%), followed by Jalyx Hunt 39 snaps (64%), Josh Uche 19 snaps (31%) and Patrick Johnson 12 snaps (20%). Johnson was an elevation from the practice squad, while Azeez Ojulari and Ogbo Okoronkwo were healthy scratches. The Eagles on Friday signed veteran DE Za’Darius Smith, who will join the rotation soon.

• Baun didn’t leave the field and Jihaad Campbell barely did. He played 56 of 61 snaps (92%) in his NFL debut. Baun and Campbell played very well.

Offensive notes

• Jalen Hurts and 4/5ths of his offensive line played all 63 offensive snaps. Landon Dickerson (back) left after 52 snaps and was replaced by Brett Toth, who played the final 11 plays at left guard.

• DeVonta Smith led the way for receivers with 56 snaps, followed by A.J. Brown (55), Jahan Dotson (29), Darius Cooper (2) and John Metchie III (1). Dotson had a very good game, while Brown got just one target that came in a big moment in the fourth quarter.

• Saquon Barkley led the way at running back with 50 snaps (79%), followed by A.J. Dillon (8) and Will Shipley (5). It seemed like Shipley was the RB2 but he suffered a ribs injury.

• Dallas Goedert played 52 snaps (83%) and caught all seven of his targets. Grant Calcaterra played 37 snaps and Kylen Granson got 17. The Eagles used their 12 and 13 personnel packages quite a bit in Week 1. At times, Granson got some looks in a fullback-like role after Ben VanSumeren suffered a knee injury on the opening kickoff.

• It’s always a good sign for the Eagles when Cooper DeJean gets some offensive snaps. He’s the deep guy in victory formation.

On 14 October 2024, having never supported a team before, or, to be honest, especially liked sports at all, I became a Buffalo Bills fan. I’d been going out with my Buffalonian boyfriend for more than a year, which I think in his parents’ eyes meant my introduction to the team that animates their entire hometown was overdue. They drove down to New York City, kitted me out in a Bills baseball cap, hoodie and blanket (and plastic Bills bag to hold it all in) – and took me to a game.

I thought I’d seen enough Super Bowls to know I didn’t care about football, but wrapped in that staticky blanket, one of the few spots of Buffalo blue in a snake-green sea of Jets supporters at MetLife Stadium, I realized what I’d been missing: a team. Or more specifically: this team.

Related: NFL 2025 season predictions: will it be Mahomes, Jackson or Allen in the Super Bowl?

In Buffalo, the Bills are everywhere. I used to find this bewildering on my trips up to western New York (never call it upstate); now I find it comforting. Signs saying “Billieve” welcome you into people’s houses; babies wear Bills onesies; coats, T-shirts, jewellery and underwear all feature the team’s chic streaking buffalo. Even in the off-season, a car’s horn tooting “Let’s go Buffalo!” can set off canon of identical beeps from nearby vehicles. “Go Bills” means both hello and goodbye, sometimes even the last goodbye, as I discovered in a local cemetery, where a grave featured the phrase as an epitaph. I’m sure it’s not the only one.

That’s because the Bills are Buffalo. They’re the spirit of the city, and for many Buffalonians, a metaphor for it too. Buffalo’s boom times are long behind it, though the architectural marvels built by the money flowing through the Erie Canal speak to its former importance as an industrial hub. The city is generally depicted as hard on its luck, featuring in the news usually only when there’s a disaster, like the shooting of 10 Black people in 2022, or the more recent bus crash that killed five. But what that narrative misses is the story of a town that’s quietly been undergoing an economic and cultural revival thanks to significant public spending and committed local preservationists.

Buffalo’s state of almost-thereness is reflected back to it by its beloved home team, who’ve got so close but never quite secured the win. There were the devastating four Super Bowl losses in a row from 1991 through 1994, then a play-off drought that lasted for nearly a generation. The Bills kept inching ever closer to Super Bowl greatness, their efforts turbocharged by Josh Allen, the NFL’s reigning MVP and widely considered one of its best quarterbacks. “You have to be pretty tough in a place like this,” Allen has said of his adopted hometown. “We feel like we have guys in this locker room that maybe haven’t gotten all the recognition they deserve, coming here on the last leg of their career and just coming here trying to prove something to not just the world but to themselves.”

The Bills are no hardscrabble minor team – next year they’ll move into a new $2.1bn stadium – but this kind of underdog tale is addictive. It’s a story of hard work and capability, of striving for something that’s always just out of reach. When the Kansas City Chiefs crushed the Bills’ dreams in last season’s AFC Championship Game, I almost felt the whole city’s heart breaking.

But here’s the thing: failure bonds people, and there’s nothing like rooting for a losing team to glue a community together. The immense positivity required to defend a team – or a town – you love when it’s on the back foot can be an irresistible draw. You’ll find none of the hauteur of the fans of a winning team up in Buffalo. I’ve yet to attend one of their legendary tailgates outside the stadium – I’ll admit that I’m somewhat scared of doing so, having seen the videos of fans hurling themselves around trying to break tables – but you needn’t look far to see their dedication. When one of Buffalo’s regular snowstorms roll around, Bills fans turn up to clear the snow from the stadium. It goes without saying that these are not fair-weather fans; indeed, the trick to keeping chills at bay in freezing temperatures, my boyfriend’s mother explained, is bringing cardboard to stand on.

The idea of home means a lot in team sports. People rarely root for a team based on performance – allegiance is usually inherited, or geographical. But what I’ve learned as a previously teamless person is that it can also be gifted. I thought I wasn’t into football because it was hard to follow or boring or maybe even just too male, but I realise now that the only thing I needed was a person to extend a hand to me and say: you can be part of our team.

My boyfriend and I moved to London earlier this year, and he’s further than he’s ever been from the town that calls itself the “city of good neighbors”. But every once in a while, we see a blue No 17 jersey or spy a Buffalo keyring dangling off a bag, reminding us that his neighbors, his community and his family are closer than we think. So we say hello, Buffalo-style: “Go Bills.”

Justin Herbert starred for the Los Angeles Chargers as they beat the Kansas City Chiefs 27-21 in their NFL opener in Sao Paulo, Brazil.

The quarterback passed for 318 yards and three touchdowns as the Chargers defeated last season's beaten Super Bowl finalists.

"[It was] just another game for us," Herbert said. "We came out here, executed, did what we needed to."

In the second NFL game to be staged in Sao Paulo, Herbert found Quentin Johnson for a touchdown on the way to the Chargers going 10-0 up.

The Chiefs, with the help of a Patrick Mahomes touchdown, recovered to trail 13-12 before Harrison Butker missed the chance to level with an extra point attempt.

Herbert then threw to Keenan Allen for a touchdown as the Chargers took a 20-12 lead into the fourth quarter.

A Travis Kelce touchdown reduced the deficit but Herbert and Johnson again combined for another score as the Chargers recorded their first win against the Chiefs since September 2021.

"I think in general they came out with more energy than we did," said Mahomes, who threw for 258 yards and a touchdown on top of his score.

"We didn't execute. I missed some throws down the field and obviously we didn't play good enough in the first half."

• NFL fixtures and results
• Get American Football news sent straight to your phone