Messaging

The first episode of Hard Knocks aired on Tuesday night. This focuses on the NFC East. It was a frustrating watch for everyone except Cowboys fans. None of the other teams won a game in the two-week period the episode covered.

Nick Sirianni got a lot of face time. He said lots of good things, mainly focusing on the value of adversity. Jalen Hurts said good things. The messaging is what you want out of the leaders. The problem is that the message felt hollow.

Sirianni spoke to the team after the Dallas loss and talked about the need to focus on the Bears. Block out everything else and focus on the Bears. Go win that game. Unfortunately the players did not listen. There was mistake after mistake. They were made by the offense, defense and STs. Everyone had a hand in that mess.

It doesn’t look great for the team to be so sloppy in such an important situation.

The episode Brian Schottenheimer talking to his Cowboys players when they were down 14-0 and 21-0 to the Eagles. He kept telling his players and coaches to calm down. He preached for them to be patient. Dallas didn’t panic. They slowly took control of the game and ended up winning 24-21. The Cowboys out-coached and out-played the Eagles.

This doesn’t mean anything definitive about Schottenheimer or Sirianni. It does show you that Schottenheimer and his team are in sync right now. There is a real connection. That’s reflected in how his team is playing. Sirianni has been searching for the right words for his team all year.

I’ve mentioned before that I’m reading a book called The Genius about Bill Walsh. He dealt with the same thing at times. He won the Super Bowl in 1981 and his next couple of teams were erratic. Walsh struggled to get the most out of them. Walsh was still a brilliant play-caller and smart coach. But it can be hard to know the right message for a specific team. Maybe it isn’t the message, but rather how it is delivered.

John Madden was a master psychologist, always seeming to know what his team needed to hear. That’s how he retired with a SB title and a career winning percentage of .759. Madden tended to keep things simple. Take it easy on his team when they lost and be hard on them when they won. He figured everyone else would rip the guys when things were bad so he didn’t need to. When they were winning, the world would kiss their ass so he had to be demanding to keep them grounded.

Sirianni has generally been really good with messaging and culture. He wasn’t able to find the right answers in 2023 and that team fell apart. The current team is 8-4. Fans are probably overly harsh on them because expectations were so high. Three of the losses are fine. The Broncos and Bears are division leaders. Dallas is a division rival with a good QB and red hot receiver. The only real stinker was the loss to the Giants. That was a bad game. What is so frustrating about the other losses is that the Eagles had good chances to win those games. They made critical mistakes that killed them.

Maybe Sirianni’s words will sink in and resonate after the Bears loss. We all agree that some schematic changes would make a big difference. If those aren’t coming, you need the players to execute better and quit with the costly errors. A handful of plays make the difference in winning and losing. The Eagles were good enough last year to overcome sloppiness when it happened. This team is just not playing well enough to overcome themselves and the opponent.

I’m really interested to see how the Eagles play on Monday night in Los Angeles. They need to find a way to win that game. A strong showing would be great, but at this point an ugly win would do.

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Marcus Epps was ahead of Sydney Brown on #Eagles‘ depth chart as early as Week 6: when Reed Blankenship got hurt and missed 3 plays in the 3rd quarter, it was Epps and not Brown who replaced him, even though all 3 snaps were base personnel and Brown started in base Weeks 1-3. https://t.co/pFc3Ck6kt7

— Deniz Selman (@denizselman33) December 3, 2025

Sydney Brown struggled last week. Getting Epps back on the field would be good. Brown has flashed at times, but he can be erratic.

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Steelers and CB Darius Slay have mutually agreed to part ways, Slay’s agents Drew Rosenhaus and Robert Bailey told ESPN. Slay is interested in continuing to play, and will consider signing with other teams. But his time in Pittsburgh has come to an end. pic.twitter.com/hyHdBotxkm

— Adam Schefter (@AdamSchefter) December 2, 2025

The Steelers are trying to win the AFC North. They need all the help they can get. If they released Slay, that’s not good. He struggled for them this season. Is it possible the Eagles would have interest? Sure. I’m just not sure he’s better than Adoree Jackson right now. Some of you will hate that, but Slay was bad for the Steelers.

Maybe the Eagles will think bringing Slay back is smart because he would be cheap and knows the defense. If Vic Fangio wants him, go get him. I’m just not so sure that happens.

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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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