Bad Day in Jersey

The Eagles lost their first game of the year on Sunday, falling to the Jets 20-14. And this was more of an Eagles loss than a Jets win. There were 4 turnovers. And dropped passes. Missed blocks. Sloppy coverage. A missed field goal. If it’s bad, the Eagles probably did it on Sunday.

As frustrating as the game was, I can live with a loss. The NFL season is 17 games long. Teams are going to have bad days. They’re going to lose. The Niners lost to the Browns earlier on Sunday. The Bills are currently losing to the Giants at halftime. Crazy stuff happens. Sometimes teams just have a bad day.

My biggest concern is injuries.

Coming into the game

Cam Jurgens – IR
Quez Watkins – IR
Jalen Carter
Marlon Tuipulotu
Darius Slay
Justin Evans – IR
Sydney Brown

Guys who got hurt on Sunday

Lane Johnson
Eli Ricks
Reed Blankenship
Bradley Roby

Milton Williams got hurt, but came back into the game. Dallas Goedert wasn’t on the field for the final series.

Brutal.

That is a lot of banged up guys. Blankenship had a rib injury. We’ll have to see what happens with that. He suffered a rib injury earlier in the season. The biggest concern is Lane Johnson, who sprained his ankle. Jack Driscoll replaced him and struggled.

Lane Johnson’s injury isn’t on the left ankle he had multiple issues with over the years and that needed “tightrope” surgery. https://t.co/vD1lFnPTqz

— Jeff McLane (@Jeff_McLane) October 16, 2023

That’s good news, but the injury will likely keep Johnson out for a couple of weeks at the very least.

A lot of people are mad at Driscoll’s performance. He did not play well and there’s no way around that. However, I think might have higher expectations than they should for a backup RT. There are teams in the NFL who don’t have a good starting RT.

The Eagles could give Fred Johnson or Tyler Steen a look. I tend to think they’ll start Driscoll in the next game. They will build the gameplan around helping him, which would certainly improve the blocking. They did do some things on Sunday, but fixing that on the fly against a top DL is not easy.

Several players listed above could be back next week. The Eagles need them. Carter and Slay would have really helped in this game. Brown, too. Next man up is a great theory, but it’s tough when the injuries happen in clusters. The Eagles have played a ton of DBs this year and all kinds of different combos. That will likely continue next week. Does anyone know if the Dolphins are any good at throwing the ball?

The Eagles lost their first game last year when they turned the ball over 4 times against Washington in an ugly game. When you don’t protect the ball, you’re going to struggle to win.

Nick Sirianni said in his postgame press conference that he didn’t have to say much in the locker room. He said the players did all the talking themselves. They were obviously frustrated and upset by such a sloppy performance. That could be a good thing. Accountability is a huge key to sustained success. I remember Buddy Ryan talking about knowing the Bears defense was going to be special when they did film sessions and he didn’t have to say much because the players pointed out their own mistakes.

It is great for the Eagles players to say the right things. They have to put actions behind those words.

We’ll see how that goes next Sunday.

*****

I’ll get more into the Jets loss and specific issues on Monday. There is a lot to cover. Tonight I wanted to have more of a big picture focus.

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