Another Slow Start Dooms Eagles, Lose Third Straight
PHILADELPHIA – In this rinse-and-repeat Eagles season of doing the same wrong things over and over, it was yet another slow start by the offense that led to yet another big hole that they were yet again unable to escape.
Only the name of the opponent seems to change.
This time, it was the Seattle Seahawks who beat the Eagles, scoring two touchdowns before the Eagles could even muster a first down on their way to a 23-17 win against free-falling Philadelphia on Monday night at empty Lincoln Financial Field.
The Eagles, now 3-7-1, have lost three in a row and haven’t won since beating the Cowboys on Nov. 1.
“We have to keep going to work,” said tight end Dallas Goedert. “The locker room, man, people are pissed. We have a lot of winners in that room. It’s tough going through a stretch like that. I think we have a team that’s going to stick together, we’re going to keep playing and go back to work on Wednesday.”
It’s been a month of disarray, with reports of owner Jeffrey Lurie being disgusted with the season, and it’s hard to imagine he isn’t and more reports of the Eagles preparing to make a move away from starting quarterback Carson Wentz to rookie Jalen Hurts.
The question is, will Lurie do anything about it before the Eagles play again next Sunday in Green Bay?
Here are my takeaways:
SLOW STARTS CONTINUE
Head coach Doug Pederson’s offense is so inconsistent…check that…so befuddling…check that…so inept that it has managed just 4.3 points in the first half of the last six games. At least that number went up a bit, from 3.8 in the last five games, when Carson Wentz hit Goedert with a 3-yard touchdown pass with 12 seconds left in the first half.
Of course, Jake Elliott missed the PAT, so the Seahawks led 14-6 at halftime.
The drive featured the Eagles’ initial first down of the game, which came with 4:45 to go in the second quarter on a Carson Wentz 21-yard scramble.
Seattle led 14-0 before the Eagles got that initial first down.
Eagles had minus-4 yards of offense in the first quarter. It was the first time this year an NFL team had negative yards in the first quarter this season.
“I think it just comes down to offensively we’ve battled with a lot of injuries, a lot of different moving parts up front with the offensive line, guys in and out,” said Pederson.
“We haven’t had the consistency and continuity you would like week in and week out. You look at offenses around the league that have stayed together and have stayed healthy, there’s continuity, there’s consistency there. We just haven’t. had that this season. We don’t make excuses for it. It’s where we are and we have to get better.”
DEFENSE
It wasn’t a bad effort from the defense.
It had another goal-line stand like last week in Cleveland, but the offense went three-and-out after Derek Barnett stopped an inside pass to David Moore for a five-yard loss on fourth-and-goal at the two in the opening quarter.
Barnett had a sack of Russell Wilson on fourth-and-two from the Eagles’ 37 on Seattle’s second possession, giving the Eagles the ball in good field position. Again, the offense went three-and-out.
“It’s a team game,” said defensive end Brandon Graham. “We just have to figure out. Way to keep on encouraging each other, keep fighting, make sure we stay consistent on defense. We know the offense is going to get it right.”
Still, this is a defense that has just three interceptions all season, two of which came in Week 4 against Nick Mullens in San Francisco and the last one against the Giants’ Daniel Jones on Oct. 22.
It’s also a defense that allowed D.K. Metcalf to have a career night with 177 yards receiving on 10 catches. Not even the Eagles’ shutdown corner, Darius Slay, could shut down Metcalf, who, no needs to be reminded, could have been drafted by the Eagles but instead they chose J.J. Arcega-Whiteside.
Barnett’s sack gave him 5.5, which is the same number Fletcher Cox has after Cox recorded a sack of Wilson. Cox had five tackles with two for loss while Barnett had three tackles.
Graham went without a sack for a third straight game and what looked like a sure-thing 10-sack season for the first time in his career is now no sure thing.
WENTZ
There is plenty of blame to go around for this anemic Eagles offense, and the QB doesn’t escape any of it.
Against the worst pass defense in the league, Wentz managed to throw for just 30 yards in the first half, completing two of eight passes. He had more rushing yards in the opening two quarters, 33, than passing yards.
He finished the game 25-for-45 with 215 yards, two touchdowns, and an interception. It was the 15th interception of the season, which leads the league and is a new career-high for the fifth-year QB.
Some of those yards came on the final drive when the Eagles trailed 23-9 and got a 33-yard touchdown from Richard Rodgers, which was a nice one-handed catch after the ball was deflected to him by Travis Fulgham.
Rodgers finished with three catches for 52 yards. Goedert had seven catches for 75 yards and a three-yard score.
Of Wentz’s 25 completions, just nine went to receivers, with Jalen Reagor catching three for 11 yards, Travis Fulgham two for 16, and Alshon Jeffery two for 15. Greg Ward and John Hightower had a catch each.
But it’s the slow starts that are most baffling.
“I can be better early in the games,” said Wentz. “I think they made some plays early and did some things differently than what we planned. The slow starts are frustrating. That’s the biggest thing I’m going to go back and watch and see how we can change that and how we can change the momentum early in ballgames so we don’t put ourselves behind the 8-ball like that.”
HURTS
Hurts reportedly took more first-team snaps during the week and was believed to get more of a role. He was on the field for three snaps, two of which counted.
One was a six-yard completion to Alshon Jeffery.
He left after that and in came Wentz, who on third-and-eight got sacked. Wentz was sacked six times and has now been sacked 46 times this year, most in the NFL. So much for the offensive line being better with Jason Peters making his debut at right guard to allow Jordan Mailata to slide in at left tackle.
Hurts was later put in to hand off to Miles Sanders with Wentz lined up at receiver, basically a 10-against-11 formation since Wentz isn’t going to attract much attention lined up wide.
The one play that didn’t count was because Isaac Seumalo had a false start.
“When we’re stagnant like that as an offense I’m all ears, whatever coach is confident in, however, we can get some momentum, or pick up a first down in that case early in a game,” said Wentz about Hurts coming in for him. “Obviously, it’s a tricky thing to navigate but if it’s going to provide us the spark we need hopefully going forward it can in those situations, but obviously we didn’t enough all around.”
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