Doesn’t seem to matter who’s playing quarterback. This offense stinks. This team stinks.
Joe Milton made his first career start Sunday just 23 days after joining the Eagles and while he made a handful of big plays, not enough to lead this team to their first win in two months.
And while the defense played lights out for much of the game, they also gave up three consecutive scores after halftime to a Giants offense that could barely get out of its own way.
Giants 19, Eagles 11.
Losing streak? Seven games.
Record? 2-7.
Season? Over.
Here’s our 10 Instant Observations off another terrible, awful, ugly, pathetic, hapless Eagles loss.
1. Last time the Eagles won a game Lane Johnson was their right tackle, Jalen Hurts was their quarterback and DeVonta Smith was having a Pro Bowl season. Yeah, it’s been a while. The Eagles sputtered to their seventh straight loss, matching the 9th-longest in the franchise’s 94-year history. The only longer losing streak in the last 25 years was an eight-game slide in 2012, Andy Reid’s final season. One day the Eagles will win another football game. I do not know when that day might be. The 6-2 Steelers are up after the bye and then the Cowboys in Dallas. When they play OK on defense, they’re terrible on offense. When they’ve had decent stretches on offense, they fall to pieces on defense. And lately special teams has been a weekly disaster as well. They’re just a terrible football team that doesn’t do anything consistently well. I keep thinking Jalen Hurts’ situation will be enough to save Nick Sirianni’s job. Would Jeff Lurie really fire the head coach when the Super Bowl MVP quarterback misses most of the season? If they’re just not competitive? Week after week? I don’t know. Tough call. I’m not sure how much more of this Lurie will be able to watch. They’ve now lost four straight games by eight or more points for only the ninth time in franchise history and first time since – of course – 2012. We are officially in one of the worst stretches in Eagles history. And they’ve earned every bit of that. And still eight games of this to go. But that 1st-round draft pick keeps getting better. So there’s that.
2. Joe Milton was as expected. Made some good plays, made some bad plays, looked rusty and inexperienced, struggled behind a terrible offensive line but made enough big plays that you could see why the Eagles wanted to get him in there after three miserable weeks of Tanner McKee. Milton in his first NFL start was 18-for-34 for 169 yards with no TD passes and no interceptions. He had a couple big runs – a 19-yarder and a 24-yarder and finished 9-for-64. His receivers dropped four passes. He was sacked seven times for 41 yards and his pocket awareness was understandably shaky. Dude just got here. You’d expect him to get better as he continues learning the offense, getting used to his teammates and gaining experience. He better be because the Eagles are running out of quarterbacks.
3. It was nice to see the defensive line put together such a dominating first half, with five sacks, tons of big hits and big-time run defense, holding the Giants’ running game minus Cam Skattebo to 16 yards on 10 carries. Zack Baun, Jalen Carter, Moro Ojomo, Nolan Smith and Jordan Davis in particular were fantastic, playing the kind of physical, dominating, playmaking defense we haven’t seen enough of this year. But they couldn’t keep it up in the second half, when the Giants scored on three straight possessions, turning an 8-6 deficit into a 19-8 lead, with their only touchdown coming on a pass by backup QB Jameis Winston after J.J. McCarthy got banged up. The frustrating thing is that this defense is capable of so much more. We’ve seen it. We saw in the first half Sunday. They just can’t deliver a full game of brilliance, and considering where the offense is the Eagles need a full game of brilliance or they’re not going to have a chance.
4. I don’t even know what to say anymore about the Eagles’ offensive line. They knew the Giants were going to blitz constantly and the Giants did and the Eagles just weren’t prepared for it. They couldn’t handle it. Everybody knows the Giants blitz more than anybody in the league other than the Vikings and still they weren’t ready for it. Seven sacks? They weren’t all on blitzes, but the Giants’ defensive line – which had just nine sacks all year coming into this game – nearly matched that in one game. This o-line can’t block anybody. It’s just embarrassing. The Eagles have now allowed 12 sacks in their last two games, the most ever in a two-game span under Nick Sirianni and second most in the last 25 years. They’ve allowed 30 sacks in nine games, which is insane. And they can’t run the ball, either. I don’t know if there are any answers. There’s nobody to bench, no young guy who needs to play and Jeff Stoutland isn’t walking through that door. This may be the worst offensive line in the NFL and I don’t know if there’s any way for it to get better.
5. There aren’t a lot of cards for Nick Sirianni to play anymore, but replacing Sean Mannion is out there. I’m under no illusions that replacing Mannion would solve all the Eagles’ problems and I don’t blame everything on him. But good grief you’ve got to do something and I don’t know what else there is to do. This offense is just so lackluster, so lifeless, so hopeless. That’s 10 points last week against Washington, 11 today against the Giants? First time since 2019 they’ve scored 11 or fewer points in back-to-back games. They managed 220 yards Sunday – their seventh game under 270 yards this year – the running backs averaged 1.8 yards per carry and they allowed seven sacks. This is just atrocious offense and while it’s not all on Mannion a new approach couldn’t hurt. I don’t know, Josh Grizzard maybe? Parks Frazier? Anybody? You have the worst offense in football. Don’t you have to try something?
6. It was only two plays on a day when there were a ton of bad plays, but these two really bothered me. It was late in the fourth quarter and the Eagles were on the verge of cutting the Giants’ lead to one possession. On a 3rd-and-8 at the Giants’ 34 with 2:25 left, running back Elijah Mitchell caught a pass from Milton. After he caught the ball, untouched, he just laid there on the field until Jevon Holland and Dru Phillips tackled him down instead of rolling for a few more yards. That left the Eagles with 4th-and-1 and led them to kick the ball after the two-minute warning instead of pushing for a touchdown. Then, on a 2nd-and-10 from the Eagles’ 36 with 31 seconds left, Mitchell caught another pass from Milton. The No. 1 priority had to be making sure you get out of bounds to stop the clock, but he kept running up the field and forced the Eagles to spike the ball. This is a six-year veteran who’s played a lot of football and he’s got to understand that in the NFL you might be down but you’re not tackled until you get touched down. And you have to understand that the biggest priority with no timeouts is stopping the clock. Not good. And not a good reflection on his coaches for preparing himself so poorly for that moment.
7. I don’t know what’s up with Saquon Barkley but he just doesn’t look like himself right now, and I think we might be nearing the point where the Eagles need to just shut him down and get him healthy. He’s dealt with a variety injuries all year – stinger, hamstring, back – and he doesn’t look remotely like himself. The last two weeks especially he just has been non-functional – 13-for-30 (2.3) against the Commanders and 13-for-22 (1.7) against the Giants. First time since 2019 he’s had back-to-back games at 2.3 or worse and the first Eagles RB with back-to-back games at 2.3 or worse since Josh Adams in 2018. It’s not all on him, he’s got nowhere to run with this offensive line. Saquon is such a competitor he’ll never take himself out of a game. He wants to be out there no matter how bad the o-line is, no matter how banged up he is, no matter what the circumstances or who the opponent is. But at some point the Eagles have to protect him from himself. This is the 2024 NFL Offensive Player of the Year and he’s putting up numbers that Michael Haddix would be embarrassed by. This team isn’t going anywhere. Shut Saquon down at least for a few weeks and if he can ever get fully healthy get him back out there, but I’d have no problem just shutting him down for the rest of the season. Why keep trying to get blood from a stone?
8. Eagles’ drive chart after their touchdown on their second possession of the game: Punt, fumble, punt, downs, punt, punt, punt, punt, punt, field goal, downs. What on Earth???
9. He had a couple bad drops, but Makai Lemon remains one of the few bright spots on this team, and it hasn’t been an easy year for him, dealing with a hamstring injury all summer and a slow start tot the regular season, then playing with three different quarterbacks as a rookie, which can’t be easy. He had 6-for-61 Sunday and is 19-for-185 the last three games, the 2nd-most catches ever by an Eagles rookie in a three-game span, behind DeSean Jackson’s 22 in 2008. He’s now got 37 catches and is on pace for 70, which would break Jordan Matthews’ Eagles rookie WR record of 67 set in 2014. Lemon is a different sort of WR than what the Eagles have had. Tough, physical, fearless, clever with the ball in his hands. The drops aren’t ideal, but overall he’s been really good and I admire the way he’s battled through adversity to establish himself as one of the NFL’s top rookie WRs.
10. With the trade deadline coming up Tuesday, I’m all for Howie Roseman turning veterans into draft picks as much as possible. You start with asking whether this player will help you when you expect to be good again. So if someone is on the last year of a contract or even has one more year left, get what you can. This team isn’t going anywhere. But there’s no reason to think 2027 can’t be a good season. So pile up the draft picks and whether it’s Landon Dickerson, Moro Ojomo, Riq Woolen or whoever, get what you can, trust Howie’s ability to draft and start rebuilding. I wouldn’t trade Dallas Goedert or Zack Baun because some guys are just too important to the team and the locker room and the city to move. Goedert has taken pay cut after pay cut because he wants to be an Eagle for life, and when it means that much to him keep him. There’s not enough Eagles who want to be Eagles for life. So Goedert stays. And Baun isn’t just a phenomenal linebacker but a natural leader who you want around as long as possible. I’d expect Dickerson and Woolen to be moved with Ojomo also possible. Stock up on those picks.