Roob's Instant Observations after Eagles embarrass themselves against Bears

The Eagles turned the ball over three times in their 27-7 loss to Chicago.

By Reuben Frank • Published September 28, 2026

Sometimes you lose a football game and it’s just a case of the other team being too good. And then there’s games where you just go out and embarrass yourself.

You know which one this was.

The Eagles embarrassed themselves on national TV Monday night, getting blown to pieces to the tune of 27-7 by a Bears team starting their 3rd-string quarterback.

They were hapless on offense and they were hapless on defense and they were hapless in every way you can imagine.

The 20-point loss was the 3rd-worst of Nick Sirianni’s six-year coaching career and with the Rams coming to town on a short week the Eagles have a ton to fix to avoid a 2-2 start.

Here’s our 10 Instant Observations on the Eagles’ 27-7 wipeout at the hands of the Bears Monday night at Soldier Field in Chicago.

1. Case Keenum hadn’t played since 2023. He had thrown one touchdown pass since 2021. He had won three games in the last eight years and was making his first start for his ninth NFL team. And he just went out there Monday night and shredded the Eagles and their vaunted, star-studded pass defense on national TV. This can’t happen. But it did happen. Keenum, the Bears’ 3rd-stringer, got an emergency start and the Eagles had no answer. He shredded them. Tore ‘em apart. This wasn’t like last year, when the Bears ran all over the Eagles for nearly 300 yards in a win at the Linc. The damage this time came in the air, with Keenum picking apart the Eagles’ overmatched defense to the tune of 24-for-34 for 247 yards, two touchdowns and of course no interceptions, because the Eagles haven’t intercepted a pass since last year. This was a defense-wide embarrassment. This was almost as bad as the Joe Webb game on a miserable Tuesday in 2010. Or the Tom Tupa game, when the Cards’ punter and emergency QB threw for 218 yards and a touchdown in an upset win at the Vet in 1991. Keenum did whatever he wanted. The Eagles didn’t sack him. They didn’t pick him off. They didn’t do anything to mess up his rhythm or take him out of his game. They just stood there and let him throw passes to whoever he wanted with no resistance. His 41-yard touchdown pass to Kalif Raymond was his longest TD since a 69-yarder to Terry McLaurin against the Eagles in the 2019 opener at the Linc. Yep, seven years ago. Finally getting Jonathan Greenard in uniform didn’t help the Eagles’ putrid pass rush, which now has generated two sacks from the defensive line in three games. The irony is that the Eagles shut down the Bears’ vaunted running game and it didn’t matter. They got picked apart by a 38-year-old dude who hadn’t played a single freaking snap in three years. This was the fourth time in Keenum’s 14-year career – and the first time since 2019 – he had passing and rushing touchdowns in the same game. Pitiful effort by the defense.

2. Their weekly poor start finally caught up with the Eagles. This is only the fourth time since 1947 the Eagles have failed to score a 1st-quarter touchdown in their first three games. I get that it’s a new offense and a new play caller and a new scheme and new receivers and there are going to be speed bumps, but three games without a 1st-quarter point is unacceptable. That’s just a football team that’s not prepared at the start of the game. The Eagle have been outscored 17-0 in the first quarter this year, the biggest margin against them through three games since 2014, Chip Kelly’s second season, when they were outscored by 25 points (35-10). They came back and won the first two weeks of the season despite trailing after the first quarter, but it’s a tough way to keep winning games. You keep digging yourselves an early hole, eventually it catches up with you, and it caught up with the Eagles in a big way Monday night.

3. This one ought to be impossible. For a third straight week to open the season, no takeaways. None. Zip. Nil. Zilch. Nada. This is the first time in franchise history they’ve opened a season with no takeaways in their first three games. And, really, it’s not like they’ve had a bunch of chances. Riq Woolen could have had an interception in the opener but it was a tough play and he missed it. Jalen Carter punched a ball out last week but the Titans recovered. And that’s it. The lack of interceptions is bad enough for a secondary this loaded. But the absence of forced fumbles is really a product of poor tackling. If you can’t tackle, you’re not going to give yourself chances to force fumbles. The Eagles are the only NFL team without any takeaways and one of four without an INT. They just can’t make plays.

4. While we’re at it, the lack of sacks is just as alarming as the lack of takeaways. The Eagles’ vaunted defensive line has just two sacks now in three games, one each by Jalen Carter and Nolan Smith last week in Nashville. Linebacker Jihaad Campbell also has a sack, but that’s a total of just three in three games, which for the talent on this defense is just preposterous and incredibly disappointing. The Eagles are now 28th in the NFL in sacks. This defensive line was built to make life rough on quarterbacks and they haven’t come close to doing that. A lot of disappointing things going on with this team, but the inability of this defensive front to pressure opposing quarterbacks is right at the top of that list.

5. We knew all along that Jalen Hurts’ performance in Year 1 under Mannion was not going to be a linear progression, and all the progress we saw the first two weeks of the season disappeared Monday night in Chicago. Hurts just wasn’t very good and at times he looked lost. Threw for just 153 yards with no touchdown passes and a bad interception on a fourth down in the third quarter. After halftime, he passed for just 42 yards. Hurts was so good the first two weeks, but this was a huge step backwards. Now, Hurts once again didn’t get much help from his offensive line, and that’s been a theme throughout the season. And the running game, which looked so good in the first half with Saquon Barkley going 11-for-73, sputtered in the second half, with Barkley just 4-for-9. Hurts wasn’t good Monday night, but he didn’t get any help. Hurts now has eight career touchdowns and 15 interceptions on Monday nights, which is just bizarre. He’s only thrown 25 career interceptions on Sundays so he somehow has only 10 more INTs on Sundays than Mondays. Even though he’s thrown 1,850 passes on Sundays and 321 on Mondays. That really oughta be impossible. But that’s the reality. He’s always played poorly on Monday nights and he didn’t do anything to change that narrative in Chicago.

6. You know what was disappointing? When Hurts got clotheslined on the sideline by Bears linebacker D’Marco Jackson – just a brutal cheap shot – and was just lying on the ground for a few moments, none of his teammates went after Jackson and stood up for their quarterback. You don’t want anybody ejected at that point with the Eagles trailing by just three, but somebody needs to show up and go after Jackson and show him that kind of conduct won’t be tolerated. You cheap shot our quarterback, we’re going to cheap shot you. The franchise is lying on the ground and at that point nobody knew how badly he was hurt, don’t let freaking D’Marco Jackson off the hook so easily.

7. This team’s lack of discipline continues to show up. Penalties are killing the Eagles. Ten for 61 yards Monday night, including a needless intentional grounding by Jalen Hurts in the first quarter, two defensive penalties on Riq Woolen, a hold on Tyler Steen that wiped out a 19-yard Saquon Barkley run, a false start on Drew Kendall inside the Eagles’ 5-yard-line, a hold on Kelee Ringo that wiped out a 21-yard Britain Covey punt return later in the third quarter, a neutral zone infraction on Moro Ojomo on a Bears 4th-and-2 in the fourth quarter and finally a defensive holding on Drew Mukuba that wiped out a 3rd-down Ojomo sack. When you play poorly, it’s not easy to win. When you compound it with costly penalties, you have no shot. This team and this coach talk all the time about discipline. They had none Monday night.

8. This was a game where the Bears’ coaches thoroughly out-coached the Eagles’ coaches. Ben Johnson had a masterful plan to neutralize the Eagles’ defense, keep them off balance, keep them guessing, confuse them and render them utterly ineffective. He completely out-coached Vic Fangio and that’s not something you see very often. And Bears defensive coordinator Dennis Allen had a perfect plan to stifle the Eagles' offense and take away everything Sean Mannion wanted to do and render Jalen Hurts ineffective. And Nick Sirianni just didn’t have his team prepared. What’s really discouraging is that the Bears made all the halftime adjustments. The Eagles had some good momentum with the touchdown just before halftime, but the Bears outscored them 17-0 in the second half, outgained them 199-62 and held the Eagles to just three first downs. The Eagles have been outplayed in the second half in all three games, getting outscored by a total of 40-20 and outgained 563-334. That's alarming. The Eagles didn’t just get outplayed. They got out-coached.

9. You were hoping for some improvement from the interior offensive line in the second game with Cam Jurgens at left guard and Drew Kendall at center, but it didn’t happen. The o-line – and it was all of them, not just Jurgens and Kendall – was a liability Monday night. The Bears had only two sacks but harassed Hurts all night, pressured him consistently and just pushed the Eagles around the entire game. Landon Dickerson has to miss at least another two games and who knows if he’ll be ready to play against the Panthers in Week 6 and what version of Landon he’ll be when he does come back. Not sure what the answer is or if there is an answer. Willie Lampkin would probably be an upgrade at left guard at this point, but I can’t imagine Nick Sirianni would replace Cam Jurgens, a two-time Pro Bowler, with a guy who’s never played in an NFL game. That means just hope the o-line starts playing better and like Howie Roseman likes to say, hope is not a strategy. I don’t know what the answer is. But I do know if this o-line doesn’t start playing better the Eagles are in trouble.

10. For the love of God, somebody please make the Eagles stop throwing the ball to Makai Lemon behind the line of scrimmage. Just stop.

11. Some really odd decision making in the third quarter from Nick Sirianni, and he admitted post-game that he goofed, but it never should have happened. Game management is one of Sirianni’s priorities and he messed up this one. The Eagles had a 4th-and-1 on their own 49-yard-line late in the third quarter and at that point the game was still within reach with the Bears up 20-7. The Eagles tried to draw the Bears offsides but took a delay of game when the Bears didn’t move and Braden Mann wound up punting on what became a 4th-and-6. Now, it was a relatively long 4th-and-1. Probably more like 4th-and-1 ½. But you’re down 13, you’re at midfield, you have a quarterback who’s as good as anybody at converting those 3rd- and 4th-and shorts, and you’re not going to get many more chances better than this one. You can’t give up the possession there. You go for it, you try to get the first down and if you don’t, at least you were aggressive and played to win the game. A punt in that situation feels like giving up. It feels like conceding. What made it even worse was on their next drive they faced. A 4th-and-5 in almost the same place – the Bears’ 46-yard-line – and this time Sirianni went for it. Why punt the first time after you had a 4th-and-1 and then go for it the second time on a 4th-and-5? That fourth down wound up being a Jalen Hurts’ interception. Sirianni doesn’t call plays and isn’t involved in the defense, so his priority is exactly those type of situations and he can’t afford to mess them up.

https://www.nbcsportsphiladelphia.com/nfl/philadelphia-eagles/roobs-observations-eagles-bears-jalen-hurts-case-keenum/754500/

Painful painful watch. Honestly team is really not a lot of fun to watch. It feels like hard work watching this team every single week. The defense is soft and the offense stalls so often and can’t seem to get going.