Eagles Blow It

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Eagles Blow It

Posted: December 22nd, 2024 | Author: Tommy Lawlor

What a crappy day. The Eagles jumped out to a 7-0 lead. Then they came up with a fumble on defense and started marching again. Jalen Hurts hit the ground hard after a run and left the game. Kenny Pickett came in and finshed that drive with a TD pass. The Eagles were up 14-0. They later added a TD on a 68-yard run by Saquon Barkley to go up 21-7.

The game wasn’t the same after that.

Washington adjusted their defense and severly limited the run game. Saquon Barkley ran for 109 yards in the first quarter and finished with 150 yards. Not ideal. The defense dared Kenny Pickett to beat them. He couldn’t. To be fair, he did make a good throw to DeVonta Smith late in the game that might have sealed the win, but Smith dropped it. Just flat out dropped it. Ugh.

Pickett led the Eagles to 12 points in the final three quarters. Not good enough. This loss isn’t on him, though. This was a sloppy performance by the whole team. The OL didn’t have their best showing. Saquon Barkley dropped a key pass. Smith had his drop. The defense had several chances for big stops and couldn’t get them. Quinyon Mitchell gave up his first TD. CJGJ got ejected. Jake Elliott came up short on a long FG. The kickoff coverage was a mess all game long. Sydney Brown was offside on the final KO of the game, giving WAS five free yards at a time when you just couldn’t do that.

Ugh.

The Eagles did not play winning football. This reminded me of the game in Dallas in 2022 when Gardner Minshew lost a shootout to Dak Prescott and the Cowboys. The Eagles made their share of big plays, but came up short. The same thing happened in Washington on Sunday. The Eagles made some huge plays. But they made some huge mistakes and just couldn’t put the Commanders away.

The Eagles had lead after lead after lead. Until they didn’t. They trailed 28-27 for a short period and then 36-33 at the end.

Give Jayden Daniels a ton of credit. He made some terrific throws. He had some clutch runs that just killed the Eagles defense. Daniels never panicked and was able to drive down for the winning TD with just seconds left. That dude is going to be a problem for a while.

As for the Eagles defense, they came into the game first in the league in points and yards allowed. They were dominating teams. Sunday was not a good day for the defense. They did have 5 takeaways, but gave up 368 yards and 36 points. They allowed 7 third down conversions and 2 fourth down conversions. They gave up 3 red zone TDs.

If the Eagles had Jalen Hurts for the whole game, there is no question in my mind that they win. I don’t have a lot of big picture concerns coming out of this game. The defense didn’t have an answer for Daniels mobility. He ran 9 times for 81 yards. There aren’t too many QBs who can do that.

Sirianni talked in his press conference about how sloppy the Eagles were. CJGJ got ejected for two taunting penalties. We can complain that those are weak calls, but he’s got to know after the first penalty that he’s got to shut up. Simple as that. Once the first flag is thrown, the officials have sent a message that your words can cost you. The Eagles gave up a long TD when they had too many men on the field and still left a WR wide open. That has to get cleaned up.

Grant Calcaterra failed to make a key block on 3rd & 1. Mekhi Becton missed an easy block on a run play that led to a TFL. This is basic football stuff. Clean that up and they’ll be alright.

The loss hurts the chase for the #1 seed. That could prove costly because the Eagles might have to face Green Bay or Washington in the first playoff game. Neither of those sounds like a team you want to deal with.

This loss can have value if the team learns from these mistakes and fixes them. You’re always nervous about riding a long winning streak into the postseason. Washington took care of that problem on Sunday. Now the Eagles close out the season with the Cowboys, who seem to be enjoy being the underdog in recent weeks, and the hapless Giants.

Let’s hope Hurts is ready for Sunday so the Eagles can get back on track. What we saw in Washington wasn’t good enough, from any part of the team. There were problems on offense, defense, special teams and coaching. Everyone had a hand in that loss.

Now everyone needs to have a hand in getting things fixed.

http://igglesblitz.com/2024/12/eagles-blow-it/