I'm sitting here listening to the Eagles Postgame Live guys talk about how this game seemed to feel like the previous two losses; I don't buy that at all. Philly probably deserved to win this game but blew it, unlike the last two weeks where they got blown off the ball. The Birds controlled the game throughout and led for virtually the entire game but a long list of missed opportunities (and a little unfavorable officiating) cost the Birds a much-needed win. It never felt like Seattle was REALLY in the game, but they stayed in striking distance all night long and pulled out a borderline miracle victory. Let's talk about a few of the Eagles' screwups:
Jalen may or may not have been healthy enough to play, but since he did, I'm going to hold him responsible for a really bad passing performance. I lost count of how many passes were too high (most of those were incomplete). There were three balls batted at the line of scrimmage. There were several passes that were completed for losses in plays that had no chance from the jump; those are the balls that just should be thrown away. It's hard to fault him for the first pick (where an obvious PI went uncalled), but the second pick was dreadful. Jalen's "screw it, AJ Brown's down there somewhere" approach to the game really cost the offense today, never more than the game's final pick, but the lazy decision to lob the ball to Brown in hopes of the pass interference call when Devonta Smith was wide open underneath was nearly as bad. If Hurts thinks he's getting paid a quarter billion to let the flu be an excuse for this kind of performance, he's wrong.
I love Jason Kelce, but his careless false start turned an almost sure TD into a field goal early. That's a four point penalty, which is a big deal in a three point loss.
That last drive was a disgrace. How do you let a backup QB drive 92 yards? Despite everything else, Philly had the game almost won anyway but the defense completely blew what had been a decent effort until that drive.
There were a few positives from this game. First, as said before, Philly DID outplay Seattle. Similar to the Jets game two months ago, this was probably a win that ended up being a loss. The talking heads will be screaming about how the defense was not improved despite the change; obviusly it's a little early to make that call one way or another, but tonight the defense held up for 58 minutes (again, who can tell what happened on the last drive?). Honestly, hearing that Slay wouldn't play and we'd roll out Ricks, Jobe and Ringo against Seattle's excellent WR group had me sure that the Seahawks would score 30 points. Offensively, Hurts had a really bad effort as a passer but ran well (6.5 YPC with five first downs and two scores), and was part of an efficient running offense overall; I was glad to see that the Birds ran 38 times. That's the most rushing attempts in a game for this team since the Rams game. The ball seemed to come out more quickly tonight in the passing game than it has in some time. I can't get too broken up over Kenneth Walker breaking a few tackles; that dude's been one of the better tackle busters in the sport for years now. Don't lose sight of the fact that this was still a pretty good Seahawks team that was fighting for its playoff life. As low as this bar is, at least it was good to see the team be competitive, even in a loss. This was a very painful loss but I don't think it significantly alters the long term trajectory of the team.
Big picture now: coming off the bye week I had said that a 2-3 record in this brutal stretch would be the most likely outcome and that's eventually what happened (as unlikely as it felt after Philly won the first two). Philly at 10-4 is still ahead of where I thought they'd be (in the preseason I thought that 8-6 or 9-5 were the most likely records after fourteen games), and as we know the division is still in reach, especially since Dallas looked even worse yesterday than we did today. That's the good news. The bad news is that this team is nowhere close to consistent enough to compete right now. What's the cure for that? A three game stretch against bottom feeders is a good place to start. Time to get Hurts right, get Slay back and figure some things out.
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