The Blowout That Wasn’t

The Eagles trailed 28-7. Game over. Their offense could do nothing right and you aren’t going to come back on the Tampa defense, even with a banged up secondary. The only question was what the final score would be.

But…

Tampa went to sleep and the Eagles got going. They scored 15 unanswered points to cut the lead to 28-22. Suddenly it was a game.

But…

The Eagles couldn’t get the stop they needed and Tampa went into the victory formation.

This was a weird game. Tampa never felt threatened, even when the lead got down to six. The Bucs weren’t sleep-walking, but they sure weren’t in assassin mode. Last week Miami trailed 24-17 in the fourth quarter against Tampa. The Bucs scored 21 straight to win 45-17. That looked like a Super Bowl team.

One thing we can say about the Eagles is that they are a tough, resilient team. They trailed by 15 last week, but came back to win. They trailed by 21 on Thursday night and cut that down to just six. Give the coaches credit for keeping the players locked in and give the players credit for battling. That does matter.

Unfortunately, the Eagles did not execute with any real precision or efficiency. They used broken plays and pass interference penalties to help them score TDs. That isn’t something you can count on. The base offense works here and there, but with no consistency. And that has to change.

Part of that is on the coaching staff. The play-calling needs to be better. Part is on Jalen Hurts. He needs to make better reads and better throws. Much better throws. He missed some open receivers tonight. The O-line let some blitzers come free. The receivers dropped a few passes. That kind of stuff has to stop. This offense just isn’t good enough to overcome mistakes.

Nick Sirianni was peppered with questions about the lack of a run game, again. You can tell this is getting to him. His answers are shorter and are starting to have an edge to them. I normally get tired of run game questions, but when the offense puts up 73 yards in the first half, I think it is more than fair to talk about mixing in more run plays (not just RPOs).

The offense only had 88 yards at the half last week. Why is that important? The first half is very gameplan driven. These are the plays the coaches like the most. The players practice them over and over. The first 15 to 20 plays should be effective, not abysmal.

The Eagles defense was erratic, but did settle down after a slow start. Give them some credit for settling in and getting better. The Bucs only score seven points in the second half. Saint Brady even got picked off. He actually got picked twice, but the officials made a terrible decision and overturned an INT. Replay decisions can just be torturous.

After a brutal six-game stretch to open the season, the Eagles sit at 2-4. They have two wins, two close losses and two blowout losses. They now have 10 days to rest and make some schematic evaluations. The next two games are winnable. If the Eagles could get to 4-4, that would make the final nine games pretty interesting.

If the Eagles don’t clean some things up and start playing smarter, they could lose the next two and see the season get away from them.

This team is tough. They battle. They compete. But they must play smarter and start making plays if they want to win some games and show us something.

There are no moral victories in the NFL.Go make some plays. Go win some games.

And maybe mix in a few more runs.

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