The Philadelphia Eagles are a bad football team. They holistically and emphatically suck. They are a 10-car pileup on the road to nowhere. They play with the fire of an old cigarette in a wet ashtray. Their offense is a cold, lifeless collection of mismatched parts and ideas that never coalesce. They play with a sincere lack of joy and less love for the game than an accountant at a law firm counting down the days until retirement. I’d rather watch milk curdle or TikTok videos of someone powerwashing a deck. As the great poet William Shakespeare would say, “This team is ass.” If an alien landed on Earth and I told them, “Hey Alien, did know that this was the best team in the world two years ago,” they would simply decide that world is not worth saving.
On a rainy October afternoon, the Eagles embarrassed themselves by letting the Los Angeles Rams (everyone’s favorite preseason Super Team) and Sean McVay (everyone’s favorite offensive playcaller and hair gel super user) come into South Philly and show the country who this team really is. McVay, to that point, had never beaten Nick Sirianni. Until yesterday.
The Rams beat the Birds 24-20 in a game that can best be described as “gross.” The Eagles entered the game without DeVonta Smith (the only reliable source of offense on this team), Lane Johnson (the only person who can reliably block on this team), and Zack Baun (the only person who can reliably tackle on this team). But despite the injuries, the Eagles gave us a little bit of hope by holding onto the lead for most of the game. They say it’s the hope that kills you, but I’d argue it’s the inability to generate any offense whatsoever.
Thanks to bad weather and poor play by Los Angeles (who were missing Aaron Donald and Myles Garrett), the Eagles were still in it. They scored first after Andrew Mukuba recorded the defense’s first takeaway of the season, leading to a Jake Eliott field goal. The Rams stormed back to tie the game a 3 with a field goal of their own, and the Birds answered by settling for a 56-yard field goal after a big Tank Bigsby run was called back due to holding, and Jalen Hurts took a sack on a 3rd and 13 (something he loves to do apparently).
A 41-yard return by Britain Covey (who may have been one of the only people to play well in this game) in the second quarter put the Eagles in position to score a touchdown on a miraculous Darius Cooper catch where Cooper elevated and pulled the ball away from a defender in position to make the interception to bring the Eagles up 13-7. On the Rams’ following drive, an insane tight window pass from Stafford to Rams tight end Tyler Higbee set up a Puka Nacua jet sweep into the endzone to tighten the score to 13-10.
On the Rams’ last drive of the half, Matthew Stafford threw an interception to Cooper DeJean to get the Eagles the ball back before halftime. A Rams pass interference penalty on Dontayvion Wicks put the Eagles in scoring position, where Hurts tossed touchdown number 2 to Darius Cooper to bring the Eagles up 20-10 in the half.
But you’ve seen this story before. You know how it ends. The Birds enter halftime with all the momentum in the world despite their best efforts. And then at halftime they forget how to play football. Again, it’s the hope that kills you. The belief that this time will be different. Because it never is. I wrote this after last week’s game against the Bears, and it still applies:
The Eagles are 5-6 on Monday Night Football in the Sirianni era. Right now, they are not a hard team to beat. All you need to do is hang on for dear life in the first half and watch them absolutely collapse offensively in the second half while their defense eats up minutes and gets exhausted.
The Eagles failed to get a first down in the third quarter, including a bad decision where Nick Sirianni went for it on 4th and a long 1 on the Eagles’ own 38-yard line despite the fact that the Eagles offense had the pulse of a rock.
In the 4th quarter, a slew of Tank Bigsby runs gave the Eagles the opportunity to score with 1st and goal from the 9-yard line. After three stuffed runs, the Eagles had a decision to make: either go for it on fourth down to score a touchdown or kick the field goal to go up 23-10. They chose to go for it despite being unable to generate any offense all day and could not convert.
The Rams drove 98 yards on the next drive to score a touchdown on a Kyren Williams run to make it 20-17, and now were only down by a field goal. The Eagles offense went 3-and-out again, and Matthew Stafford took the Rams 79 yards before they scored on another Kyren Williams run to go up 24-20. With one last opportunity for a game-winning drive, the Eagles responded by…going 3-and-out.
All of the Eagles’ failures from this season and last season were on display in this shitshow implosion. Poor offensive design and execution, vomit-inducing coaching decisions, low-level quarterback play, and the defense folding like a flip phone when they couldn’t afford to. The injuries also piled up in this game. The Eagles lost Saquon Barkley to a hamstring injury in the first quarter, they lost Jonathan Greenard to an ankle injury, and Quinyon Mitchell to a knee injury in the third quarter, and Tank Bigsby went out in the fourth quarter.
But the main story of this game is how fucking terrible the Eagles’ offense is. They are historically bad, and went 0-12 on third down, their worst mark in 25 YEARS! Do you know how many bad Eagles offenses I’ve watched in the past 25 years? Here are some gross numbers:
The Eagles had 172 yards yesterday compared to the Rams’ 415 yards.
The Eagles currently have the 4th lowest offensive yards per game, next to teams like the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, the Miami Dolphins, the Minnesota Vikings, and the Tennessee Titans.
The Eagles have the 2nd lowest passing yards per game, only above the Vikings and BELOW the Dolphins.
According to Deniz Selman, they are the worst under center offense in the league by success rate.
According to The Ringer’s Sheil Kapadia, they had 68 net passing yards, which is their lowest total in a regular-season game in 23 years
I want to say that we should believe. That we should give a brand new offensive scheme time to come together. That growing pains are normal and natural with a seismic philosophical shift like this. But this offense has shown zero signs of being competent. There is no indication that their potential is higher than this. Jalen Hurts is regressing, Nick Sirianni’s influence is too large, and Sean Mannion is in his third year coaching and has no bank of experience to call on. The dudes in charge have no understanding of what the problems are or how to fix them.
The offense is like a deadbeat boyfriend who refuses to get a job and asks his girlfriend for gas money to go hang with the boys. Unfortunately, Vic Fangio’s defense is out of gas money and can no longer support a failing offense while they sort out their own problems. I at least have hope that the defense will improve, but this offense is a miserable viewing experience. And it’s been that way since the Eagles hoisted the Lombardi Trophy two years ago.
I’d ask Nick Sirianni and Sean Mannion to do some self-reflection, but they are the least trustworthy to evaluate this situation. This is a fundamentally broken and directionless team. The ghost of Kevin Patullo still haunts this place, and it looks like he was only a symptom of a much larger issue. The Eagles are not a good football team. They are not contenders. And until they prove otherwise, they are the worst part of your week.
TRENDING UP
Darius Cooper: The lone positive from this game was the continued emergence of Darius Cooper. Without DeVonta Smith, Cooper assumed the role of de facto WR1 and caught two touchdown passes, one of which is a catch-of-the-year nominee. Cooper deserves more playing time and to be a bigger part of this offense.
Special Teams: They looked great. Kelee Ringo is a menace as a gunner, and Britain Covey had some huge returns. Jake Elliot hit two field goals. Braden Mann punted pretty well. I don’t know we need something to celebrate.
TRENDING DOWN
The Nick Sirianni/Sean Mannion Experiment: In hindsight, it’s kind of insane of the Eagles to think that bringing in a first-time coordinator to right the ship for a team trying to contend immediately was the best course of action. Especially when so many first-time coordinators have failed under Nick Sirianni (more on that later). Sean Mannion could very well be an excellent offensive mind, but I have no fucking clue because the Eagles refuse to go all-in on his style of offense. This offense is a Frankenstein of failed concepts. It’s a fusion of Nick Sirianni’s offensive principles and the Shanahan-McVay style, which feels as messy as a collaboration between Shaboozey and Beethoven. What results is an offense that severely lacks identity and doesn’t do anything well. Sirianni needs to let go of the wheel and see if Mannion can figure this out his way, or everyone will go down with the ship.
Jalen Hurts: Two weeks after Hurts led a game-winning drive against Tennessee (which should’ve been more of a red flag than we allowed for at the time), he looks shell-shocked and unsure of himself. Hurts’ play is best encapsulated by the potential game-winning drive against the Rams, where he held onto the ball too long and allowed himself to get sacked with time running out. He takes too long to make decisions, doesn’t trust his blocking, and refuses to throw with anticipation. He is regressing, some of which is due to coaching (more on that later). He is another symptom of a bad offensive system and in the past two weeks hasn’t proven himself to be capable of elevating this offense when they need him to.
Being Healthy: The Eagles got mauled by the injury tiger, losing Saquon Barkley, Jonathan Greenard (who just returned last week from a pectoral injury), Quinyon Mitchell, and Tank Bigsby. Those are four huge losses for a team that was already without Landon Dickerson, DeVonta Smith, Zack Baun, and Hollywood Brown. Every team is affected by injuries, but the Eagles are not built to sustain losses like this.
HOT TAKES
Nick Sirianni Should Not Be Paired with First-Time Offensive Coordinators: The Eagles are a modern front office that loves analytics. So here’s a stat for you: When the Eagles have former offensive coordinators reprise their role with the team, they’ve been to two Super Bowls and won one. When they’ve had first-time offensive coordinators, they’ve suffered monumental collapses and lost in the first round of the playoffs twice.
Nick Sirianni is many things, but he is not adept at identifying and developing coaching talent. Whenever he is paired with a first-time coordinator, the team flounders. This could be for two reasons: The first is ego. He could be a coach who can’t help but put his hands in the honey pot. One who insists on having a bigger hand in the offensive design than it seems and won’t let go. An experienced coordinator is less likely to be agreeable and has more weight to push back on Sirianni’s bad ideas. The second and also most likely, is that he does not have the answers. An experienced offensive coordinator is more likely to find the right buttons to push based on what they’ve done in the past. They are a better collaborator with a head coach who stinks as an offensive strategist. The jury is still out on Mannion, but the early returns show that Sirianni needs an adult in the room to get the offense going.
The Eagles Made Bad Offseason Coaching Hires: Knowing this was a pivotal season for the Eagles offense and for Jalen Hurts, they supported him by giving Hurts a first-time quarterbacks coach in Parks Frazier, who has only been a part of historically bad team collapses and has no measure of success in the past, pass game coordinator Josh Grizzard, who was fired by the Buccaneers after last season, first-time coordinator Sean Mannion, and Chris Kuper, who was fired by the Minnesota Vikings after their line fell apart. These are not really the decisions of a team looking to get back to the Super Bowl.
THINGS ONLY I CARE ABOUT
London Innit! The Eagles take on the Jaguars in London next week. I honestly fuck with a 9:30 am football game. Unfortunately for my girlfriend, I will be doing my British accent for the full 3 hours of the game, which sounds slightly Jamaican and slightly Australian. Please pray for her.
First Half Hope: I watched this game at a bar with my buddy Mike Filano. After the first half, I made him record a message where he said, “As an Eagles fan you have to feel good after this first half…the defense is coming up huge, this team will only go as far as the defense, given some of the challenges the offense is facing. Looking forward to a great second half.” I wish I could go back in time and warn him.
Great Article.
I think Siriani, more than other issues, has really and finally been exposed as woefully inadequate. I had my strong doubts about him last year but now they have been proven. HC is the vortex of the Hydra-like problems that we face.