This team is a mess.<\/p>\n
I could write that 10 times and there ya go, you\u2019d have your 10 instant observations.<\/p>\n
I\u2019m not going to say this season will turn into a repeat of 2023, but right now it sure feels like 2023.<\/p>\n
Bears 24, Eagles 15. And it took a touchdown with three minutes left just to get the Eagles into double figures. A total meltdown at home against a conference rival on the heels of a blown 21-point lead against a division rival.<\/p>\n
It just doesn\u2019t get a whole lot worse than that.<\/p>\n
The Bears came into the Linc and just trampled the Eagles, and at times it seemed like the Eagles didn\u2019t even feel like fighting back.<\/p>\n
Sunday was bad. Friday was bad. And now the Eagles are 8-4 with their second ugly two-game losing streak this year and a road game against the Chargers in L.A. looming a week from Monday.<\/p>\n
And Kevin Patullo is still calling the plays.<\/p>\n
1.\u00a0 I\u2019m really tempted to say this is the worst offense I\u2019ve ever seen, but I was around for 1998, when the Eagles \u2013 with play callers Dana Bible and then Bill Musgrave \u2013 scored 17 touchdowns all year, scored 17 or fewer points in 15 of 16 games and went 3-13 with three quarterbacks winning one game apiece (Koy Detmer, Bobby Hoying, Rodney Peete). But this is close. Holy crap is this bad. Nick Sirianni refuses to make a change at play caller and this is what you get. Since the bye week, they\u2019ve now scored 10, 16, 21 and 15 points, and since Week 5 the offense has surpassed 21 points only against the Giants two weeks before they fired their head coach and a month before they fired their defensive coordinator. They\u2019re not just bad. They\u2019re getting worse, and that\u2019s what\u2019s most concerning. The offense averaged 23.5 points per game the first four games of the season. That figure is now down to 19.4 over the last eight games. Getting worse. Saquon gets off to a good start, then they get away from him and then can\u2019t get him going again against one of the NFL\u2019s worst run defenses. The passing game looks like these guys never practiced together in their lives. The offensive line is a shadow of its former self. And the play calling, I swear, it looks like Kevin Patullo is just randomly picking plays out of a hat. And not good plays. This offense is a disaster right now. They\u2019re not good at anything. It\u2019s not as bad as 1998. But it\u2019s awfully close.<\/p>\n
2. But the play caller isn\u2019t the problem. Sure.<\/p>\n
3. Let\u2019s get to the defense. Just brutal. Vic Fangio is a genius and there\u2019s nobody you\u2019d rather have calling defensive plays, but this went way beyond coaching. This had everything to do with a defense that just was unable to match the Bears\u2019 physicality. They came into town and just manhandled the Eagles on both sides of the ball. You don\u2019t expect to see this defense get pushed around like this, but here we are. You can\u2019t give up 281 rushing yards in your own building and call yourself a Super Bowl contender. You just can\u2019t. The Bears\u2019 281 rushing yards are the 8th-most ever against the Eagles and the most in 52 years, since the Cowboys had 286 at Texas Stadium in 1973. The most in Philly since the Packers had 294 in 1962. That was 63 years ago. Just yikes.<\/p>\n
4. And while the Eagles sputter and struggle and stagger, there\u2019s the Cowboys in their rear-view mirror, and I still don\u2019t think they\u2019ll catch the Eagles in the division \u2013 the Eagles are 8-4 and the Cowboys are 6-5-1 \u2013 but in the bigger picture the Cowboys have won three straight after a 3-5-1 start, and they just look like a much better team right now on both sides of the ball. And after watching both teams over the last couple weeks, it\u2019s hard to have faith in the Eagles if they wind up facing the Cowboys in the postseason. Not something any of us saw coming a month ago.<\/p>\n
5. I get that it was cold and I get that it was windy and it has been the last few weeks, but we\u2019re just not seeing the Jalen Hurts that we need to see right now, and it\u2019s getting concerning. He did have a couple late touchdowns to A.J. Brown, but the game was decided by then, and really with games in the balance he\u2019s just been scattershot and inaccurate for much of the last few weeks. Missing open guys. Making poor decisions. He had a fumble and an interception Friday. This team isn\u2019t going to win anything without Hurts playing at an elite level and lately he hasn\u2019t been close.<\/p>\n
6. The last two weeks we\u2019ve seen a couple real lessons in play calling from Brian Schottenheimer in Dallas and Ben Johnson Friday. THAT is what a real offense looks like. Mixing up the plays. Keeping defenses off balance. Finding the other team\u2019s weaknesses and taking advantage. Taking advantage of your personnel. Compare the Eagles\u2019 personnel to the Bears\u2019 personnel. The Eagles have better receivers, they have a historically better running back (although not lately), they have a Super Bowl MVP at quarterback, tight end is a push, Bears have the edge on the o-line, although they shouldn\u2019t. But then compare the product we\u2019re seeing. The Bears held the ball for 39 \u00bd minutes, converted 10 of 17 third downs, piled up 28 first downs and 425 total yards. The Eagles had the ball for 20 \u00bd minutes, converted 4 of 12 third downs, had 14 first downs \u2013 half as many as the Bears and managed 317 yards \u2013 only 184 through three quarters. What Johnson was able to do Friday with lesser talent than the Eagles have \u2013 in the Eagles\u2019 building \u2013 just makes the Eagles\u2019 inefficiency more glaring. This is not a championship offense, and watching the Cowboys and Bears the last two weeks only makes the Eagles\u2019 deficiencies more glaring.<\/p>\n
7. I\u2019ve never been a big \u201cGOTTA RUN THE BALL\u201d guy, but I have always believed that if the running game is working, keep hammering it. Especially if the passing game isn\u2019t. ESPECIALLY on a cold, windy day where it\u2019s difficult to throw the ball. Friday? Against the Bears, the Eagles actually did some good things running the ball. Saquon Barkley had 13 carries on a day when he was fairly productive, averaging 4.3 yards per carry. Second half, he averaged 5.5 yards per carry. Windy day. Jalen struggling. The ball flying everywhere. And Saquon looks good finally. This was a one-possession game until the last seven minutes, and in a close game in poor conditions when the running game is working \u2026 13 carries isn\u2019t enough.<\/p>\n
8. It\u2019s hard to play defense when the offense isn\u2019t giving the team a chance to win, and when you go out there and you know you have to hold the other team to 17 or 14 or 10 points, that\u2019s a tough place to be. I just think mentally it\u2019s very tough to play your best when you know you have to be perfect and there\u2019s no margin for error. And I wonder if we\u2019re seeing some of that with this defense. Even subconsciously, you\u2019re out there and the offense is punting series after series and scoring 15 points per game and you have to go back out there after two or three minutes and get another stop, that\u2019s rough. For much of the year, especially lately, the defense has carried this team and I just wonder how much of what we saw Friday was the defense just feeling hopeless. And playing like it.<\/p>\n
9. I think the one thing that really encapsulates the Eagles\u2019 performance on both sides of the ball is that the Bears had 194 more rushing yards than the Eagles. That\u2019s just the Bears beating up the Eagles on both lines. The last thing you want to see as a coach is your team getting out-physicaled. Getting beat up. Getting just pushed around for 60 minutes. Rushing differential is a great little stat because it shows just how physical a team was on both sides of the football. And that 194-yard difference is their 3rd-largest in more than 40 years. In 2004 they got out-rushed by 229 yards in that 27-3 loss in Pittsburgh – their only loss the first 15 weeks of that Super Bowl season \u2013 and in 2014 they were out-rushed by 196 yards by the 49ers in Santa Clara. Before that you have to go to 1983. That\u2019s awfully revealing. This team was built for both lines to dominate, and Friday afternoon they both got dominated.<\/p>\n
10. OK, let\u2019s talk about 2023. That team was 10-1 before the collapse and I’ve felt all along that this is just different because the biggest issue with that team was that the defense was just not competitive. After that 10-1 start, the Eagles lost to the 49ers, Cowboys and Seahawks by a combined 95-49 and we just kept telling ourselves that the Eagles could get back on track because they had the 3-12 Cards and 5-11 Giants coming up. And you know the rest. This team is similar to that team in a couple fundamental ways: In 2023, the defense was non-competitive, and this year the offense is equally inept, just not giving the Eagles a chance to win. The other similarity is that the 2023 team kept winning these close games and they had trouble finishing teams off, and that\u2019s true this year as well. You always get concerned when a team keeps escaping by the skin of its teeth and can’t beat anybody convincingly. Nick Sirianni has spoken a lot about what he learned from that 2023 collapse, which culminated in a hapless 32-9 wild-card loss in Tampa. And we\u2019ll see over these next few weeks if that’s true. The other similarity between 2023 and this year is that you look down the schedule and see some games you think are gimees. In 2023, they lost them. The Eagles are in L.A. a week from Monday to face a dangerous Chargers team that will likely win its fourth straight game Sunday at home against the 2-9 Raiders. Then you\u2019re looking at the Raiders, Commanders, Bills and Commanders, and if the Eagles can\u2019t win at least three more games they don\u2019t deserve to be in the playoffs.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"This team is a mess. I could write that 10 times and there ya go, you\u2019d have your…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":47495,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[69,71,70,6444],"class_list":["post-47494","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-philadelphia","tag-philadelphia","tag-philadelphia-headlines","tag-philadelphia-news","tag-roobs-observations"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47494","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=47494"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47494\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/47495"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=47494"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=47494"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=47494"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}