The Eagles are 4-0, but they're better than this

The Eagles beat the Bucs. They're still undefeated, but not without their list of early frustrations.

By Nick Tricome
PhillyVoice Staff

Nathan Ray Seebeck/Imagn Images

Quarterback Jalen Hurts (1) and linebacker Zack Baun (53) leave the field at Raymond James Stadium in Tampa after the Eagles defeated the Buccaneers on Sunday, 31-25.

The Philadelphia Eagles are 4-0, and that's great. 

They beat the Tampa Buccaneers inside the humid, 100-degree Raymond James Stadium that has become their own sort of personal hell in the past few years. That's great, too. 

And on the schedule, they cleared an early-season gauntlet consisting of the Cowboys, Chiefs, Rams, and now the Bucs, with a much more forgiving stretch (on paper) ahead against the Broncos, the Giants on the road, the Vikings, and then the Giants again back at home. 

It's only them and the Buffalo Bills as the NFL's two remaining undefeated teams.

It's an incredibly favorable spot to be in, and yet you don't have to go all that far to find frustration, criticism, and scrutiny over the way the Eagles have played to this point, because they're better than this, or at least should be.

Yes, the Eagles beat the Bucs by a final of 31-25 on Sunday, but how? 

They cruised through the first half. Special teams blocked an early punt that it returned for the day's first touchdown, Jalen Hurts was near perfect in his passing and burned the Tampa defense on the ground, and the offense got creative with a couple of underhanded pitches to Dallas Goedert that built up a 24-6 lead at the break. 

Then they came back out for the second half and looked like they were all but trying to give that game back to the Bucs. 

Hurts suddenly couldn't complete a pass anymore and the offense kept going three-and-out, Baker Mayfield got away with a couple of big scoring plays on a prayer, but kept gashing the Eagles' defense on extended plays and increasingly sloppier tackling, too, and all the while, star running back Saquon Barkley just kept running into a wall. 

By the fourth quarter, Tampa had narrowed the gap down to eight points, 31-23, and had pressed deep into Eagles' territory again looking set to put even more of a dent in it with plenty of time still and seemingly a lot of momentum.

Rookie linebacker Jihaad Campbell instead intercepted Mayfield's pass at the goal line on another attempt to extend the play and hope that coverage broke down as he rolled out of the pocket.

It felt like that should've been checkmate, even with just a touch under eight minutes left, as the Eagles' offense developed a specialty in methodically draining the clock down with a lead.

But they went three-and-out and gave the Bucs another shot, requiring the defense to make one more stop and then having the punt unit surrender a safety to fully cross the finish line. 

Yes, they won. But they were up 24-6 and had to get out by the skin of their teeth by the end of it.

The week before against the Rams back at home, they had to dig themselves out of a 19-point hole and lean on two miracle field goal blocks to get by.

Wins are wins, sure. But how the Eagles have been getting to them so far just isn't sustainable.

Fans, deep down, know that because of 2023's infamous implosion and how quickly that 10-1 start suddenly couldn't mask some deep-rooted flaws anymore. 

And the Eagles themselves, under a barrage of the typical postgame clichés – 'it's a team game,' 'it doesn't matter how it looks,' 'the win is all that counts,' and so on – they know it, too. 

They're better than this.

They'll always take the win, but they're capable of so much more.

"I like winning football games, and I don't care what it looks like, whether it's me rushing for 20 yards or me rushing for 200 yards, whatever it takes," said Barkley, who could only muster 43 yards under a constant swarm of Tampa Bay defenders on Sunday. "I don't care if the score is 6-3 or 36-4, that's just – we're 4-0. But again, the way we played the second half this week, the way we played the first half last week, especially on offense, we're gonna have a hard time winning football games.

"We've just got to continue to improve, continue to gel, find – I hate using this word – but an identity within the offense and in the run game. That's what the season's for. We're gonna continue to get better. We got guys that want to continue to get better and want to be great, and are gonna continue to buy in, so just look forward to next week."

https://www.phillyvoice.com/eagles-better-than-this-record-bucs-game-frustrations-analysis-saquon-barkley-jalen-hurts-baker-mayfield/

We are 4-0 and that’s great. We are 4-0 and there’s still a lot of things we had to improve on and tidy up and that’s also great. But they need to clean it up because right now there’s a real risk this becomes more 2023 than 2024. Overall the offense has been putrid!