CINCINNATI — The Eagles are flying back from Cincinnati with a 5-2 record after their second straight blowout win.

This time, it came against a better opponent.

That’s why we can consider the Eagles’ 37-17 win over the Bengals the best and most complete win of the season. They were good in every phase on Sunday afternoon at Paycor Stadium and that shows up in the grades:

Quarterback

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CINCINNATI — The Eagles will have to play the rest of this game without veteran cornerback Darius Slay.

He has been downgraded to out with a groin injury.

The 33-year-old cornerback has been playing through a knee injury and had to limp off the field in the third quarter during a Bengals scoring drive to make the game 17-17.

In his place, backup Isaiah Rodgers is manning the left corner spot opposite rookie Quinyon Mitchell.

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CINCINNATI — Bengals receiver Tee Higgins (quad) is officially inactive against the Eagles on Sunday.

That’s a major loss for Joe Burrow and the Bengals.

The Eagles are down a few starters on offense against the Bengals but they already knew that coming in.

Both right guard Mekhi Becton (concussion) and tight end Dallas Goedert (hamstring) were ruled out on Friday and Jordan Mailata (hamstring) is on Injured Reserve for at least two more games after this.

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CINCINNATI — The Eagles on Saturday afternoon activated rookie receiver Ainias Smith off Injured Reserve.

He takes the open spot on the Eagles’ 53-man roster ahead of their game against the Bengals on Sunday.

The Eagles placed DT Byron Young (hamstring) on IR Friday, which opened up a spot on the roster.

Smith began the season on IR with an ankle injury suffered late in training camp. The Eagles opened his 21-day practice window on Oct. 7, so they had to make a decision whether to shut him down for the season or activate him to the roster. They chose the latter.

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The Eagles (4-2) are heading to Cincinnati to face the Bengals (3-4) on Sunday afternoon.

Let’s get to the predictions:

Reuben Frank (1-5)

I have no idea what to expect from the Eagles Sunday in Cincinnati. If they can keep doing the things they’ve been doing – sacking quarterbacks, getting big production from Saquon Barkley, turnover-free games from Jalen Hurts – they will win and find their way to 5-2. But the Bengals aren’t the Browns or the Giants. Despite that 3-4 record, they’re a good team with an explosive offense, an elite quarterback, a world-class edge rusher and a wide receiver who’s almost as good as A.J. Brown. This is a challenging matchup. The Bengals have played some very good teams tough – they lost by one to the undefeated Chiefs in Kansas City, they lost by five to the 5-2 Commanders and they lost by three to the Ravens, who’ve won five straight. But their three wins are over teams that are a combined 4-17. The Eagles have never won in Cincinnati. They’re 0-4-1 on the banks of the Ohio River and 3-9-1 all-time vs. the Bengals with the last win coming in 2000 at the Vet. Too early to say they’ve turned the corner, but I like a lot of what I’ve seen the last couple weeks. Big one Sunday but I’m going with the Birds.

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Looking for greatness from Jalen Hurts, an NFL record the Eagles don't want and a scary Eagles-Bengals matchup.

That's a small sample of what's in store for you in this weekend's edition of Roob's 10 Random Eagles Observations.

1. The Eagles beat the Packers despite three Jalen Hurts turnovers. They beat the Saints despite not scoring a point until the fourth quarter. They beat the Browns with their defense and beat the Giants with defense and lots of Saquon. Hurts has played well at times this year and poorly at times. Most of this year, he's been just OK. And one thing he hasn’t done is carry the Eagles to a win over a good team. And elite quarterbacks need to do that. We’ve seen some encouraging signs from Hurts lately. Three straight games without an interception, two straight without a turnover, some nice deep balls late in games when the Eagles really needed them. The next step is for Hurts to make big-time plays to win a game when the running game isn’t operating at peak efficiency, the defense isn’t shutting down a 2^nd-rate offense and the Eagles desperately need Hurts to be great. The last time we probably saw that was the first Dallas game last year, when he completed 74 percent of his passes, ran for a touchdown, threw TDs to A.J. Brown and DeVonta Smith in a big third quarter and beat Dak Prescott for the first and only time so far. That was almost a year ago. You never know how games are going to go, but with Joe Burrow, Ja’Marr Chase, Tee Higgins and Chase Brown, that Cincinnati offense is capable of scoring a lot of points, and there’s a very good chance the Eagles will need Hurts to be great Sunday to win the game. That’s the next step for Hurts. This isn’t the Browns or Giants. He’s got to be elite when the Eagles need him to be.

2. The Eagles are approaching an NFL record that they don’t want. They’ve now gone 14 consecutive games without forcing multiple turnovers. That’s tied for the 2^nd-longest streak in NFL history behind a 16-game streak by the Saints over the 2013 and 2014 seasons. Last time the Eagles had two takeaways in a game was Week 12 last year in their 21-17 win over the Chiefs at Arrowhead. Kevin Byard intercepted Patrick Mahomes in the second quarter, and in the fourth quarter Bradley Roby forced a fumble by Travis Kelce after a short pass that Nicholas Morrow recovered. The Eagles have gone 10 straight home games without forcing two turnovers, tied the 9^th-longest streak ever. The Browns went 15 straight in 2016 and 2017.

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From the outside, it sure looks like something’s clicked for Nolan Smith.

The effort has always been there. The production hasn’t. The last few weeks he's shown up in a big way. But Smith insists nothing's really changed.

He has the game of football whittled down to two things: Work hard during the week, play hard on Sundays.

Right now – finally – the formula is paying off.

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The Eagles (4-2) are heading to Cincinnati to face the Bengals (3-4) on Sunday afternoon.

Here are some key matchups to watch:

Fred Johnson vs. Trey Hendrickson

Things aren’t getting any easier for Fred Johnson this week. Johnson is in the starting lineup after Jordan Mailata (hamstring) landed on IR. So that’s at least four weeks without Mailata and a tough stretch of games to lose him in. Last week, Johnson had to deal with Brian Burns agains the Giants and this week he’ll see Hendrickson.

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The Philadelphia Eagles are finally on a winning streak.

Nick Sirianni's team picked up a second consecutive win for the first time this season in Week 7, with Saquon Barkley's monster revenge game powering a 28-3 road victory over the New York Giants.

Now, the 4-2 Birds will look to make it three in a row when they take on Joe Burrow and the Cincinnati Bengals (3-4). Cincinnati has won three of four following an 0-3 start, most recently beating the lowly Cleveland Browns 21-14 in Week 7 for a second straight win.

So, will the Eagles leave Cincinnati with a third consecutive win? Or will the Bengals use a three-game winning streak of their own to get to .500?

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