Something or Nothing?

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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