The Eagles’ Roster Management Is Catching Up to Them

All right, I'm gonna give you, uh, another game, uh, from Sunday.

You said you're, you're, you're hogging Rams Eagles.

No, no, no, you can take it if you want.

All right, all right.

Look, we should talk about this game.

24-20, uh, Rams beat the Eagles.

This was a Kyron Williams game, really.

I mean, two touchdowns.

This was Matt Stafford was unspectacular, but the story of this game was the fact that the Eagles have a 20 to 10 lead at halftime and then a scoreless third quarter.

So they go into the 4th quarter up 10 points.

Um.

Uh, in Philly, right, this is being, I think, Marketed as a bit of a disaster, but I will say this Here's a list of who was either injured or did not play in this game on Sunday for the Eagles.

Saquan Barkley, Lane Johnson, Quinyon Mitchell, Landon Dickerson, Dallas Goddard, Devonta Smith, Zach Bond, and Jonathan Grennard.

I mean, do you shovel a pile of, you know what, on this coaching staff, when arguably 8 of their 9 best players are not in the game for a majority of the game against one of the best teams in football?

Or do you say this is a game you gotta win, you're up 10 points going into the 4th quarter, it doesn't matter, you have Vic Fangio, you gotta close it out.

I , I think you can give the coaching staff grace while acknowledging that there are real problems.

I don't think the offensive line is, is as good as it, as it has been.

Now part of that is Landon Dickerson, who wasn't very good when he was in there and admitted that himself , right?

Part of it may be the age with, with Lane Johnson and, um, with Lane Johnson and, and, and, and Jordan Milotta getting older and Lane Johnson obviously not being in this game, right?

Um, so, like if your foundation's been on the offensive line for all these years and now, It's not there the same way it has been, and that's gonna take a chunk out of you.

You got a first-year offensive coordinator who didn't have much coaching experience to begin with in Sean Mannion, and the pass rush is relatively non-existent.

And yes, there's a Grennard injury, but Gernard wasn't great last year for the Vikings, which is why he was available.

He's also a little bit older.

He's gonna be 30 in May, and I, I just.

I, I look, I, I'm, again, you start to put the pieces together and I mean, it's still a good team.

But I don't think it's what it has been the last few years.

And this is what I meant over the summer when I said I think they're gonna level off, is because, like, I think the areas where they've been incredibly strong, I mean, for the most part over the last 15 years, They are a little less so now, and that's gotta take a chunk out of you, right?

I think that we're seeing certainly a, a bit of a hangover from, and, and it's hard, right?

Because Howie Roseman, I think, kept this team going through various cycles and iterations by drafting really well, by hitting in free agency, but I mean, at some point, the totality of that just has to catch up with you.

You're picking late every year, you're getting picked apart in free agency every year.

Anytime you get a decent offensive coordinator, he's getting yanked out and becoming a head coach somewhere, um, and then you're firing the ones who aren't, and then, You're firing the ones who aren't sure, but I, you know, what interests me about this team, I think, is specifically related to the second half offense.

It's, it's, it's beyond bad.

It's, it's one of the worst, and in some categories, the worst second half offense in the NFL.

You would say specifically that that's a coordinator issue, but I think that we sometimes We misunderstand the nature of like halftime where you can go in and like think for a second and like make these big large scale adjustments.

That's not really true.

I mean, you don't have time to think about it a certain, I mean, just so people understand this and I'll try to keep this brief so people's eyes don't glaze over listening to it.

But you only have a certain amount of plays that are in for every game, right?

Like you don't have the whole playbook available to you every week, you know.

And so there you can adjust and you can make changes, but you can't like just tear the whole thing up and start over at halftime.

That's not the way it works.

This isn't like a Saturday morning flag football game, you know what I mean?

Like , so there is only so much you can do.

So here's the other thing, Connor, I I don't know how these problems are gonna resolve themselves.

And I think, you know, we're kind of ignoring the obvious if we think that.

Jonathan Jonathan Gernnard, I like the pickup.

Is he a primary pass rusher at this point in his career?

He didn't have a great year last year in Minnesota.

Um, he's now 29 years old, gonna be 30 in May, like we said earlier.

Saquon Barkley is in his 9th year.

Like, is he suddenly gonna have great health the rest of the year, or is this all the injury history and the mileage catching up with him?

The offensive tackles, Lane Johnson misses the game yesterday, you know, he's in, what is it, year , I want to say 14, right?

You have Jordan Milotto who's over 30 on the other side.

And so, like, I, I just, you know, you kind of start going through this and It's like, I, I don't know where the problem, and again, that does not mean they're a bad team.

I'm not saying that at all, but I, I don't think that they are what they've been.

Um, part of me though thinks again, I mean, not to harp on the play calling, but you are 2 yards from the end zone.

It's 3rd down like.

Tush, push, tush push, right?

Like we, we know the formula here and instead, I mean, the play call on 3rd and 2 is this strange sort of like, Offensive line crowded 14 personnel fake inverted handoff backspin thing where Hurts looks around and there's nobody there and he's just got to end up running into a brick wall.

And then you're so I think, and then, and then you're throwing on, on 4th down, which was the right call by the way.

I mean that didn't affect the game overall like you, you were still up 2 scores.

A field goal wouldn't have really done anything for you in that situation .

Um, you ended up losing by 4 points anyway.

You would have had to go for the touchdown, so .

Um, we'll see.

I mean, I, you know, I think this is an Eagles team.

I don't know.

I don't know if I agree with that.

Like, I, I think if you would have taken the points there, well, I , I think if you go up 23 to 10.

It probably changes the tenor of it a little bit.

It just, and it, and it allows you to play defense a little bit differently, um.

In the, in the, in the, you know, just in the, in, on that final drive for the Rams, if the Rams are down 23, 17, now you're able to do a little bit more to protect the end zone, you know, and you're able to play it, like I think a little bit of a different way.

So I'm not saying it would have made a difference, but I think it can change things when it's, you know, OK, like we need a touchdown on this drive rather than we need a field goal.

All right, let's, uh, let's move on, Albert.

Uh, I think.

There's a couple, there's a couple good ones here, uh, that, well, really quick on the Rams.

I would just let me like one thing on the Rams I wanna add.

Uh, this I think like we're seeing the Rams kind of become what they're gonna become and this felt like a latter day Tom Brady type of performance from Matthew Stafford where it doesn't matter how far out of it they look and this was the case at the end of the Denver game too like they always have a chance when he's out there, you know, so I would just add that that I You know, again, like they'll get Miles Garrett back, they'll get Aaron Donald's legs underneath him, they got Puka Nua back.

I This , this was a big win for the Rams.

I mean, having a guy that just goes out there, I mean, Nakua, you just notice it, and again, it was depleted Eagles secondary, but What he might cost you an OPI once in a while, he just makes up for it, like, he just beats a secondary down.

It's ruthless, the way that he plays.