Los Angeles (United States) (AFP) – The Super Bowl champion Philadelphia Eagles held off the Kansas City Chiefs 20-17 on Sunday in a scrappy rematch of last season’s NFL championship game. Eagles quarterback Jalen Hurts threw for 101 yards and plunged over the goal line for a touchdown on a “tush-push” play in the fourth quarter as Philadelphia improved to 2-0 in the young season. The Chiefs, who lost just two games in the 2024 regular season, suffered a second straight defeat.
Kansas City quarterback Patrick Mahomes threw for 187 yards and ran for a touchdown, but he and long-time target Travis Kelce will regret an early fourth-quarter play on which the tight end couldn’t control a rifle pass from Mahomes on the edge of the end zone, and Eagles safety Andrew Makuba grabbed the ball for an interception. That set up Philadelphia for the scoring drive capped by Hurts’s TD for a 20-10 lead. The Chiefs cut the gap on Mahomes’s 49-yard touchdown pass to Tyquan Thompson with three minutes remaining but didn’t get another chance.
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Hurts said he wasn’t surprised that the game was close, despite their 40-22 Super Bowl victory. “That’s something in the past,” he said. “We knew they were going to come in hungry today, and that’s something that we had to put on ourselves. We can’t be casual. When you’re playing against championship-level teams, it’s about showing up in those big-game situations. I think we did that.”
In Dallas, quarterbacks Dak Prescott and Russell Wilson dueled down the stretch, but it was Brandon Aubrey who booted the game-winning field goal on the final play of overtime Sunday to give the Cowboys a 40-37 victory over the New York Giants. Aubrey, who drilled a game-tying 64-yard field goal to end regulation, nailed the 46-yard game-winner on the final play of overtime to settle an entertaining clash in which the teams combined for 41 points and five lead changes in the fourth quarter. Prescott posted a 14th straight victory over the Giants, and new Dallas coach Brian Schottenheimer nabbed his first win. “I know he’ll never forget it — I won’t forget it,” Prescott said. “An amazing game, hell of a game, fun game.”
The narrow victory was a sharp contrast to a string of lopsided triumphs, starting with the Detroit Lions’ 52-21 blowout of the Chicago Bears. The Buffalo Bills thumped the New York Jets to improve to 2-0, and the Baltimore Ravens, beaten by the Bills in a week one marquee clash, rebounded with a 41-17 victory over the Cleveland Browns. Lions quarterback Jared Goff completed 23 of 28 passes for 334 yards with five touchdowns and no interceptions. Three of those TD passes went to Amon-Ra St. Brown, and Jahmyr Gibbs and David Montgomery each ran for a touchdown.
Baltimore quarterback Lamar Jackson threw four touchdowns as the Ravens bounced back in a big way after a season-opening loss to the Bills. The Ravens scored 21 straight points in the fourth quarter and took advantage as their former Super Bowl-winning quarterback, 40-year-old Joe Flacco, struggled in his return to Baltimore with the Browns. The Bills, who had to rally for their 41-40 win over the Ravens last week, found it smooth sailing against the Jets. Quarterback Josh Allen shook off a bloody nose from a hit in the first quarter to pilot an efficient ground offensive that included two touchdowns from running back James Cook.
In Pittsburgh, the Seattle Seahawks surprised the Steelers 31-17. Their 17-point fourth quarter included an opportunistic touchdown on a gaffe by Pittsburgh rookie Kaleb Johnson, who let a kickoff bounce over his head and left the field apparently thinking the play was dead, only for Seattle’s George Holani to fall on the ball in the end zone for a touchdown. In Cincinnati, backup quarterback Jake Browning stepped up after the Bengals lost Joe Burrow to a toe injury, scoring on a one-yard touchdown run with 18 seconds left to secure a 31-27 win.
© 2024 AFP
