I'm curious because people seem to have very different opinions on this.  Some have blamed Barkley for not getting the first down on 2nd and 1 (or missing a blitz pick-up on the next play), while others have criticized the play calling.

But for me, the drive really started to unravel before any of those things happened - specifically, I'm talking about the 23 seconds that elapsed following the nine yard pass to AJ.  At the time he went down, there was a full minute on the clock, with the ball at the Cleveland 31 and the Eagles in possession of all three timeouts.  That's plenty time for an NFL team to run its normal two minute offense without needing to yield to the clock, assuming it's managed correctly.  Based on my experience watching games, that should have meant using the first of three timeouts at the one minute mark and setting yourself up for a 2nd and 1 play call on which you would have had a ton of options.

Instead, 23 precious seconds inexplicably wind off the clock before the ball is even snapped.  This is presumably one of the main reasons Barkley seemed more concerned about getting out of bounds than getting the first down (and frankly, I think this was the right decision - getting out of bounds was more important than picking up the first down there given how well the Eagles have executed in short yardage situations).

From my view, Sirianni made the first and biggest mistake by not using a timeout at the 1:00 mark.  This resulted in the following two plays being much more frantic than it needed to be, which eventually led to the disastrous blocked FG that almost certainly would have cost them the game against a half-competent opponent.  (It's easy to forget that Sirianni then proceeded to use his timeout in a dead ball situation, which is so comically bad it might have even made Andy Reid blush)

No matter how you slice it, Sirianni either had the team unprepared to execute a basic two minute situation, or he butchered the thing himself by not calling timeout.  Either way, this is a recurring problem with him.

The offense just feels disjointed on the whole. There’s no real structure or game plan. Who do we want to be? What is our identity? The scripted plays are awful too.

This offense gets by purely because there is a lot of talent. The OL is very good and beyond that we have play makers. But it isn’t coached well nor well prepared.

1 hour ago, jmac+djaxallday said:

I'm curious because people seem to have very different opinions on this.  Some have blamed Barkley for not getting the first down on 2nd and 1 (or missing a blitz pick-up on the next play), while others have criticized the play calling.

But for me, the drive really started to unravel before any of those things happened - specifically, I'm talking about the 23 seconds that elapsed following the nine yard pass to AJ.  At the time he went down, there was a full minute on the clock, with the ball at the Cleveland 31 and the Eagles in possession of all three timeouts.  That's plenty time for an NFL team to run its normal two minute offense without needing to yield to the clock, assuming it's managed correctly.  Based on my experience watching games, that should have meant using the first of three timeouts at the one minute mark and setting yourself up for a 2nd and 1 play call on which you would have had a ton of options.

Instead, 23 precious seconds inexplicably wind off the clock before the ball is even snapped.  This is presumably one of the main reasons Barkley seemed more concerned about getting out of bounds than getting the first down (and frankly, I think this was the right decision - getting out of bounds was more important than picking up the first down there given how well the Eagles have executed in short yardage situations).

From my view, Sirianni made the first and biggest mistake by not using a timeout at the 1:00 mark.  This resulted in the following two plays being much more frantic than it needed to be, which eventually led to the disastrous blocked FG that almost certainly would have cost them the game against a half-competent opponent.  (It's easy to forget that Sirianni then proceeded to use his timeout in a dead ball situation, which is so comically bad it might have even made Andy Reid blush)

No matter how you slice it, Sirianni either had the team unprepared to execute a basic two minute situation, or he butchered the thing himself by not calling timeout.  Either way, this is a recurring problem with him.

Yup, he was brutally bad there 

His one job now is a sideline clapper and timeout taker and hes screwed that up🤷‍♂️

11 hours ago, Utebird said:

Yup, he was brutally bad there 

His one job now is a sideline clapper and timeout taker and hes screwed that up🤷‍♂️

His job apparently is to manage the in game stuff and get the team prepared to play every week. And every week he fails at both. So yeah he’s a sideline clapper and as you say he’s failing at that.

13 hours ago, UK_EaglesFan89 said:

The offense just feels disjointed on the whole. There’s no real structure or game plan. Who do we want to be? What is our identity? The scripted plays are awful too.

This offense gets by purely because there is a lot of talent. The OL is very good and beyond that we have play makers. But it isn’t coached well nor well prepared.

The problem is they want to be goood at everything and have an identity at the sametime. It doesnt work like that. You cant be great at everything and make everybody happy. Super teams like the 90s Cowboys or 00s Pats dont exist anymore. Oh and then theres the analytics messing with everything. Anyways its a big mess.

38 minutes ago, opa-opa said:

The problem is they want to be goood at everything and have an identity at the sametime. It doesnt work like that. You cant be great at everything and make everybody happy. Super teams like the 90s Cowboys or 00s Pats dont exist anymore. Oh and then theres the analytics messing with everything. Anyways its a big mess.

Surely with Barkley and Hurts this should be a run based team? Then you bring the Safeties down and you open up more in the deep pass game? Plus you can then run more play action stuff. That takes away some of the responsibility on Hurts whilst also allowing him to use his legs. It also would open up more in the pass game to create those big plays.

Just bad game management and the offense being stuck in first gear. Its obvious the scripted playes don't work Maybe the O is so predictable that the defenses know what they would  be running. I say just go fast tempo from the first snap and protect the ball. Cannot be any worse than it is.

1. Barkley didn't do his job (again)

2. 3 and 1 stupid play call. Just do the tush push. What are you saving timeouts for?

3. Which is probably the biggest one... our HC is a moron!!! I'm sorry, but I'm all for the CEO, Hoorah Go team stuff he's all about, but don't you dare call any plays bc you feel left out. I'm done with him, even if we win the SB. 

I don’t think this team is well prepared to handle two minute drive situations. They naturally do things relatively slow. They often run the clock down to seconds left on normal drives. They often throw short passes during the two minute drives, but don’t take their time outs despite usually having all three. They rarely spike the ball after completions inside of two minutes. It just feels like the constantly waste time. Perhaps it’s because they tend to spend a lot of time just being slow and when they need to turn things up they just can’t do it. 

19 hours ago, UK_EaglesFan89 said:

Surely with Barkley and Hurts this should be a run based team? Then you bring the Safeties down and you open up more in the deep pass game? Plus you can then run more play action stuff. That takes away some of the responsibility on Hurts whilst also allowing him to use his legs. It also would open up more in the pass game to create those big plays.

Nope because then the offense becomes too "predictable".....

There isn't really anything critical to running a football operation that Sirianni is very good at.  He needs to go.  

17 hours ago, opa-opa said:

Nope because then the offense becomes too "predictable".....

That may be the case but predictable may be better than no good…

Barkley made two critical errors but they could’ve been a non-factor if Sirianni just did the tush push on 3rd and 1. We had 3 timeouts and were 4 for 4 running the tush push that day. It was a no brainer.