Too Fast?

[time2rock]

Too Fast?

Posted: January 8th, 2024 | Author: Tommy Lawlor

For most of the season, it has felt like the Eagles were on autopilot. This team hasn’t lived in the moment, as Nick Sirianni wants them to. It sure seemed like they spent the past few months waiting for the playoffs to start. Well, here we are.

Are the real Eagles about to show up?

Or are we about to find out this team just doesn’t have the answers needed to turn things around?

Many of us assumed last year’s team was a sign of things to come. The Eagles would be competing for Super Bowls every year as long as Jalen Hurts was the QB and Nick Sirianni the coach. Those guys had all the right answers in a magical season.

Was it too much, too fast?

Think back to the Reid era. Andy Reid inherited a mess, a team that was 3-13 and had one of the worst offenses in modern NFL history. They averaged 10 points per game. Reid proved to be exactly what that team needed. He brought stability and organization to the franchise. They only went 5-11 in his first season, but you could see signs that the rebuilding process was working.

The Eagles then went 11-5 in 2000. They made the playoffs and even won a game, but were soundly beaten by the Giants in the divisional round. That loss showed the talent disparity between the two teams. The Eagles were 11-5 in 2001, but this time that was good enough to win the division. The Eagles won a pair of playoff games and got to the NFC title game. They lost to the Rams, but showed they could compete with anyone

There were huge expectations for the Eagles from 2002-2004. They won at least 12 games each year. They got to the NFC Championship in 2002 and 2003. They finally reached the Super Bowl in 2004. It took a long, steady climb to get to that point.

Nick Sirianni coached in the Super Bowl in his 38^th game as head coach of the Eagles. Andy Reid lost to the Cardinals 21-20 in Week 4 of the 2001 season in his 38^th game. Reid was in his 108^th game when he got to the Super Bowl.

Reid, his staff and the whole Eagles organization learned a lot of lessons on the way to the big game. Some of those were tough, unpleasant lessons, but they served Reid and the organization well in the long run.

Sirianni was in the playoffs in his first year and in the Super Bowl in his second year. Having that kind of success so quickly had to affect him. I’m sure he thought he knew his team and had all the right answers. Oops. This season is delivering some tough, unpleasant lessons to Sirianni. Reid didn’t always make the adjustments we wanted and he didn’t always adjust as fast as we wanted, but there was change.

Go watch the offense in 2001, 2002, 2003 and 2004. The same basic playbook is behind all of those units, but the style of play was different, largely based on personnel. In 2001, RBs caught 106 passes. The offense was still a bit simple. Antonio Freeman joined the team in 2002 and the slot receiver became a weapon for the first time. Reid got creative with WR runs and James Thrash had 18 carries and ran for 2 TDs. The 2003 team featured the 3-headed RB (Staley-Buckhalter-Westbrook) and also a lot more 2-TE sets. 2004 was all about stars. The Eagles fed the ball to Westbrook and TO instead of spreading it around.

Reid adjusted based on his personnel, the experience of his players and also as he found new things he wanted to mix in.

Sirianni’s team finished 3rd in points scored last year. Reid only finished that high once in his tenure with the Eagles (2010). Sirianni made adjusting during and after the 2021 season. That helped lead to the dynamic offense last year. The offense this year has the same playbook, but not the same quality of play-calling and certainly not the same level of execution. There is also the fact that defenses spent the offseason studying the Eagles attack so they’d be prepared to slow it down.

The Eagles have not been able to make the kind of in-season and in-game adjustments they needed to keep the offense at an elite level. It still finished 10th in DVOA and 7th in points scored this year, but that is due more to talent than scheme.

Failure is a great teacher. Sirianni had tremendous success last year, but I don’t know if he learned a whole lot. He’s getting a crash course in Bad Football 101 over the past month or so. Only time will tell if he learned the lessons.

Last year it felt like Sirianni pushed all the right buttons. This year it feels like he is simply guessing.

Instant success has affected Jalen Hurts as well. The big plays that came so easily to him and the offense last year just aren’t working this season. Hurts is still forcing the ball downfield, though. Last year’s chunk plays are this year’s incompletions and interceptions.

Sustaining success is a lot harder than having some success. Sirianni and his players are learning that the hard way this season. Maybe the failures of the 2023 season will serve Sirianni and the Eagles well in the long run.

But that will only happen if Sirianni acknowledges the issues and is able to come up with good answers.

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http://igglesblitz.com/2024/01/too-fast/

[UK_EaglesFan89]

I don’t think it’s a case of too fast. You seize your opportunities and if you have a team talented enough then you go as far as you can. Ultimately that’s what this team did last year and things went in their favour (until the big one).

I suspect what we are seeing is a team that has gotten too old in certain areas. Is suffering from the SB hangover but did so with a delay having actually started so well. And I think the messaging from the coaches and from the AB has gotten stale and gotten too much.