Eagles-Bucs takeaways: Saquon Barkley and the identity search beckon the question: What’s the offense’s ceiling?

TAMPA, Fla. — The Eagles left Raymond James Stadium picking up the pieces once again on Sunday after an ugly 33-16 loss to the Tampa Bay Buccaneers.

Going into the bye week 2-2, the Eagles have plenty to address after a showing that featured mental errors from each of the three phases to go along with personnel concerns that may linger even more.

Here’s what we learned:

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In a locker room debrief after a listless performance brought on by a sluggish start, several Eagles players conceded the offense has yet to find its identity through four weeks.

It’s not uncommon for teams to discuss “identity” when things aren’t going well, making it somewhat of a nebulous term. What’s apparent is that the Eagles are lacking a foundational element to lean on offensively when things aren’t going well, which helps explain the fact that they’re the only team in the NFL to go scoreless in the first quarter of each of its first four games this season.

Part of that may very well be the absence of A.J. Brown, who has missed the last three games with a hamstring injury. Brown can certainly serve as the “easy button” in the passing game because of the consistent separation he creates on in-breaking routes and the ability he has after the catch to create out of structure.

Still, with Brown and DeVonta Smith out of the lineup, the Eagles’ identity shouldn’t be too difficult to, excuse the pun, identify. Last week, I wrote that an offensive system centered around Saquon Barkley as a volume contributor might be the Eagles’ best chance at finding their ceiling on offense for the time being.

On Sunday, Barkley had his lowest number of touches this year, getting the ball just 12 times in the Eagles’ 57 offensive plays. The 27-year-old played just 56% of the snaps with the Eagles chasing the game after spotting the Bucs 24 points by the middle of the second quarter. By comparison, Barkley averaged 24.3 touches in the Eagles’ first three games while playing roughly 84% of the team’s offensive snaps.

When assessing the Eagles’ static start, Barkley’s usage comes directly into focus. He had two carries in the first three series and one target on a screen pass that was deflected by Tampa Bay defensive end Logan Hall.

After the game, Eagles coach Nick Sirianni pointed to the low number of plays, with the offense repeatedly going three-and-out, as the reason for Barkley’s low usage.

“I mean, we had nine plays,” Sirianni said. “And three of them were third downs. So now, he had two carries on six plays. When you go three-and-out, nobody’s going to have any touches, nobody’s going to have any catches, we weren’t sustaining drives.”

“If you see the flow of the game, you understand why that happened,” Sirianni added. “But obviously we want to get him touches of the ball, but when you don’t sustain drives you’re not going to be able to.”

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Still, part of the reason the Eagles ran so few plays in the first place was due to their inability to stay ahead of the sticks on first down. Each of Barkley’s rushing attempts came on second-and-10 after incomplete passes from Jalen Hurts and totaled just 3 yards because of missed blocking assignments from tight ends Grant Calcaterra and Jack Stoll out of heavy sets.

With Hurts’ current turnover problems and the receiving corps’ lack of depth, the Eagles’ best self is one that revolves around Barkley’s ability to change games. That became even more obvious on Sunday.

Tampa Bay’s approach was equal parts obvious and damning during a nightmarish first half for the Eagles defense.

The Buccaneers wanted to test the Eagles’ willingness to make tackles on the perimeter with quick throws at or behind the line of scrimmage. As a complement to the underneath throws, they’d isolate matchups for either Mike Evans or Chris Godwin and take shots downfield accordingly.

Sixteen of Baker Mayfield’s pass attempts traveled 5 yards or fewer, with 10 of those coming at or behind the line of scrimmage. According to Next Gen Stats, his 2.22-second average time to throw was the quickest of any quarterback in Week 4 going into Monday night’s games.

The Eagles couldn’t respond, especially as the game wore on and the time of possession grew lopsided in the first half. NGS charged the Eagles with 16 missed tackles that resulted in 105 yards after contact for the Bucs, with Nakobe Dean, Reed Blankenship, and Avonte Maddox each having multiple whiffs. Dean had a team-high five missed tackles, according to NGS. Pro Football Focus was a bit more forgiving, charging the Eagles with 10 missed tackles, but even that’s a far cry from the weekend before when the site recorded just two from the group.

Poor tackling aside, another big-picture concern is how easily the Bucs got the Eagles into unfavorable looks they didn’t have answers for. The group seemed resurgent against the New Orleans Saints a weekend earlier, but the follow-up performance against Tampa Bay suggests the defense’s viability may be more matchup-dependent than anything else.

The Saints often used heavy personnel packages that the Eagles could match with base personnel on defense, with five down linemen and two linebackers. The Bucs didn’t afford the Eagles that luxury. There were times they’d break the huddle with two tight ends only to spread the Eagles out wide to get Evans or Godwin matched up with a defensive lineman out in space. (Chris Godwin caught a 10-yard pass lined up across from Nolan Smith early in the second quarter with such a look). There were also plenty of times the Bucs ran out of 11-personnel, taking advantage of the Eagles’ apparent difficulties defending the run out of light boxes in nickel packages.

Perhaps the bye week will lead to wholesale changes; the first four games suggest it may be a necessity for this Eagles defense.

The Eagles are going into the bye week 2-2 after weathering injuries to three of the most important offensive contributors for most of the last two games and have a chance to get each of them back coming out of the bye or shortly thereafter. They’ve played the second-hardest schedule in the NFL according to FTN Fantasy’s defense-adjusted value over average metric and the remainder of their schedule is ranked as the third most favorable. Sirianni is 4-0 in games coming off a bye week as well. If the Eagles can come back healthy against the Cleveland Browns in two weeks, maybe they can string together enough wins to take a lead in the division going into the second half of the season.

Going back to last season, the Eagles have won just three of their last 11 games. Hurts has 27 turnovers over the last two seasons, which is the most in the NFL. That’s largely contributing to the Eagles’ ranking 31st in turnover differential this year, something Sirianni has harped on consistently over the last four years. The Eagles have played like a middle-of-the-road team so far this season and some of their biggest defensive issues may not be fixable exclusively by coaching adjustments. Given the turnover and personnel problems compounded by mental errors, perhaps this Eagles team has a lower ceiling than most anticipated.

Down, Grant Calcaterra and Jack Stoll: The Eagles weren’t able to make much headway out of heavy sets with Calcaterra or Stoll serving as blockers in the running game. Somewhat understandably, Calcaterra struggled to displace former All-Pro linebacker Lavonte David on Barkley’s first run of the game, which resulted in no gain. Stoll and Calcaterra both got beaten at the line of scrimmage on Barkley’s second run, which went for 3 yards on second-and-10.

Up, Quinyon Mitchell: Mitchell may have been the lone bright spot for the Eagles’ secondary. He managed an impressive pass breakup against Evans on a fade in the corner of the end zone. Even considering his struggles on the final drive of the Atlanta Falcons game, Mitchell has been even better than most reasonable expectations so far as a rookie.

Neutral, Jalen Carter: While the lack of pressure may have been alarming coming out of the game, the ease with which Mayfield got the ball out of his hands absolves the defensive front of some culpability. Carter should get the most slack, with the Bucs consistently double-teaming him in response to his game-wrecking performance against the Saints a week earlier. If the Eagles want that level of play from Carter each week, they’ll need to change their defensive approach to give him time to impact the game more often.

Down, Darius Slay: Shaky play aside (the veteran cornerback gave up four catches and a touchdown on seven targets), Slay quickly posted some of his career achievements on social media after the game in a now-deleted tweet responding to critical fans. Considering several players said Sirianni’s postgame message focused on blocking out external criticism, Slay’s rebuttal seemed especially counterproductive.

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