Eagles Late-Season Collapse Cements Spot on Philly's Wall of Shame
EAST RUTHERFORD, N.J. – Move over, 1964 Philadelphia Phillies and 1994 Philadelphia Eagles, you have company on the great Wall of Shame in Philly’s long and tortured history. Welcome your 2023 Eagles.
This year’s team was drilled in Sunday’s regular-season finale by the lowly New York Giants, 27-10, at the Meadowlands. The Giants scored all the points they would need in the first half, while the Eagles were held scoreless in the first two quarters.
The loss came on the heels of an ugly defeat to the even lowlier Arizona Cardinals at home last week.
Philadelphia Eagles' collapse is reminiscent of two teams from Philly's past.
USA Today
Do the math, and this latest trip to rock bottom was the Eagles’ fifth loss in their last six games. Once sitting at 10-1 and in control of the NFC, this team ended at 11-6.
While they are guaranteed one more game, there is little to inspire any confidence that a win is something remotely realistic even if it is against a Tampa Bay Buccaneers team that won the NFC South with a 9-8 record and has a quarterback in Baker Mayfield with ailing ribs.
After all, the Eagles couldn’t win the last two weeks despite playing two teams that had totaled eight wins coming into the game. The loss to New York (6-11) snapped Philly's win streak over their NFC East rival at five games.
All they could muster in Sunday’s latest embarrassment was a 36-yard Jake Elliott field goal with 1:11 left in the third quarter and a 16-yard touchdown pass from Marcus Mariota to Quez Watkins with 10:15 to play.
At least those scores prevented them from being shut out for the first time since Dec. 20, 2018, in a 24-0 loss to the then-Washington Redskins.
Still, the Eagles did what they do best - turn the ball over. They did it four more times on Sunday.
Quarterback Jalen Hurts was on the bench before the first half ended, taking that seat after throwing for just 55 yards and collecting a passer rating of 26.8 while adding to his career-high interception total with his 15th.
Two of the turnovers came from Mariota, who threw a pick and lost a fumble. the other was an A.J. Brown fumble. That gave the Eagles 28 turnovers on the season and they finished at minus-10 in the turnover ratio department.
The Eagles lost both receiver Brown and safety Sydney Brown to knee injuries and, later in the game, lost guard Cam Jurgens to an eye injury and safety Reed Blankenship to a groin injury.
By any measure, though, this was a total collapse and smells a lot like the ’64 Phils and ’94 Eagles.
Fans may be too young, and maybe weren't even born yet, to remember the Phillies’ choke after holding a 6.5-game lead over the Cincinnati Reds with just 12 games to play. The Phillies lost 10 in a row, though, and that was that.
The 1994 Eagles aren’t quite ancient history, yet, so it may be easier to recall head coach Rich Kotite – now 81 - who was sitting at 7-2 before his team lost their next seven games and was fired.
How it went so wrong so fast for this team is something that will be dissected after the season mercifully comes to a close, which will probably be next week. The autopsy, though, has already begun.
Head coach Nick Sirianni better have a diagnosis when he ultimately meets with his bosses, owner Jeffrey Lurie and general manager Howie Roseman. If he doesn’t, he may be on the unemployment line.
The Eagles were playing to win this game because there was a chance, albeit a very slim one, that they could have ended up repeating as NFC East champs if the Dallas Cowboys somehow found a way to lose in Washington against the Commanders.
There was a time in the first half when the Commanders led 10-7, but by then, Philly was already trailing 17-0.
The Eagles were also playing this game to win because they had hoped to get a much-needed shot of confidence heading into the postseason.
After what happened on Sunday, they are just a husk of their former selves, a crushed and defeated team looking at a long offseason of soul-searching, barring some sort of miraculous resurrection.
As it stands right now, they have a firm place on the city’s Wall of Shame.
