PHILADELPHIA — (AP) — Jordan Davis clutched the ball in his outstretched right hand as he reached the end zone and had no choice but to freeze and meet the mob of Eagles sprinting his way.
“If I tried to run away,” Davis said, “I was going to get moshed.”
Davis got swept up in the celebration after the 336-pounder capped off Philadelphia's block party with an improbable special-teams touchdown that kept the Super Bowl champs unbeaten.
Davis blocked a field-goal attempt by the Rams' Joshua Karty on the final play of the game and returned it 61 yards to the end zone — the Eagles' second blocked kick of the fourth quarter — to give Philly an exhilarating 33-26 win over Los Angeles on Sunday.
“I don’t know what mph I hit but I'm pretty sure it was something crazy,” Davis said.
Try 18.59 mph, the fastest by a player over 330 pounds since at least 2017, per Next Gen Stats.
The Rams (2-1) led 26-21 midway through the fourth when Jalen Carter blocked Karty's 36-yard try, and Jalen Hurts then led the Eagles (3-0) on a 17-play, 91-yard drive for the go-ahead score. That left 1:48 on the clock for Matthew Stafford, who led the Rams into position for Karty's 44-yard attempt with 3 seconds left.
Davis instead wedged his way through, knocked the ball down, scooped it and rumbled to the end zone as fans at the Linc erupted in celebration of the Eagles' 12th straight home victory — and the biggest comeback win at the stadium that opened in 2003.
“A lot of people look at field goal blocking as just another play,” Davis said. “Just another down, put your hands up, get off the field, check a box. The way we talked about it on the sideline, we knew especially off his last kick, we knew his angle, we knew his launch point. We just hit the gap, put our hands up at the right time and I saw the ball on the ground at the right time.”
The Eagles blocked multiple field goals for the first time since Sept. 21, 1975 against the New York Giants. They also became the fourth NFL team since 2001 to block two field goals in a game and return one for a touchdown.
Davis' TD wasn't strictly necessary. Given the situation — the Eagles had the lead with no time left — coach Nick Sirianni said the proper play would have been to just fall on the ball. Sirianni, though, conceded Davis “would probably get the play of the game.”
There were plenty to choose from, especially from Hurts, who threw for 204 yards and three touchdowns in the second half alone.
Philadelphia slogged through a listless first half and trailed 26-7 in the third quarter after Stafford's second TD pass of the game. Karty had already kicked four field goals for the Rams, who lost a tight NFC divisional-round playoff game to the Eagles last season.
Enter Super Bowl MVP Hurts and one heck of a special teams effort.
The Eagles found their mojo and a bit of clutch playmaking when Carter — recently fined by the NFL for an opening-night spitting incident — came up with the first block. However, he was flagged for taunting, pushing the Eagles back to their own 9.
On the go-ahead drive, Hurts shook off his malaise and found receivers largely ignored over the first 2 1/2 games of the season. He hit A.J. Brown for 25 yards, DeVonta Smith for 10 and then the big one -- Brown shook off a defender for a 23-yard gain.
Hurts found Smith for the go-ahead, 4-yard TD on fourth-and-goal to complete Philly's rally from a 19-point deficit.
The Eagles are 19-1 over their last 20 games (including playoffs), the best 20-game stretch in franchise history. It was the biggest home comeback for the Eagles they rallied from 20 points down to beat Dallas in 1988 at Veterans Stadium.
Brown finished with six catches for 109 yards and Smith had eight catches for 60 yards.
“We've got so many good players on this team. At times, you can feel we’re being conservative,” Brown said. “I don’t think it should be like that. Let your killers do their thing. play fast and play aggressive. I’m not saying that we haven’t been, but me personally, that’s what I would like.”
Stafford threw for 196 yards and a pair of touchdowns. After Hurts was strip-sacked by Jared Verse in the third quarter, Stafford hit Kyren Williams for a 10-yard TD that made it 26-7. Karty booted field goals of 51, 28, 33 and 46 yards to help the Rams take a 19-7 lead into halftime.
Puka Nacua led the Rams with 11 catches for 112 yards.
“I mean, we’ve all been a part of enough NFL games that the scoreboard doesn’t really matter until the end of the game," Stafford said. “We had our chance at the end of the game and it didn’t go our way.”
Saquon Barkley ran for scores of 70 and 72 yards and finished with an Eagles-record 255 yards rushing against the Rams last November and added touchdown runs of 78 and 62 yards on a 205-yard day in the rematch in the playoffs.
Barkley rushed for only 13 yards in the first half Sunday and finished with 46, his third straight subpar game coming off a season in which he rushed for 2,005 yards. He had 148 yards through the first two games this season.
Eagles: RT Lane Johnson left the game with a neck injury. CB Adoree’ Jackson suffered a groin injury and WR Darius Cooper suffered a shoulder injury.
Rams: Host Indianapolis next Sunday.
Eagles: At Tampa Bay next Sunday.
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