Forget A.J. Brown's Band-Aid, Eagles' offense wounds go to the heart.

Martin Frank

Delaware News Journal

ARLINGTON, Texas − You can call A.J. Brown a prophet if you'd like.

Two weeks ago, Brown was using a Band-Aid analogy to explain his comments implying the Eagles' offense was a "(expletive) show" while playing "Madden" with social media influencer Janky Rondo. He was also telling Fantasy Football owners to drop him from their rosters.

"Sometimes we’re not contributing, we’re not doing our job on offense," Brown said then. "You can’t just keep slapping a Band-Aid over that and expect to win late in the year."

Right on cue, the Cowboys ripped those Band-Aids off, exposing all of the Eagles' open wounds as the Eagles blew a 21-point lead and lost 24-21 on Nov. 23.

Sure, the Eagles looked great on offense for the first 18 minutes of the game, which constituted their first three drives.

They scored touchdowns on each one. Quarterback Jalen Hurts was going to Brown early and often as he had 5 catches for 67 yards in the first quarter alone. As a comparison, Brown had just 62 yards receiving in the two previous games combined.

Hurts also hit DeVonta Smith for a 42-yard completion when Smith leaped, caught the ball, then did a backwards flip as he came down with the ball.

For the next 42 minutes, the Eagles didn't score a single point.

The collapse was shocking. Until you realize the Eagles have done this pretty much all season, but somehow still managed to win. They were just able to put that proverbial Band-Aid on the inconsistent offense and either win with a big defensive play, a blocked field goal, or some other sort of good fortune.

That ran out against the Cowboys. Dak Prescott threw for 354 yards. He completed 40-plus yard passes to both CeeDee Lamb and George Pickens. And the Eagles defense couldn't hold them off.

"It’s been a lot of instances where (the inconsistency on offense) has shown up and gotten us, but we’ve been able to figure it out and will ourselves to a win," Hurts said. "And tonight we didn’t. We played a hell of a first half. Then we didn’t play close enough to our standard in the second half."

Not when the Eagles committed 14 penalties, tying the most during Nick Sirianni's five seasons as head coach. Not when running back Saquon Barkley had just 22 yards rushing on 10 carries.

One season after rushing for 2,005 yards, Barkley on pace to finish with less than 1,000.

"I’m in a little funk right now," Barkley said. "I’ve had funks like this before. I just gotta break it, and the only way I know how is by flushing this, work my butt off, and get ready for my next opportunity."

He's not the only one.

You can say the Eagles got conservative on offense after the fast start as Sirianni and offensive coordinator Kevin Patullo seemingly went away from the pass-first attack that worked so well early on.

"We always try to be a balanced attack,” Sirianni said. "We’ll have to look at ourselves and look at the schemes, and look at the execution, and see what the issues were. We just weren’t very efficient as an offense in that second half. I didn’t really feel that we took our foot off the gas.”

Except the passing game’s success was supposed to open up the run. It didn’t, as much as the Eagles kept trying to run anyway.

Sirianni said the best way to get the Cowboys out of their 5-man defensive line is "to throw them out of it” by passing. The Cowboys stuck with it anyway.

"We did some of those things," Sirianni said. "Obviously not well enough ... Any time you’re one-dimensional, that makes it tough. We didn’t have that run game going, and when I say that, it’s on everybody – the coaching, the playing. It’s never just one thing."

It was a lot of things. The Eagles fumbled the ball away twice in the fourth quarter in a tie game − once after Barkley caught a pass that would've gotten Jake Elliott in range for a 52-yard field goal, and once when Xavier Gipson inexplicably tried returning a punt from inside the Eagles' 5 yard line.

The Cowboys recovered at the Eagles' 7 with 5:09 to go. Somehow, the Eagles stopped them on downs at the 2 yard line.

So the Eagles had a chance to drive down the field and win the game. But on 3rd-and-2 from the Eagles' 36, Hurts took a sack and lost 13 yards, forcing the Eagles to punt.

"There’s no more you can ask than to have the ball in your hands and go out there to finish the game on your terms," Hurts said. "We had the opportunity to do that, and I didn’t do enough."

The Cowboys didn't miss this time.

Pickens caught a 24-yard crosser down to the Eagles' 22. Then the Cowboys drained the clock until Brandon Aubrey kicked the game-winning 42-yard field goal.

So here the Eagles are, at 8-3, answering the same questions about their inconsistent offense, and the penalties that keep cropping up to put them "behind the sticks."

Left tackle Jordan Mailata called the penalties a "lack of focus." And then he continued.

"We always say we’re one block away," he added. "That’s tiring. That’s repetitive. But that is the truth. I’m tired of saying it. But it starts with us. We gotta do a better job of execution. Until we do that, the running game’s not going anywhere."

Neither are the Eagles.

Brown knows this to be true. Sure, he finished with 110 yards on 8 receptions, and Hurts' stats looked nice as he threw for 289 yards. But the injury-riddled defense couldn't bail out the Eagles when the offense sputtered amid penalties, fumbles, and having to punt four times in the second half.

Brown was asked if this is what he was referring to when he made his Band-Aid comment.

"No," he replied." "I’m only saying 'no' because we can only focus on ourselves. Obviously, the defense played well. But we just kind of just went three-and-out. We gotta be better, better as a unit, including myself."

Hurts wasn't having any of that, either, when he was asked if he's encouraged by the progress the passing game is making.

"Whatever it was, it wasn’t enough," Hurts said.

https://www.delawareonline.com/story/sports/nfl/eagles/2025/11/24/eagles-collapse-vs-cowboys-exposes-jalen-hurts-offense-saquon-barkley-flaws/87359469007/

I hope the offensive coaches are working day and night to figure out what the hell is going on.

Why can’t they run the ball more consistently? Sure they have injuries but even still their OL has more talent than others in the NFL. For them to have dropped off so much is shocking.

Why can’t they stop the dumb drive killing penalties? Sirianni has been very good at correcting things this team has done badly but not so far.

Why do they go long periods with next to no offense? It’s happened so often this season and it isn’t getting better.