Blame Nick Sirianni? James Bradberry? Jalen Hurts? Howie Roseman? OK. It was a group effort, Eagles.
The Eagles were never as good as their 10-1 record. Then their quarterback, defense, and receivers got worse, and the GM hadn't prepared for contingencies, and they lost six of their last seven.
TAMPA, Fla. — Fire the goofball coach. Rip the overpaid QB. Skewer the genius GM. Roast the soft and pliant defenders, and run James Bradberry out of town while you’re at it.
But when it comes down to it, the Eagles just weren’t good enough. They hadn’t been for a while. Maybe they weren’t all along.
They started 10-1 and stood atop the NFL with wins over Dallas, Kansas City, and Buffalo, all home-field playoff teams, and Miami to boot. But almost all of the wins were tenuous.
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The Eagles finished their season by losing six of their last seven games, the last one Monday night, a 32-9 wild-card humiliation to Tampa Bay — the only team that, by analytics, was worse than them. A team led by Baker Mayfield.
In truth, the Birds were never the same after beating Buffalo at the end of November in overtime, when their defensive tackles collapsed. Fletcher Cox injured his groin and began to show his age, and young studs Jalen Carter and Jordan Davis collided with the Rookie Wall.
They played the 49ers the next week, who either mush-rushed Jalen Hurts or blitzed him. Hurts refused to throw the ball over the middle, and he ignored his running backs, and his coaches didn’t give him easy “hot” routes.” Niners defensive end Nick Bosa said after that game that they’d supplied the template to stop Hurts. They had. Everybody copied them.
Sure enough, Hurts was the team’s worst offensive player down the stretch — at least, grading on a payroll curve.
The Eagles paid Hurts $255 million last spring.
They paid him to win games like this. They paid him to win with a dislocated middle finger. They paid him to win without his best receiver, A.J. Brown. They paid him to win on the road, and they paid him to win against the team with the second-highest blitz rate in the NFL. They paid him to overcome injury. They paid him to win with second-tier weapons. They paid him to outscore the other team when the defense can’t stop them.
Two-hundred fifty-five million dollars is a lot of money.
Afterward, he said, “It’s not our turn.”
You’re not given a turn. You take a turn.
He did not earn his money, least of all Monday night.
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He threw soft, lazy passes against the blitz. One such hospital ball earned Julio Jones a concussion.
He appeared to freelance to failure at least once, as he did at the end of a loss in Seattle. On third-and-2 at the end of their first possession, Hurts appeared to change the play at the line of scrimmage. There was much confusion. The play clock dwindled. Jason Kelce snapped it with one second left. Hurts stared to his right. Both DeVonta Smith and Dallas Goedert were running toward that sideline. He lobbed a pass to Goedert. Antoine Winfield easily batted it away.
Late in the third quarter, down by just seven, Hurts intentionally grounded a pass while being sacked in the end zone; he took a safety instead of ceding the punt. Inexcusable.
“Yeah,” said coach Nick Sirianni. “It kind of swung the momentum there.”
Not even the Tush Push worked. The Eagles accepted a penalty on a successful PAT try to attempt a two-point conversion from the 1. The Bucs jumped over the line, snagged Hurts, and stuffed the play for the second time this season (they stuffed in Week 3 here, too).
Sirianni had no answers, again. He stripped defensive coordinator Sean Desai of play-calling privileges six games ago, but his replacement, senior defensive advisor Matt Patricia, fared no better. He took one point off the board with the failed two-point Tush Push, down seven. He then took three more off the board in the fourth quarter when, after a penalty on a fourth-and-10 field goal, he went for it on fourth-and-5, down by 16 with 12 minutes to play. He called a deep shot to the end zone.
Seriously.
Sirianni would be very fortunate if his key card to the practice facility works Wednesday morning.
“I’m not worried about me,” Sirianni said. He should be.
Last month, an NFL executive called the Eagles a “clown show.” It hardly could have been more of a circus Monday night.
The Bucs scored their first touchdown when Avonte Maddox ran into Eli Ricks. Ricks fell. That left David Moore uncovered in the middle of the field at the 36-yard line, where he made the fifth postseason catch of his six-year career. Fifteen yards downfield he faced Darius Slay, who, uninterested in tackling him, watched Moore cut back inside and run through three more defenders and score the first postseason touchdown of his six-year career.
The Eagles had two penalties for illegal men downfield, and after the second one they false-started. All of their starting offensive linemen played in this game. Three are Pro Bowl players. It was their 18th game of the season. Those penalties don’t happen to a well-coached team.
Bradberry played poorly horrible all night, again, and was benched on and off.
“I didn’t execute well,” he admitted.
Neither did Howie Roseman, the 2022 NFL Executive of the Year.
Roseman chose to re-sign Cox and Bradberry, and he chose to extend Slay’s contract. He chose to let linebacker T.J. Edwards, the leading tacklers in 2022, sign with the Bears, leaving a vacuum in the Eagles’ middle. He chose to retain Quez Watkins, a one-trick speedster who caught all of 15 passes in ninegames. His longest was 19 yards.
Bradberry, whose holding penalty also was the death blow for the Eagles in Super Bowl LVII, fell off the 30-year-old cliff; he’s a well-worn 30. Slay is worn out at 33. Cox is cooked.
Sirianni and offensive coordinator Brian Johnson, who replaced new Colts coach Shane Steichen, were overmatched all season.
Hurts couldn’t beat the blitz Monday night or any night. After earning the MVP runner-up in his third season, he regressed in his fourth.
Take your pick.
Blame one.
Blame all.