Iggles Blitz

by Tommy Lawlor

Game Review – CHI 27, PHI 7

Posted September 30th, 2026 | No Comments »

I was genuinely curious to see how the Eagles would play in Chicago after two uneven performances to start the season. Needless to say, I was not impressed with what I saw. As Steve McCroskey put it, “Looks like I picked the wrong week to quit sniffing glue.”

The Eagles got out-played. They got out-coached. They got out-everythinged. It was ugly. Ben Johnson getting the best of Nick Sirianni and even Vic Fangio isn’t shocking. Johnson has the potential to be a special coach. I did not expect Case Keenum to out-play Jalen Hurts. I did not expect the Bears defense, which gave up 37 points to Carolina, to out-play the Eagles D.

Brutal night.

Check out this blurb from Zach Berman.

This is the rare loss that seems even worse than when I left the stadium. Reviewing the game and the data shows just how concerning this was for the Eagles. It was their first 20-point loss since the 2023 season and matched the lowest scoring output of the Nick Sirianni era. It was their least efficient offensive performance of the Sirianni era, based on EPA per drive. The team was listless, heavily penalized, and lacked answers on both sides. And this didn’t happen against Patrick Mahomes — they faced a third-string quarterback who hadn’t started a game in 1,009 days and a defense that allowed 37 points and 478 yards in Week 1.

Yikes.

COACHING

The Bears were embarrassed by their 9-3 loss to the Vikings in Week 2. Johnson had them fired up and ready to play. Sirianni clearly did not have the Eagles at the same level. The biggest strategic mistake came when Sirianni decided to punt on 4th down in the second half. He admitted after the game that he should have gone for it. Some think he should have called timeout when Hurts was being checked for a concussion. I don’t think you can fault him for that. Too many unknowns in that situation.

Sean Mannion had a good plan in the first half. The Eagles out-gained the Bears 186 to 176 and only trailed 10-7. The Eagles ran a WR screen with 19 seconds left in the first half. Hurts was able to then get the team lined up and the ball snapped with one second left. He pushed his way in for a TD. The result was good, but that was a highly risky call with no timeouts. The second half was terrible.

Fangio is one of the great defensive coordinators of all time. Unless he’s facing Ben Johnson. Ugh. Chicago caught the Eagles off guard by throwing the ball as much as they did. They had open receivers all night long. Fangio just couldn’t come up with enough answers.

OFFENSE

Hurts was solid in the first half. The Eagles had bad luck when he had to be checked for a concussion while the offense was in the red zone. Andy Dalton replaced him and threw a horrible INT in the end zone. Hurts returned to the game and was good on the final drive of the half. He did not play well in the second half.

The OL blocked really well in the first half. The running game was really good when going to the left side. Jordan Mailata was really good. It was encouraging tosee the OL play to the level we’ve seen in the past.

I thought Zach Ertz was fine in his 2026 debut. He did miss a block on a quick screen to Lemon. Those plays have been awful this year. DeVonta Smith was 6-65. He also drew a PI call for a good gain. Smitty made a beautiful grab along the right sideline for a gain of 30. He almost scored on the quick screen late in the half. Great effort on that play.

DEFENSE

Unbelievably frustrating.

Fangio said the Eagles missed 11 tackles by his count. There were multiple penalties that were costly. The worst was when Moro Ojomo jumped offside on 4th & 1. Ugh.

The safety play in this game was bad. I did think Michael Carter had some good moments. He and Marcus Epps rotated.

Jonathan Greenard made his season debut and looked good on some plays. You can see how disruptive he can be. The Eagles need more of that. Keenum got the ball out very quickly in this game and that negated the Eagles rush. There were some plays when they got into the backfield, but couldn’t get to Keenum in time.

Quinyon Mitchell had 2 PDs and 2 TFLs.

The Eagles controlled the run in the first half, holding Chicago to 27 yards on 13 carries. The Eagles offensive struggles hurt the defense in the second half and they gave uo 101 rushing yards. You really can see the importance of the offense and defense helping each other.

SPECIAL TEAMS

Braden Mann wasn’t at his best in this game. He only averaged 41.8 yards per punt.

Kelee Ringo had a penalty that wiped out a good punt return by Covey.

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Something or Nothing?

Posted September 29th, 2026 | No Comments »

Think back to 2024. Your first thought is probably the Super Bowl blowout of the Chiefs. Next might be the playoff domination of Washington or the wild snow game against the Rams. You might think of the Eagles impressive win over the Ravens. Or maybe the regular season win vs the Rams where Saquon Barkley ran wild.

What you probably won’t remember is the Bucs dominating the Eagles in Week 4, 33-16. Tampa racked up 445 yards of offense and limited the Eagles to just 227. That was a bad day for the Birds. Ugly football. Luckily the bye week was right after that. The coaches decided to really embrace the running game on offense and Cooper DeJean became a starter on defense. Those changes led to a 10-game winning streak and eventually another Super Bowl win for the Eagles. The 2-2 start became a distant memory.

I bring this up because I’m trying to figure out what to make of Monday night’s loss in Chicago. You never want to make too much of one game in September. History is filled with examples of a bad loss washed away by a team getting hot in the fall or winter. At the same time. the Eagles have played sloppy football in all three games. They had flashes of greatness mixed in with bad football. The Eagles played a mediocre team in the opener and a bad team last week. They were able to beat them because of a talent advantage.

That wasn’t the case against the Bears.

Chicago came out fired up and ready to play. They were embarrassed by losing 9-3 in Week 2. They were motivated to erase that game. Their coaching staff had a good gameplan and the players executed at a high level. The Eagles played more sloppy football and got their butts kicked.

Was that just a bad night or is there something more to this?

Tough. Detailed. Together.

It is hard to call the Eagles tough right now. They are 25th in the league in run defense. They don’t tackle well. Watch the skill guys try to block on a screen pass. It is embarrassing. Barkley has been run over by blitzers in 2 of 3 games. The Eagles haven’t been the more physical team in any of their three games. They haven’t shown a sense of urgency with any consistency.

Detailed? Like jumping offside on 4th & 1? Or multiple penalties on DBs, with some extending drives? Blown coverages. Missed blocking assignments. Not taking good angles to the ball. Throwing the ball into coverage because you made up your mind before the snap.

Together? I don’t see or hear of any issues with this. I’ll give the Eagles credit for not turning into a bunch of cliques. The players and coaches seem to get along well. That is part of what makes this team so frustrating. There aren’t off-field problems or distractions. They don’t have any good excuses for the sloppy play so far.

We know Nick Sirianni uses the month of September as his preseason. That has helped the team stay pretty healthy and the formula has led to a lot of success. As frustrating as the current team is, they are still 2-1. This year feels different. Or maybe I’m just being a Negadelphian after last night’s debacle. We won’t know for sure until we see more out of this team.

You don’t want to peak in September, but you also don’t want to ignore troubling signs. beyond the players, the team has had a weird 2026. They traded for Andy Dalton and then drafted a QB. They currently carry four QBs on the roster and seem to be delusional on this subject. No one is going to trade for Dalton. The team lost a couple of promising safety prospects from the practice squad so they could keep 4 QBs. Ugh.

The coaches watched Landon Dickerson struggle for most of the summer. They let him start the opener and he struggled in that game. Never got benched. Went on IR after the opener. Then the coaches put Cam Jurgens at LG after not getting him any snaps there in the offseason. Why wasn’t this scenario covered in the spring or summer?

The TE position remains a trouble spot. They re-signed an aging veteran, signed a role player and drafted a project. Now they’ve had to bring back Zach Ertz to see if he can help the group be more productive.

Do Howie Roseman and Nick Sirianni have the right plans for this particular team? Do the coordinators have the right schematic ideas? Are the players as locked in as they need to be? This team has yet to really impress in 2026. They were up and down in the joint practices. And that was against the struggling Patriots. The Eagles stunk in all three preseason games. They were up and down in the first two regular season games before playing poorly in Chicago.

You can’t point to anything to get genuinely excited about. The offense is wildly inconsistent. The defense has underachieved. They only have 3 sacks and don’t have a single takeaway.

As bad as things might sound, this group still has a lot of potential. It won’t shock me to see them turn things around and start playing at a high level. Multiple experts picked this team to win the Super Bowl for a reason. The flip side is that I can also see things going sideways and this being a disappointing season. I don’t get good vibes from this team. But I also had serious questions in 2024 and that group became a juggernaut once they got past the slow start.

The Rams come to Philly on Sunday. They are 1-2 and coming off a highly frustrating loss. Sirianni, his coaches and the players better come up with some answers in a hurry or the Eagles could find themselves 2-2 with things getting crazy in a hurry.

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