For the second straight week, the Philadelphia Eagles had a golden opportunity to score a win over a beleaguered NFC contender. And for the second straight week, they responded by absolutely falling apart in the second half, this time turning a 20-10 lead over the Los Angeles Rams into a heartbreaking 24-20 loss.
Philly's offense is taking the brunt of the blame in the aftermath, and that's more than understandable. The Eagles averaged just three yards per play on the afternoon; they couldn't run the ball after losing Saquon Barkley to a hamstring injury in the first quarter, and Jalen Hurts completed just 12 of 27 passes for a measly 93 yards. They went 0-for-12 on third down, handing the ball back to L.A. over and over again until Matthew Stafford finally took advantage.
But making Hurts — or OC Sean Mannion — the scapegoat here isn't telling the whole story. The truth is that this is a fully organizational failure, one that could lead to a hard reset if this season spirals out of control.
QB Jalen Hurts
Of course, in the NFL, things start and end with the quarterback. And I'm certainly not going to argue that Hurts played well on Sunday; the limitations that people have been pointing out, from his unwillingness to use the middle of the field to how deliberate he can be as a processor, are all still there, and they're all still crippling at times.
But those limitations have always been there, even when he was leading this team to a Super Bowl title. And we also saw Hurts make big throws in wins against Washington and Tennessee earlier in the year. It feels more accurate to say that the Eagles used to have the infrastructure to insulate him from his weaknesses and accentuate his strengths. Now that said infrastructure is crumbling around him, he doesn't have enough to elevate as a passer.
Head coach Nirk Sirianni
Of course, it would help if he had a head coach who could put him in the best position to succeed. And yet it's not really clear what Sirianni does in Philly, beyond make baffling fourth-down decisions like the one on the Rams' two-yard line in the fourth quarter on Sunday. Sirianni doesn't seem to have the locker room, and at this point his schematic value has to be called into question. Oh, and Philly also committed 10 penalties. Other than that, Mrs. Lincoln, how was the play?
OC Sean Mannion
Mannion has been dealt a more difficult hand than he gets credit for, for reasons that we'll get to in just a moment. But he also deserves to come under fire for just how little he's been able to actually add to this Eagles offense. At times, it's startlingly indistinguishable from the Kevin Patullo era, and that's never a good thing.
Blame Hurts for his refusal to throw the ball over the middle. Blame injuries to skill position players and the offensive line. But Mannion is making nothing easy, scheming up zero free yards. Very little of the LaFleur/McVay-style stuff that was suppposed to come with this hire have actually shown up, and at a certain point — with the best play-callers in the league putting up points despite injuries to key players — that comes down to a lack of creativity.
The entire offensive line
Losing Barkley certainly hurts. And lord knows this unit is a shell of what Philly thought it would be over the summer, before injuries took their toll. But if you want to know just how poorly coached a unit this is, look no further than Sunday afternoon, when the Rams dialed up pressure after pressure and repeatedly harassed Hurts witih free rushers.
That's a total breakdown, of coaching and scheme and overall athleticism. This unit looks its age right now, too slow to pick up blitzers even when they do diagnose correctly, and nothing will short-circuit an offense faster.
The injury gods
Sirianni said after the Rams loss that he doesn't want to use injuries as an excuse, and we don't blame any Eagles fan who agrees. But it does bear repeating just how many big names this team has on the shelf right now:
- RB Saquon Barkley
- WR DeVonta Smith
- WR Hollywood Brown
- TE Dallas Goedert
- C Landon Dickerson
- OT Lane Johnson
- EDGE Jonathan Greenard
- LB Zack Baun
That's a lot, especially on the offensive side of the ball. Is it any wonder that Hurts looks like a shell of himself, with no one who can separate and too little time to see the field? Is it any wonder that an offensive line that was already long in the tooth is fatally compromised without two key starters? The simple fact of the matter is that, on paper, this is not a very good football team right now, and it likely won't be until its best players can get and stay healthy.
LB Jihaad Campbell
The defense largely played well on Sunday, but it has to come in for some criticism. And there's no better place to start than Campbell, whom Sean McVay repeatedly picked in as the Rams mounted their fourth-quarter comeback. He's a glaring liability in coverage right now, and while that was to be expected to some extent given how little experience he had as an off-ball linebacker coming out of college, he's in his second season now — and the Eagles don't have the luxury of a steep learning curve, especially not with Baun already injured.
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