As Bad As It Gets

The Eagles were up 17-0. Life was good.

Three drives by the Panthers and the Eagles were down 21-17. The Eagles had a chance to steal the game back at the end, but blew that.

This was an absolutely torturous loss. I was throwing things around and yelling at various inanimate objects. Very rarely does football make my blood boil, but that happened this afternoon. Games like this make you want to give up on sports and spend your time collecting stamps, taking nature hikes or sitting quietly and contemplating the meaning of life.

The loss to the Titans was terrible, but sometimes you are going to blow a weird game. That was just a few weeks back. The memory is fresh in everyone’s head. To blow a game under even worse circumstances is just awful. Did the players and coaches not learn from the Titans experience?

Ugh.

This is a bad loss for the Eagles from a big picture perspective. They are under .500 at 3-4. This was a conference loss. This game also sent a message to the other 31 teams. You are never out of it when playing the Eagles. Get down 14-3? No worries. Get down 17-0 late in the 3rd quarter? There is still plenty of time.

The only real bright spot is that no one got hurt.

This was a total team loss. The offense didn’t score enough points or move the chains late in the game. The defense got shredded in the 4th quarter. They disappeared when all the team needed was one play. And STs…Jake Elliott’s missed FG turned out to be bigger than anyone knew.

The coaches made some strange decisions and I’m sure they’ll be second-guessing themselves when they watch the tape.

Doug Pederson said a loss like this can galvanize a team. That is possible. It can also have a very different effect. We’ll see how things go next week in London. Pederson pushed all the right buttons a year ago. He knew that team and how to deal with it. This is a different group and I don’t think anyone fully understands what is going on.

One thing we all know. The 2018 season isn’t going anything like we expected.

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Gameday – CAR at PHI

Let’s get straight to the inactives.

#CARvsPHI Inactives: LB Alexander, LB Gerry, S Graham, DT Ngata, CB Jones, G Pryor, RB Sproles

— Philadelphia Eagles (@Eagles) October 21, 2018

The only surprise is Ngata. He’s been battling a calf issue for a few weeks. The Eagles waived (injury) Destiny Vaeao this week and didn’t make any significant moves at DT so that made me think the team expected Ngata to play. Oops.

Now the Eagles have Fletcher Cox, Treyvon Hester and Bruce Hector at DT.

Doug Pederson said the Eagles had a plan, in regard to DT. He said it in an awkward way, leading me to wonder if they had something strange in mind. I speculated about rookie Josh Sweat playing some DT snaps. Maybe Peterson simply was talking about promoting Hector. We’ll find out soon enough.

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It is a windy day in Philly. That could affect Cam Newton, who has really struggled with downfield passes this year. He’s only got one completion that went 20 yards in the air. Newton had shoulder surgery in the offseason and might still be feeling the effects of that.

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One name is missing from the inactives…Jordan Mailata. It will be interesting to see if he plays at all. You could use him as a TE in the jumbo package. He could play on STs. Mailata’s height could help with trying to block FGs or PATs. Most likely he’s not playing unless this is a blowout, but Eagles coaches have surprised me before.

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It wouldn’t surprise me to see Josh Adams get some carries in this game. Adrian Peterson had some success on outside runs last week against CAR. Adams is at his best on those outside runs.

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More trade rumors this week involving the Eagles. That’s not worth getting into on gameday. I’ll cover them later.

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