“It's a defeated team, and they were when they came in.” - Troy Aikman
"This team was not prepared to play football tonight." - Reuben Frank
Troy said that in the fourth quarter, and it's both true and damning. How an allegedly professional team can show up to a do-or-die game like this (literally, someone should have mentioned to the Eagles that this was a playoff game) and play so poorly is beyond me. A few weeks ago I made fun of the idea that Nick Sirianni's job was in danger; now I'm not so sure. This team's lack of discipline, focus and fire can only land on the coaching staff. I'm not sure what momentum-killing disaster took place behind closed doors over the last couple months of the season, but unless the leadership can discern that Sirianni had nothing to do with it, they have to seriously reevaluate his position, not to mention the rest of the staff.
As far as tonight goes, all you really need to know (other than the LONG list of injuries the Birds had), is the following list of miscues:
James Bradberry was the poster child for yet another atrocious night of Eagles "tackling"; his two obvious whiffs led directly to points each time. He was not the only one who couldn't tackle tonight.
The Eagles were "only" assessed with five penalties for 44 yards; it felt like much more.
Brian Johnson is a disgrace. How, when your QB is banged up and you're missing both AJ Brown (for the whole game) and Julio Jones (for 2.5 quarters), do you throw more than two times the number of passes as you call runs? Twice in the early going of the game, Philly had 3rd-and-2, and instead of doing the obvious (and right) thing and just run the ball, Johnson dialed up aggressive passes. Both fell incomplete and killed needed early drives. I don't really want to hear about how the Eagles were way behind and had to catch up; Philly was within two scores until five minutes to go. At that point the passes outnumbered the runs by a staggering 31-13.
I counted at least three dropped passes, including a tough but makeable catch in the end zone by Devonta Smith (not to rag on Smith, who along with Swift were the only offensive guys that really showed up tonight).
Jalen had a disgracefully weak moment on the big loss by Gainwell just before the safety; Kenny is reversing field and may have had a slim chance of getting out of it but Jalen just stood there, not even attempting to block Lavonte David, who ran right by him and made the play. Of course, that TFL set up the safety.
Speaking of effort, it looked like Reddick gave a halfhearted effort in trying to track down Mayfield on a scramble that set up an early touchdown. Maybe he's tired, or maybe he had given up.
Philly failed on a Brotherly Shove for the first time in months, and Covey's fumble set his mindset back a whole year. You could tell by how he didn't try a single return the rest of the night.
Bad angles and bad effort by the defense in general; we've seen the middle of the field be wide open all season long and it never improved.
All of this adds up to one thing: a team that quit on itself and its coaching staff. I can't imagine why, considering how many vets were on this team (Kelce, Johnson, Cox, Graham, Slay, Bradberry, Byard, etc.). The culture has collapsed, and it's up to Lurie and Roseman to figure out why, and quickly.
Last note: watching Kelce crying on the sideline and embracing Jeff Stoutland cuts to the heart. We won't know for sure for a little while, but it looked for all the world that he was saying a goodbye. It's almost certainly the last time we'll see the Core Four of Graham, Kelce, Cox and Johnson together on the field, and if so, it's a sad way to see that era end.
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