Jalen Carter refers to Joe Pannunzio, the Eagles’ assistant special teams coordinator, as “Joe Peezy,” and one of the things the 66-year-old with 45 years of coaching experience does in special teams meetings is point out the other team’s “fish,” Carter said.
A fish, for the non-poker-playing audience, is the one you go after. The one who makes mistakes. And the fishes on Sunday were those on the left side of the Los Angeles Rams’ field goal unit. Film study showed that the Rams’ final extra-point attempt last week was blocked when the Tennessee Titans’ Arden Key split between reserve interior lineman Beaux Limmer and starting right tackle Rob Havenstein.
The Eagles beat that left side six-plus minutes into the fourth quarter. Trailing, 26-21, Carter and Jordan Davis lined up over Kevin Dotson, the normal starting right guard who lines up to the left of the long snapper on the field goal unit and helps fortify the left side of the front. Carter was quick off the snap, forced Dotson back, and got his left arm up to redirect Joshua Karty’s kick. The ball caromed off Carter’s arm and hit Davis’ and kept the Eagles’ deficit at five with less than nine minutes to play.
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Inside the Eagles locker room later Sunday afternoon, after they somehow escaped with a 33-26 victory, Carter didn’t want to delve deep into that play. Because it ended up just being a preview of what was to come.
“I don’t even care about that, we got that real block,” Carter said. “[Davis] did it, and he took it to the house.”
This takes us back to Pannunzio, preparation, and the fishes. On Karty’s first blocked kick, from 36 yards, the Eagles noticed his trajectory was a little lower than they expected. And the fishes got even fishier. Dotson left the game with an injury, and so his critical spot left of the long snapper went to Limmer, who also entered the game at right guard and was on the wrong side of a fourth-down stop by Carter and Davis earlier in the fourth quarter.
The Rams were in position to win the game. Matthew Stafford, after an improbable Eagles comeback, drove Los Angeles down the field and set up Karty’s 44-yard try. Karty had yet to attempt a kick from that deep in 2025. But the Eagles filed away the angling of the 36-yarder and took stock of who was where.
Carter and Davis lined up over Limmer. Davis told Carter to “take an angle,” Carter said. Carter tried to split long snapper Alex Ward and Limmer and got a piece of Limmer. Carter said he stopped, preparing for his jump, a desperation attempt to save an Eagles victory, but Davis had already bulldozed Limmer. The 6-foot-6, 336-pound slimmed-down version of Davis put two hands in Limmer’s chest, forced him back, then worked free. He put his hands in the air, blocked Karty’s kick, scooped the ball, and ran to the end zone.
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“It came down to just the technique and the fundamentals of everything,” Davis said. “A lot of people look at field goal block as just another play, just another down, get off the field and check a box. But the way we talked about it on the sideline, we knew his angle. We knew his launch point when it’s at the 30-yard line, somewhere around there. We just hit the gap, put our hands up at the right time.”
On the corner of the bench where the defensive linemen sit on the Eagles’ sideline, the message throughout the second half Sunday was that the game wasn’t over, Carter said. They did their part in flipping the result, not just with the blocked kicks. Davis chased Stafford down for a critical third-down stop to get the Eagles the ball back early in the third quarter. The defensive tackle duo then provided a key fourth-down stop early in the fourth quarter.
Then the former Georgia teammates combined to win the Eagles the game.
“We got in here in the locker room and I said, ‘This is what they got us for,’” Carter said.
“All points matter. If we could stop them from getting one point, all we got to do is win by one point. That’s what happened. You win by one point, you win the game. The field goals came in handy, and we all came out with the dub.”
In the end zone, when it was all over, Davis put his arms out and turned around to see a mob of his teammates coming toward him to celebrate.
“My thing was just the fight that we had,” he said. “The fight in that team, the drive, the hunger that they had. Not being down, not being out of the game, fighting until the very end. When that hit me and I seen everybody, I was just like, ‘Man, what a way to end the game. What a way to end the game.’ It started off as ugly as it could be, but at the end of the day we got the W.”
And everyone had a hand in it, even Joe Peezy.
Added Carter: “He’s always talking to us during our special teams meeting, going through field goal block, telling us who the fish is, what side is the good side, the best side to rush. They had some injuries over there where they had to replace a guy. We took advantage of it.”
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