If winning ugly is a thing, the Eagles almost turned it into an art form on Sunday, with the Los Angeles Rams supplying the paint. But it wasn\u2019t to be had as horrendous coaching decisions, a plethora of injuries and a stagnant offense led to the Eagles dropping to 2-2 on the season with the 24-20 loss.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Already entering the game without starters DeVonta Smith, Lane Johnson<\/a> and Zack Baun, among others, the Birds lost Saquon Barkley early in the game with a hamstring injury<\/a>. Later, Quinyon Mitchell, Cooper DeJean and Jonathan Greenard all missed time after getting nicked up. <\/p>\n Still, the Eagles almost pulled it out, aided greatly by first half interceptions by Andrew Mukuba and DeJean, along with horribly sloppy play by the Rams until the fourth quarter. The Rams used drives of 83 and 98 yards in the fourth to convert touchdowns and overcome a 20-10 deficit.<\/p>\n Here are some observations, questions and dumbfoundedness from the loss.<\/p>\n *I would say that less than 15 percent of Eagles\u2019 completed passes are caught on the run. So why, why, why, why do they constantly throw short of the sticks on third down? It makes absolutely no sense.<\/p>\n *Defensive end Nolan Smith had himself a day, putting constant pressure on Rams quarterback Matthew Stafford and recording a sack.<\/p>\n *Jeremiah Trotter Jr. is just a player. The man is around the ball all the time, never seems to be out of position and just seems to disrupt an offense so much. He led the team with 10 tackles.<\/p>\n *The Eagles led 20-10 at the half despite being 0-for-6 on third downs, gaining 100 total yards, recording zero sacks and committing six penalties. They finished the day 0-for-12 on third down.<\/p>\n *On fourth and goal at the Rams two with 7:30 to play, the Eagles went for it with a 20-10 lead. That\u2019s questionable to begin with, but when the offense is scrambling all over and the ball barely gets snapped on time before an incompletion, it looks even worse. A timeout to slow things down for a second would have been the smart call.<\/p>\n *On the Eagles second possession on a third and one at the Rams six, why are they running Tank Bigsby wide instead of up the middle, where they had had success on the previous runs? Made absolutely no sense. No feel for the game for whoever made that call. Get a yard and set up the tush push is what every fan in the Delaware Valley knew to do.<\/p>\n *Darius Cooper made an unbelievable catch coming back to the ball and reaching over a defender for a touchdown and a 13-3 lead. He was WIDE OPEN from the get-go. Jalen Hurts should have thrown the ball much earlier: <\/p>\n *What goes on with the offense during halftime? Again, they came out of the locker room very sluggish and went three-and-out, three-and-out and four-and-out.<\/p>\n *Nick Sirianni decided not to put points on the board, for the second time in the game, and instead go for it on fourth down with 7:30 to go in the game. After getting a stop, the Rams went 98 yards in nine plays to make it a 20-17 game.<\/p>\n *On the Mukuba interception on the Rams\u2019 first series, DeJean totally bit on a play-action and was beat down the field by Konata Mumpfield. But Stafford overthrew and Mukuba took advantage.<\/p>\n *When Mitchell went down with his injury and Jonathan Jones took over at corner, Stafford targeted him on three straight plays. That\u2019s what smart teams do.<\/p>\n *Britain Covey had a very nice day returning the ball. His 41-yard return on a punt in the second quarter set up the first Eagles touchdown.<\/p>\n *The Eagles led at the half despite being 0-for-6 on third downs, having 100 total yards, zero sacks and six penalties.<\/p>\n *They finished the day 0-for-12 on third down, mainly due to absolutely horrible play calling.<\/p>\n *The Rams had 26 first downs to 12 for the Eagles.<\/p>\n *414-172. That was the yardage disparity for the game.<\/p>\n *The Birds finished with 10 more penalties.<\/p>\n *For the first time this season, the Eagles won the turnover battle, 2-0.\u00a0<\/p>\n *Does any other offense in the league ever have their starting quarterback throw for 93 yards, no matter the circumstance?\u00a0<\/p>\n *Makai Lemon better have Wapner-Newman on speed dial with the way Hurts leaves him out to dry on so many of his passes.<\/p>\n *Zach Ertz had two catches. He now needs eight more catches to become the Eagles\u2019 all-time leader.<\/p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"If winning ugly is a thing, the Eagles almost turned it into an art form on Sunday, with…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":870866,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[4,450,451,3,452,453],"class_list":["post-870865","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-breaking-news","tag-breaking-news","tag-breakingnews","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/870865","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=870865"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/870865\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/870866"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=870865"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=870865"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=870865"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}