We’ve all had a few days to sit back, lick our wounds, take in a few online message board shots from the cancerous 49ers fan base (seriously, the toxicity from those guys is reaching a Cowboys-level stratosphere). There’s still no sugarcoating it; the 23 point loss was the worst loss in terms of scoring margin that the Philly starters have endured since a 27 point stomping back in 2019 at the hands of the hated Cowboys. The general consensus, especially among 49er fans, is that this defeat marks the true gap between Philly and SF, and probably shows that the Eagles NFC championship from last season is a little fraudulent. Not so fast! I want to point out a few issues with this game that should give Eagles fans hope that a potential playoff rematch may go very differently.
Before I do that, I want to point out that these are NOT excuses covering for Philly’s bad play, or whinings from a disappointed fan claiming that Philly really deserved to win. We’ve had too much of that from sniveling Cowboys, Bills and Chiefs fans over the last month to play that game. SF destroyed our defense and deserved to win. The point being made here is that there’s no reason to think that the 49ers will kill Philly if they meet again.
Finally, CLICK HERE to read my immediate post-game thoughts (some of which will be expanded on here):
ISSUE #1: Bad health. SF was, to my knowledge, only missing one starter (safety Talanoa Hufanga). Philly was missing five (Dallas Goedert, Nakobe Dean, Zach Cunningham, Avonte Maddox, Justin Evans). You may have noted that all four defensive players were slated to start in the back seven of that group, the position that got raided so badly by the 49ers. The good news here is that Goedert, Cunningham and Evans all should be back in the next couple of weeks. There’s even the slight possibility that Dean and Maddox may be back for the playoffs. Of course, the Birds have already added Shaq Leonard and may bring back Zach Ertz in coming days. The bottom line here is that this will almost certainly be a better and more deep Eagles team, should the two squads meet again.
ISSUE #2: Red zone woes suddenly return. I talked about this in my postgame column, but in hindsight the first two drives (in which the Eagles drove deep into 49er territory only to settle for field goals both times) really loomed large. Consider that those were the only two out of 14 red zone opportunities against Dallas, KC, Buffalo and SF that the Eagles DIDN’T score a touchdown and it really stands out. Philly’s record of red zone success against other tough defenses this year (and they’ve played quite a few) would indicate that it was probable that Philly would have reached the end zone in at least one of those two drives (probably the one in which Jalen took his mind-blowing 15 yard falldown sack). Those extra four points would have come in handy, not just with the 4Q comeback math, but would also have extended the period of Philly’s early lead, forcing Purdy to play from behind longer. As has been pointed out before, Purdy is pretty much awful when trailing and he wasn’t great on Sunday in that role; it’s just that the Eagles’ lead was artificially small.
ISSUE #3: Bad tackling. I mentioned this one too, and you don’t need me to tell you just how bad Philly was in this area on Sunday. Blown tackles were major contributors on most of the 49ers’ touchdowns, and most of the culprits were replacement players (Eli Ricks and especially Nick Morrow come to mind). Morrow was especially bad, as SF racked up nearly half of all their passing yards just on his blown tackles. The good news here is that Philly has generally been one of the NFL’s best tackling teams under Sirianni; they are tied for the 7th fewest missed tackles in the league since he was hired. Simply put, I would not count on such a poor tackling performance by the Birds again.
ISSUE #4: Rest discrepancy. We all know that SF had three extra days of rest. What’s not as easy to determine is how much of an advantage it is. There’s some data that suggests that an average team benefits by 0.2 points for each extra day it has off compared to the opponent. The same data suggests that this effect is magnified when the rested team is well coached (which SF is), as such teams are able to better utilize the extra time. There’s also data that suggests a similar advantage for East coast teams hosting West coast teams (which would seem to counter SF’s advantage), but I’m not sure that matters as much here considering that this game started at 1:30 Pacific, hardly an unusual slot for the 49ers. More than all this, the heavy load that Philly had the previous few weeks would inordinately weigh on them. You all know most of this already, but just a review:
Philly already was short on rest considering they had a highly intense and emotional MNF game in Kansas City in terrible weather conditions. I understand they flew back to Philly that same night, meaning they went into that Tuesday essentially without sleep.
Following that short week, the Birds had another grueling, drawn out win (also in horrible conditions) against the Bills and as we know had to work overtime to get it. Reed Blankenship in particular turned in a heroic day in terms of workload, but he was just one of five defenders who logged more than 90 snaps and one of eight who cleared 80 snaps (for reference, it’s considered a pretty full day to play around 60 snaps).
From a bigger picture view, those two weeks were the latest of a series of draining games that started with the ugly loss to the Jets, followed by a prime time clash with Miami, a rematch in DC that went down to the wire and that unbelievable Dallas game. Mentally, it’s hard to keep your edge with so many big moments in a row.
Simply put, we didn’t see an Eagles team that secretly stank or was exposed, we saw an Eagles team that was tired. To be sure, many of the games I mentioned in this section were draining because the Eagles made mistakes or let teams hang around, but I think it’s unlikely that we’ll see an Eagles team look so depleted again in a potential playoff rematch with SF.
ISSUE #5: This was the 49er’s regular season Super Bowl. The 49er players (and fans) have been chirping about the Birds since the end of last January’s NFCCG. This continued all summer and never really let up until game week, when I guess they wanted to stop supplying bulletin board material. For them to act like this was a game like any other for them was comical (not unlike the Eagles players pretending that a rematch with the Chiefs didn’t really matter). It was obvious from the start how much this game meant to them from the way they seemed to seek out conflict and cheap shots. Their overly emotional response to the conflict between their LB and Big Dom also showed this in a big way. By the way, this really isn’t a criticism of SF (other than to make the obvious and true point that they played a little dirty): they approached this game the way they should have, with an edge and something to prove. It’s not “hate” to demonstrate that the Eagles just didn’t have the emotional edge in that game, or that this advantage was meaningful. It’s also not inaccurate to point out that this particular shoe will be on the other foot in a potential rematch.
[One final note about last year’s NFC title game; only a fool would pretend that the SF QB injuries had no impact on the game, but it’s nearly as foolish to pretend (like some 49er fans are currently doing) that a healthy Purdy turns that game into a blowout like this game was. Perhaps they’ve forgotten, but I’d like to remind everyone that Philly hung 31 points on the league’s best defense, and that with their foot half off the gas in the second half. No one really knows how that game turns out with a healthy Purdy, but there’s no question that it isn’t a monster Eagles defeat.]
ISSUE #6: The officials stank. SorryNotSorry, but I’m going there. UNLIKE some of the fans of teams we’ve played (Dolphins and Bills fans, I’m especially looking at you here), I’m not going to pretend that officiating cost us this game. It is fair, however, to point out that at least some of that 23 point margin was due to a tilted scale. You all saw the same plays I did; uncalled and significant holds on at least three 9er touchdowns, a phantom offsides on Josh Sweat that turned a 4th and goal from the 4 to a third and goal on the 2, and a multitude of grabs of Eagles WRs that normally would have been flagged (I counted four, including at least one in the end zone). There was definitely some unnecessary roughness that went uncalled too. I know that Philly has been getting away with some of this stuff, and I didn’t want to hear it as an excuse then and I don’t want to hear it now. What I do know is that a fairly officiated game on Sunday is definitely closer on the scoreboard than this one was.
None of this should be seen as an excuse; Philly lost this game, not because of the six reasons above, but because their defense somehow gave up touchdowns on six straight drives. What’s fair to point out, however, is that the six reasons above likely account for much of why this game was the rout that it turned into. What we basically saw is the 49ers best case and the Eagles’ worst case meeting in the same game; that scenario is always going to result in a bad loss that won’t be replicable. If anyone out there is thinking that somehow this sort of demolition is to be expected if these two meet again, they’ve got another thing coming.
What do you guys think? How are you feeling about this team?
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