Nick Foles came through for the defending Super Bowl champions. And he did it just in time.Foles threw a 2-yard touchdown pass to Golden Tate on fourth down in the final minute Adam Shaheen Jerseys 2019 , and the Eagles hung on for a 16-15 wild-card victory over the Chicago Bears after Cody Parkey’s missed field goal hit the upright and crossbar.After squeezing past the NFC North champions, the Eagles (10-7) will visit top-seeded New Orleans (13-3) next Sunday.“It’s going to be a tall task this week,” Foles said. “They had a bye week and they are a tremendous team. They had an amazing season. But you know, I love these guys that I get to play with. I know we’re ready for this week.”The Eagles won five of their final six regular-season games. They squeezed into the playoffs by beating Washington and having the Bears (12-5) give them an assist by taking out Minnesota last week.The Eagles are trying to become the first team to repeat as Super Bowl champions since New England in 2004. And they’re also trying to become the first sixth seed to win the title since Green Bay in the 2010 season. The Packers beat the Bears for the conference championship at Soldier Field that year.“We have nothing to lose,” safety Malcolm Jenkins said. “Nobody expects us to do anything. Everybody counted us out. So you know, what do we have to lose but our dignity and pride?”Foles came through down the stretch against the NFL’s stingiest defense to help the Eagles pull out the tight victory. He completed six passes on a 60-yard drive for the go-ahead TD after Chicago’s Pat O’Donnell shanked a punt.Three plays at the 2 went nowhere, with Kyle Fuller breaking up a third-down pass to Alshon Jeffery near the goal line. But with the season on the line, Foles rolled to his right and Tate reached to grab the go-ahead TD with 56 seconds left.“He never tries to do too much. He tries to play within himself on every play White Mitchell Trubisky Jerseys ,” tight end Zach Ertz said. “The moment’s never too big for him and he just resonates that calm and positive attitude.”Foles is now 7-0 while filling in for Carson Wentz in must-win games the past two seasons, with a Super Bowl MVP performance against New England last year. And he came through against the Chicago when things weren’t looking so promising.“You know, (Foles) just does a great job of just staying in the moment, staying calm and, you know, no panic,” Eagles coach Doug Pederson said. “There was no panic on the offense or on the sideline.”Wendell Smallwood’s 2-point conversion run failed. But the Eagles hung on when Parkey’s 43-yard attempt in the closing seconds hit halfway up the left upright and ricocheted off the crossbar. He was 11 of 12 on fourth-quarter field goals prior to missing the biggest kick of his career. And it was the sixth time this season he nailed an upright on a missed field goal or extra point.That ended a stunning turnaround season for the Bears in their first year under coach Matt Nagy. They won the NFC North after four straight last-place finishes and reached the playoffs for the first time in eight years.“I see a lot of young talent and a great coaching staff,” guard Kyle Long said. “We didn’t have any postseason experience — now we have a little bit of it. Now we have a taste of what the stakes are like and we know what it takes to win and we have the pieces to the puzzle to win.”Bears defensive lineman Akiem Hicks said: “This is what we’re going to deal with. If you wanted a different result Mitchell Trubisky Jerseys 2019 , maybe make a different play. You’ve got to swallow this and let it hurt for a little bit. We’ll be all right.” Oakland Raiders defensive coordinator Paul Guenther denied there is any friction between him and coach Jon Gruden and said the two remain united in trying to improve a team that has been one of the biggest disappointments in the NFL this season.One week after cameras caught the two coaches getting into a heated exchange after a costly blown play in Oakland's 34-3 loss to the San Francisco 49ers, Guenther laughed about the incident and called it a daily occurrence."Jon and I fight every day upstairs, golf course, in the car, whatever it may be," Guenther said Thursday. "That's going to happen every Sunday. It's happened every Sunday, whether it's good or bad. That's just part of our expectations are higher than what we're showing. That's probably going to happen 100 times a game."Guenther's statement echoed comments made earlier this week by Gruden, who joked that the two have bigger disagreements on the golf course.The recent sideline exchanges between the coach and his hand-picked defensive coordinator have gotten more attention White Joel Iyiegbuniwe Jerseys , however, as the Raiders have struggled through a 1-7 start.Both Gruden and Guenther have come under fire from fans and the media.Gruden has been targeted for the team's inconsistent offense and the radical roster changes being made, while Guenther's defense has been bad all season. The Raiders are on pace to give up 6,514 yards and are allowing opponents to gain a league-high 6.8 yards per play.While acknowledging frustration over the situation, Guenther 鈥?who spent the past 13 seasons in Cincinnati and was the Bengals' coordinator from 2014-17 鈥?downplayed any suggestion of problems between him and Gruden."I love Jon, he's great to work with," Guenther said. "We're really trying to build this thing the right way and we have a vision for it. I know it doesn't look like that right now but I'm confident in what we're doing."The Raiders have made sweeping changes since Gruden was hired, much of it on the defensive side.Khalil Mack Joel Iyiegbuniwe Jerseys 2019 , the team's top pass rusher and the 2016 Defensive Player of the Year, was traded to the Chicago Bears before the season opener in exchange for a pair of first-round draft picks. Oakland's best run defender, Justin Ellis, was lost to injured reserve with a foot injury he suffered in Week 1. Then last week, the Raiders released defensive end Bruce Irvin, one of the team captains.Those moves and others have forced Guenther to reach deep into the roster for help."That's just part of the business," Guenther said. "Our vision was to bring in some young guys in the draft and we did that and they're playing. Obviously we're going through some growing pains right now with the young guys but hopefully the more and more snaps that they get at the back end of this year going into year two, we're going to see massive improvement out of those guys."Still White Anthony Miller Jerseys , Guenther acknowledged it hasn't been easy and said he's had to bite his lip a few times."There are certain things, breakdowns that we're having that we shouldn't have, that I'm not used to seeing," Guenther said. "It is a patience thing but I'm not the most patient guy. I want to get the stuff fixed quickly. That's part of the evaluation process with the guys that we have now moving forward the last eight games to see, hey, what guys we want to keep here and what guys we want to move on with."We have a vision. Jon and I have a vision of what it should look like and what it's going to look like down the road. Hopefully, we can just keep getting better every week but it's certainly been a challenge."__
