McMullen: No More Hedging; The Eagles Need To Commit On Offense

PHILADELPHIA — Nick Sirianni said the quiet part out loud after Sunday’s 24-20 collapse against the Los Angeles Rams.

An offseason of hype had some casting Sean Mannion, a relative novice, as the next great offensive mind in the NFL. If anything, the Eagles have taken another step back from the version of this offense Kevin Patullo was vilified for running.

“Obviously, it hasn’t been good enough,” Sirianni understated. “... You’re trying to make sure as you find out who you are that you’re playing with detail and you’re playing together and you’re playing with toughness, and we’ve still got a ways to go there and it’s obvious that we’re still trying to figure [an identity] out.”

Four games into a season quickly losing steam that sentiment felt more like a confession than a nod to a process with light showing at the end of a tunnel.

The numbers from Lincoln Financial Field made the confession unnecessary.

The Eagles managed 172 total yards, their lowest in a dozen years, and 68 net passing yards, their lowest in a regular-season game in 23 years. They went 0-for-12 on third down, the first time they have failed to convert a single third down since at least 2000, and they have now failed on 17 straight third downs dating to the second half in Chicago.

Execution?

Quarterback Jalen Hurts finished 12-of-27 for 93 yards. The two touchdowns to Darius Cooper were gift-wrapped by the defense and special teams. The Eagles' second-half offense continues a historically poor run and ranks last in the league in points, yards, yards per play, and expected points added.

Hurts’s answer, repeated until it lost any real meaning, was “poor execution.” Execution is real, but it only matters when the plan is sound and the players fail to carry it out. What is happening to Philadelphia right now does not look like that.

Mannion’s scheme was sold as a Shanahan/McVay-like wide-zone, under-center attack that would keep defenses honest and better marry the run and the pass. Through four weeks, it is a disjointed mess and those coaches may want to sue for libel for being connected to this disaster.

The Eagles’ under-center snaps have produced negative EPA that ranks near the bottom of the league. Defenses stack the box when Hurts is under center. When Philadelphia falls into obvious pass downs, it is getting blitzed as if Brian Flores had been cloned by every opponent.

The deeper problem is the gap between the roster and the idea.

This is still a team that needs to be built around Hurts’s dual-threat ability, Saquon Barkley’s gravity, and a line that has been among the league’s best when healthy. Mannion has not yet turned any of that into anything viable in his version og whatever you want to dub this offense.

Until the Eagles decide who they are — a wide-zone team that lives under center, a Hurts-centric spread attack, or something in between — the “poor execution” line will be used as cover for the more basic failure. Nobody is sure what this is even supposed to look like.

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