5 weaknesses the Eagles still have to worry about even after rolling the Packers

First and foremost, the Philadelphia Eagles just won their first Wild Card game since 2018. They are moving to the Divisional round of the playoffs after beating the Green Bay Packers 22-10.  That rocks.

The defense played like the Packers had purposefully wronged their families and the outcome of the game was great; there’s no arguing either of those things… But, man oh man, that offense was ugly for a big chunk of the game.

Offensive struggles were bailed out by an amazing defense

The biggest takeaway from this game is that the Eagles' defense is dominant, brutal, and physical. It’s a championship-level defense and they bailed out a gross, boring, frustrating, stagnant, and otherwise inefficient offense. 

To be fair, the offense did start fast. Oren Burks started the game by laying a hammer on Keisan Nixon on the opening kickoff. Nixon fumbled and the Eagles recovered it giving the offense a 28-yard field to work with. Three plays later, Jalen Hurts found Jahan Dotson in the endzone and the Eagles were up 7-0 1:39 into the game.

Unfortunately, the next 30 minutes of game time was an offensive stinker, with six drives that resulted in five punts and one field goal. There were a lot of reasons that 30 minutes was awful, and that’s where this team can be exposed.

Offensive Penalties

It’s probably fair to say this game was over-officiated on both sides. The defensive pass interference that was called on Quinyon Mitchell was incredibly soft, but so was the unnecessary roughness that was called on Keisean Nixon for throwing Saquon Barkley down out of bounds. 

The Eagles ended the game with seven penalties for 64 yards and the Packers had eight penalties for 85 yards. So, it all evened out, but the penalties against the Eagles were back-breaking.

After Jordan Love’s first interception, the Eagles had a second-and-seven when there was an illegal motion called on DeVonta Smith, making it a second-and-12. The Eagles weren’t able to convert.

After Jordan Love’s second interception, the Eagles had a fourth-and-four on the Packers’ 39-yard-line when there was a false start called on Dallas Goedert, making it a fourth-and-nine. Instead of going for it, the Eagles punted.

On the Eagles' first drive of the fourth quarter, the Eagles had a first-and-ten from the Packers’ 14-yard-line when there was a holding call on DeVonta Smith, making it a first-and-20. On second down, Lane Johnson was called for holding and made it a second-and-22. The Eagles ended up kicking a field goal.

It’s always going to be tough for an offense to get drives going when penalties are setting them back like that. Luckily, that’s fixable. The next thing is less fixable and infinitely more frustrating.

Coward’s Draw

A Coward’s Draw is when the offense has a third-and-very long, and the offense calls a run play. In a perfect world, that run play is actually a Draw (which is the exact opposite of play-action; a fake the pass then hand it off or the QB runs it himself), but the name ‘Coward’s Draw’ kind of encapsulates every play where the offense surrenders a drive.

Again, this is the playoffs and it’s a ‘Win or Die’ game, and wasting drives on offense is a really, really bad idea… and the Eagles called two, arguably three, Coward’s Draws in this game.

In this case, two were handoffs to Saquon with 12 and 19 yards to go. The arguable one was an option with 13 yards to go in the red zone while the Eagles were up 16-10 in the fourth quarter. Maybe they were just playing for a field goal to go up two scores there.

So, you can say that Saquon is explosive enough to convert on a third and long, especially if the defense is expecting a pass… But, come on… Really? That’s the plan? Give the ball to Saquon and have him try to beat three or four guys rather than throw it to one of your elite pass-catchers? Get out of here with that.

It was cowardly and pathetic. Wasting drives like this might be okay against a Packers offense who were missing linemen and wide receivers, but it’ll be a different story against a powerhouse offense like Detroits’.

It was just unbelievably frustrating and lame. This isn’t a fixable thing, because there’s nothing to actually fix. These play calls were deliberate choices that Nick Sirianni and/or Kellen Moore made. 

Rutting out

Jalen Hurts started the game with six straight completions. He looked like there was no rust to get shaken off; it was awesome until it wasn’t. He followed that up with seven straight incompletions. 

To put that in perspective, he completed a pass with 1:20 left in the first quarter and then his next completion wasn’t until there was 4:48 left in the third quarter. That’s a LONG time to go without using a wide receiver.

In order to get him back on track, the Eagles called a play-action pass, and it turned into a 28-yard catch and run by DeVonta Smith. The question is, ‘Why didn’t they try to do something like that sooner?’

Jalen certainly had some opportunities to get the ball to his pass catchers in that streak of seven incompletions. One probably should’ve been a catch by Dallas Goedert but the throw was low another one should’ve been a DPI when the Packers Safety Evan Williams hit Goedert before the ball got to him, and Jalen threw the ball at A.J. Brown’s feet on a different one. 

Jalen certainly deserves some of the blame for that streak of incompletions, but my point is that it would’ve been nice to see Nick/Kellen press the ‘Easy’ button sooner and call one of those rut-busting plays. 

If you’re standing on train tracks, and you see the train coming, you can move whenever you want to. You don’t have to wait until it’s two feet away from you. 

If Jalen misses four throws in a row, why not help him out with an easy pass then? Why wait until the next half? Hell, even if it’s a screen pass at least it’s a completion.

No more Nakobe Dean

Linebacker Nakobe Dean went down with a knee thing during the game and that’s a HUGE blow. Zack Baun is still there and that’s amazing, but Nakobe has been having a phenomenal season and when you lose someone like that, it’s sure to get exposed by a team when they have a week to prepare. 

The next man up is Oren Burks and he’s going to be tested next Sunday. He’s going to be the clear weak spot in the defense, so it’s going to be up to Vic Fangio to find a way to try to mask that. 

Jake Elliott is consistently inconsistent

Not much can be said about this. Having a automatic kicker in the postseason is a great thing, and Jake Elliott hasn’t been automatic this season.

His first non-kickoff kick was an extra point, and he missed it. Until the game was put away, that missing point was lingering and made it feel like the Packers were still way more alive than they actually were. 

Luckily, Jake went on and made all three of his field goals, his other extra point, and had a really good kickoff that hit the edge of the landing zone and bounced into the end zone. But even so, having to hold your breath for an extra point is pretty not great.

In the end, it’s a playoff win and that’s all that matters. If the defense keeps playing at this level, and there’s no reason to think they won’t, then everything will be peachy. The Eagles have tougher tests than this coming up, both offensively and defensively, and if the offense doesn’t get its act together in do-or-die games, then they’ll just die, I guess. But hey, a win is a win. The Eagles are still playing and the Packers aren’t. So, Go Birds.