Eagles falter vs. Cardinals after questionable play-calling in crunch time. Why go conservative?
The Eagles recovered an onside kick in the fourth quarter and had a chance to put away the Cardinals. But the mystifying play calls didn't work out.
A.J. Brown was livid.
Right as the Eagles were stopped well short of the marker following a questionable third-and-19 call that saw quarterback Jalen Hurts deliver a bubble screen pass to tailback Kenneth Gainwell for a minimal gain, the Fox broadcast panned to Brown.
The 26-year-old star receiver shook his head in disgust. He released his sense of mounting frustration by barking toward the home sideline. By the time he retreated to the bench, kicker Jake Elliott converted a 43-yard field goal that momentarily gave the Eagles a three-point lead.
» READ MORE: Eagles grades: Coaching, defense fail them in a loss to the Cardinals
But similar to how they gashed the Eagles all Sunday afternoon, the Arizona Cardinals stormed downfield once more. Running back James Conner, who dominated with 128 rushing yards across 26 carries (4.9 -yard average), delivered the knockout blow with his 2-yard touchdown rush up the middle.
The Eagles lost to the Cardinals, 35-31. It wasn’t just Sunday’s contest that slipped away from them, either. With the Eagles’ loss, the San Francisco 49ers clinched the NFC’s No. 1 seed, the Detroit Lions have control of the No. 2 seed, and the Dallas Cowboys also control their own destiny in the NFC East with just one regular-season game remaining.
“I still believe in the guys in that locker room, the players,” coach Nick Sirianni said. “I still believe in the coaches. I think we’ve got the guys in this place to get turned in the right direction.
“We don’t have much time, obviously.”
Time indeed is dwindling on this Eagles season that continues to take unexpected twists and turns.
Less than a week ago, it was Brown, who was on the receiving end of an improbable conversion that occurred under an even farther down-and-distance (third-and-20) than the Eagles faced late in the fourth quarter Sunday.
This time around, the Brian Johnson-led offense was too conservative in crunch time.
The unit began its second-to-last drive with prime field position inside Arizona’s 40 after cornerback Eli Ricks recovered an onside kick. Hurts then completed an 18-yard pass to Brown. On the following play, left tackle Jordan Mailata was penalized for holding, which set up first-and-20 from Arizona’s 30.
“It’s very frustrating,” Mailata said. “Silly penalties once again. It’s very disheartening. I think we have a lot of pride. It’s tough when you drop one like that. It’s real hard. We said it’s playoff mode, then we come out here and play like that.”
The subsequent three plays represented, perhaps, the most bizarre offensive sequence in recent memory: Hurts handled consecutive snaps out of the shotgun, and he rushed twice to his right side for gains of 4 and minus-3 yards. That set up third-and-19 … only for the Eagles to burn a timeout that they would have preferred to have kept for the following drive. Coming out of the break, Gainwell handled a screen pass for a measly 4-yard gain, a play in which receiver DeVonta Smith served as the lead blocker and was seriously injured. After the game, Smith was spotted in crutches with a walking boot on his right foot.
Sirianni explained the drive: “I don’t think that’s conservative there if they are blitzing a bunch of gaps, [we’re] running a gap scheme that has a chance to hit for big yards that we needed to get back into it. We could have thrown it there, too. We chose to go [back-to-back quarterback rushes]. It didn’t hit. But I think that sometimes with the gap scheme stuff that you do … you’ve got to do some different things to cancel out gaps if they are bringing everything out.”
Regarding the screen call to Gainwell, Sirianni said: “That’s tough — you’re going to have a hard time converting. We’ve got to get ourselves into [field-goal] range.”
» READ MORE: Eagles grades: Coaching, defense fail them in a loss to the Cardinals
Sirianni’s reasoning left many feeling puzzled and worried about the state of the offense. After all, the unit boasts a pair of 1,000-yard receivers in Brown and Smith, along with a 1,000-yard rusher in D’Andre Swift. And just one play earlier, Hurts and Brown connected for an 18-yard gain.
The defense deserves a majority of the blame for Sunday’s blunders, but the Eagles are too talented offensively to be settling against a struggling four-win team. Starting from first-and-20 is tough for any NFL offense, but zero vertical pass attempts over three plays is inexcusable.
Asked if he wanted to be more aggressive in that situation, Hurts deferred to the coaching staff.
“I would like to do whatever works,” he said. “I think it is result-based. We live and die on whatever we go out there and do. That particular opportunity, it didn’t get us where we want it in the end, but it’s tough. … They give us the ball inside of the 50, and we just have to handle and execute and manage that situation a lot better.”
Hurts had just five incompletions, finishing 18-for-23 with 167 passing yards, three touchdowns, and one interception that occurred on a last-second Hail Mary attempt.
Afterward, Brown declined to speak at length to reporters for the second consecutive week. He partially clarified his frustrations in a brief statement as he exited the locker room: “I’m not about to talk. There’s nothing to talk about. ... It’s nothing towards y’all [the media], though, so I just wanted to clear that up.”
While Hurts delivered touchdown passes to tight end Dallas Goedert and wide receiver Julio Jones (twice), Brown did not see the end zone for the fifth straight game, which marks the longest stretch of his career without a touchdown.
Brown ranks third in the league with 1,447 receiving yards, but the Eagles (11-5) have dropped four of their last five games — a span that has left Brown, one of the team’s top players, disgruntled and scoreless.
“It is just a lack of execution,” Hurts said. “You can credit that to whatever you want. We still have everything in front of us to learn from everything that’s going on as a team and put the right energy toward it and towards the things that we can control and being the best team we can be. It is something we have to grow from.”