The Lines

Posted October 12th, 2025

The Eagles are built up to win the line of scrimmage. They invested a lot of resources in the OL and the DL. They normally have the best OL in football and one of the best DLs. That formula has helped them win a lot of games over the past 25 years and it has gotten them to three Super Bowls in the past eight seasons.

For a variety of reasons, the line play has taken a step back this year. There isn’t one perfect statistic to show this, but a simple one can give you an idea of how bad both sides are struggling.

Rush offense – 26th

Rush defense – 26th

Last season the Eagles were second in running the ball and 10th in stopping the run. There has been a huge drop off this year. There have been some personnel changes, but there are enough returning guys that the line play should be much better than it is. Injuries are a key factor. Landon

Dickerson hasn’t been healthy at all this season and his play reflects that. He’s struggled. Cam Jurgens is still working his way back from his injury. Jalen Carter has a bad shoulder and missed Thursday night’s loss due to a heel injury. Nolan Smith has missed the past few games. He’ll be back after the bye.

The Eagles must get healthier and they must play better up front. People can complain about Kevin Patullo all they want, but improved line play is more important than the plays being called.

That’s a blocking stat, not a Patullo stat.

Lane Johnson said he thinks the offense has been too predictable. I don’t think any of us would disagree with that.

Better play-calling can certainly help. Better blocking is critical. They also need to eliminate penalties. This isn’t a one-person problem and it sure as heck isn’t a one-person solution. Everybody needs to do their job better. The good news is that playing on a Thursday means the players have some extra time to get rest and the coaches have some extra time to come up with solutions.

Getting Carter and Smith healthy on defense should make a big difference. Carter will hopefully be back next week. Smith will return after the bye.

Last year the Eagles lost to Tampa 33-16. That was rock bottom. The team had a bye week after that. Then they went 12-1 the rest of the regular season and then 4-0 in the playoffs. As bad as things seemed after losing to the Giants, the Eagles are still 4-2. If they can fix mistakes, play smarter and play better, this season can still turn out just fine. Whether that happens is a mystery. The Eagles still have a lot of talent. We’ve seen them play well for parts of games, just not complete games. This should be fixable.

*****

One thing that stood out in each of the last two games is that the opponents felt like the hungrier, more aggressive teams. Nick Sirianni has to figure out the right messaging to get his team back to playing with an edge.

Maybe the 4-0 start on top of winning the Super Bowl softened the Eagles up. Losing two straight games should have everyone’s attention. The worry now isn’t about getting someone touches, but rather how do you get back to winning games. Sirianni didn’t have the right answers in 2023 and that season spiraled out of control.

He’s won a SB since then and should be smarter after having gone through the lows of that season and the highs of last year. It will be interesting to see if Sirianni can get this team back on track. The first place to start is getting the Eagles to play to their core values: tough, detailed, together. That’s been lacking this season and the results show that.

Get back to those values and winning should follow.

https://igglesblitz.com/2025/10/the-lines/

The worry with the offense being so predictable is how do they change it? They aren’t changing the OC and they aren’t changing the scheme in season so what’s going to change?

9 minutes ago, UK_EaglesFan89 said:

The worry with the offense being so predictable is how do they change it? They aren’t changing the OC and they aren’t changing the scheme in season so what’s going to change?

If the offense continues to underwhelm I wonder if they'd bring in some kind of consultant to help with play design (inject a bit of creativity) and overall game planning on offense. As you said and I have said the same numerous times, they aren't likely to make a change at OC mid season, so perhaps that is an avenue they can take to help for the remainder of the season.

19 minutes ago, time2rock said:

If the offense continues to underwhelm I wonder if they'd bring in some kind of consultant to help with play design (inject a bit of creativity) and overall game planning on offense. As you said and I have said the same numerous time, they aren't likely to make a change at OC mid season, so perhaps that is an avenue they can take to help for the remainder of the season.

You’d like to think they would be open to it right? I mean they could actually save Patullo his job? If they brought someone in and made tweaks and got the offense going that would be a real credit to Sirianni and Patullo.