Complementary Football

One of the things that made the 2024 Eagles so good is that they played complementary football. There was a sequence in the Ravens game where Braden Mann launched a great punt and Sydney Brown downed it at the 1. The defense forced a 3 & out. Baltimore punted and the Eagles got the ball at midfield. The offense then marched down for a quick TD. Offense, defense and STs worked together to create points. That’s complementary football.

Think about the Bears game. Jalyx Hunt makes an impressive INT and sets the offense up with good field position. The Bears lead 10-9 so any points will put the Eagles out in front. The offense gets down to the 12-yard line, but they fumble the ball away. The Eagles never took the lead in the game.

The defense gave up a lot of yards, but seemed to make key plays time and again. At the end of three quarters the score was just 10-9. The defense desperately needed help. The offense could not sustain drives and kept putting the defense right back on the field. The defense finally broke in the final quarter and Chicago won 24-15.

The 2025 Eagles do not help themselves. They don’t play complementary football and that makes things so much harder.

Can that change? Sure. The key is execution. Timely execution. If the units start to make plays together you create momentum and that’s how you take over games.

Will that change? Hell if I know. Every time I think I’ve got this team figured out they throw me a curve ball that would make Doc Gooden proud. The defense looked dominant vs Green Bay and Detroit. Then they got shredded by the Dallas passing game and the Chicago ground game. The offense will look good for a quarter and then take the rest of the game off. The potential is there, but the results sure aren’t. That’s what makes this team so maddening.

If you follow any team long enough, you’ll see some really good football and some really bad football. That’s just the reality of being a sports fan. You know that and understand it. What frustrates you is when a team underachieves. That is the 2025 Eagles. They do not play up to their talent. We all keep waiting for the light switch to go on. Hasn’t happened yet and it might not this year.

I’m sure some of you will say “Give it up old man. This team is done.”

Maybe. We’ve seen teams come together at strange times so I’m hesitant to write off a talented group. The 2006 Eagles were 5-6. They won 5 games in a row to finish 10-6 and NFC East champs. They won a playoff game and almost upset the Saints in the divisional round. The current team is 8-4 so the record is fine. We’re just waiting on them to play at a higher level.

Can this group go on a run in the postseason? That’s the key question. If they play like the last two games, no. If the Eagles play like the two games before that, yes. I know the offense was ugly, but the defense locked people down and that’s critical. If you can shut teams down, you can win. As bad as things went the last two weeks, the defense still only gave up 24 points in each game. They find a way to keep things close.

The offense doesn’t have to turn into a juggernaut. They just need to eliminate some mistakes and make a couple of more plays per game. Think how differently Friday might have gone if Jalen Hurts hit DeVonta Smith with that red zone pass. That was likely going to be a TD. And what if the offense kicked a FG instead of fumbling the ball away later. The Eagles would have had the lead and put real pressure on the Bears. That could have changed the game in a major way. Just a couple of plays can make all the difference in the world.

Sunday showed us that teams are constantly changing. Pittsburgh began the season 4-1, but is now 6-6 after an ugly loss to Buffalo. The Texans began the season 0-3. They took down the Colts and Houston is now 7-5. The Colts looked like the best team in the league to start the season. They’ve now lost 3 of 4. The whole world had fallen in love with the Rams. They lost to the Panthers 31-28. That means the Eagles are just a game away from the top seed in the NFC.

The Eagles lost consecutive games in early October. Then they won four in a row. If they can put together a stretch like that again, it will put them in excellent position for the postseason.

The key will be for Nick Sirianni to get his guys to focus on one day at a time, one play at a time and one game at a time. Do that and this team can make a run.

If the Eagles keep making mistakes and playing sloppy football, you will have plenty of free time in January.

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