Something or Nothing?

Posted September 29th, 2026

Think back to 2024. Your first thought is probably the Super Bowl blowout of the Chiefs. Next might be the playoff domination of Washington or the wild snow game against the Rams. You might think of the Eagles impressive win over the Ravens. Or maybe the regular season win vs the Rams where Saquon Barkley ran wild.

What you probably won’t remember is the Bucs dominating the Eagles in Week 4, 33-16. Tampa racked up 445 yards of offense and limited the Eagles to just 227. That was a bad day for the Birds. Ugly football. Luckily the bye week was right after that. The coaches decided to really embrace the running game on offense and Cooper DeJean became a starter on defense. Those changes led to a 10-game winning streak and eventually another Super Bowl win for the Eagles. The 2-2 start became a distant memory.

I bring this up because I’m trying to figure out what to make of Monday night’s loss in Chicago. You never want to make too much of one game in September. History is filled with examples of a bad loss washed away by a team getting hot in the fall or winter. At the same time. the Eagles have played sloppy football in all three games. They had flashes of greatness mixed in with bad football. The Eagles played a mediocre team in the opener and a bad team last week. They were able to beat them because of a talent advantage.

That wasn’t the case against the Bears.

Chicago came out fired up and ready to play. They were embarrassed by losing 9-3 in Week 2. They were motivated to erase that game. Their coaching staff had a good gameplan and the players executed at a high level. The Eagles played more sloppy football and got their butts kicked.

Was that just a bad night or is there something more to this?

Tough. Detailed. Together.

It is hard to call the Eagles tough right now. They are 25th in the league in run defense. They don’t tackle well. Watch the skill guys try to block on a screen pass. It is embarrassing. Barkley has been run over by blitzers in 2 of 3 games. The Eagles haven’t been the more physical team in any of their three games. They haven’t shown a sense of urgency with any consistency.

Detailed? Like jumping offside on 4th & 1? Or multiple penalties on DBs, with some extending drives? Blown coverages. Missed blocking assignments. Not taking good angles to the ball. Throwing the ball into coverage because you made up your mind before the snap.

Together? I don’t see or hear of any issues with this. I’ll give the Eagles credit for not turning into a bunch of cliques. The players and coaches seem to get along well. That is part of what makes this team so frustrating. There aren’t off-field problems or distractions. They don’t have any good excuses for the sloppy play so far.

We know Nick Sirianni uses the month of September as his preseason. That has helped the team stay pretty healthy and the formula has led to a lot of success. As frustrating as the current team is, they are still 2-1. This year feels different. Or maybe I’m just being a Negadelphian after last night’s debacle. We won’t know for sure until we see more out of this team.

You don’t want to peak in September, but you also don’t want to ignore troubling signs. beyond the players, the team has had a weird 2026. They traded for Andy Dalton and then drafted a QB. They currently carry four QBs on the roster and seem to be delusional on this subject. No one is going to trade for Dalton. The team lost a couple of promising safety prospects from the practice squad so they could keep 4 QBs. Ugh.

The coaches watched Landon Dickerson struggle for most of the summer. They let him start the opener and he struggled in that game. Never got benched. Went on IR after the opener. Then the coaches put Cam Jurgens at LG after not getting him any snaps there in the offseason. Why wasn’t this scenario covered in the spring or summer?

The TE position remains a trouble spot. They re-signed an aging veteran, signed a role player and drafted a project. Now they’ve had to bring back Zach Ertz to see if he can help the group be more productive.

Do Howie Roseman and Nick Sirianni have the right plans for this particular team? Do the coordinators have the right schematic ideas? Are the players as locked in as they need to be? This team has yet to really impress in 2026. They were up and down in the joint practices. And that was against the struggling Patriots. The Eagles stunk in all three preseason games. They were up and down in the first two regular season games before playing poorly in Chicago.

You can’t point to anything to get genuinely excited about. The offense is wildly inconsistent. The defense has underachieved. They only have 3 sacks and don’t have a single takeaway.

As bad as things might sound, this group still has a lot of potential. It won’t shock me to see them turn things around and start playing at a high level. Multiple experts picked this team to win the Super Bowl for a reason. The flip side is that I can also see things going sideways and this being a disappointing season. I don’t get good vibes from this team. But I also had serious questions in 2024 and that group became a juggernaut once they got past the slow start.

The Rams come to Philly on Sunday. They are 1-2 and coming off a highly frustrating loss. Sirianni, his coaches and the players better come up with some answers in a hurry or the Eagles could find themselves 2-2 with things getting crazy in a hurry.

https://igglesblitz.com/2026/09/something-or-nothing/

Defensively, there are some change that may be having a bigger effect than what was expected. Losing Jaelon Phillips, Reed Blankenship and, especially, Nakobe Dean.

Losing Phillips was supposed to be offset by Nolan Smith, Jalyx Hunt continuing to develop and produce. And then the signing of Greenard. Smith and Hunt have been particularly disappointing and Greenard just got on the field.

Blankenship was not exceptional but he did bring a degree of stability and made the occasional nice play. Makuba, coming off injury, continues to struggle.

Nakobe Dean brought leadership, instinct, intelligence which had not been replaced by Jihaad Campbell....

The eagles went into the season expecting the young guys to fill in these losses by continuing to develop. That still may happen.

Offensively, the combination of a new OC, new system and an offensive line that is no longer a top 10 unit, and that makes for a lot less consistency and mistakes. It could take another 4-5 game for the offense to produce consistently.

Yes, the eagles have a lot of talent. But some of the young talent haven't lived up to expectations......the bears game exposed those areas more than previous games. So every game is going to be a real question mark as to what we will see......we could see the defense step up and control the rams and/or the offense create more scoring opportunities. The rams aren't exactly playing like a crowned Super Bowl team.

OR we could see a continuation of the Monday night game......so I guess what I'm saying is that the game against the rams is the real test?? LMAO....🤣

We've lost a lot of talent, some key players we've retained have fallen off a cliff due to injuries and we've drafted extremely poorly the last 2 years. We don't have the players anymore.

Not to mention Nick's high school offense. Nick isn't qualified to coach in major college nor could he coach in major high school programs in Western Pa Ohio Florida Texas California or other top areas. His offensive knowledge fits as an average high school coach. Not many people as talentless as he go as far as he has in life. Nick should end us as a motivational speaker appearing at corporate events. Hard to think of anyone who has had more success in life with so little ability. A testament to how far one can go by telling people what they want to hear

2 hours ago, weko said:

We've lost a lot of talent, some key players we've retained have fallen off a cliff due to injuries and we've drafted extremely poorly the last 2 years. We don't have the players anymore.

The 2022, 2023, 2024 draft were really good drafts.....the 2025 draft has not had the immediate impact those earlier drafts had but, obviously, the eagles are hoping some of those guys continue to develop more. They definitely haven't drafted poorly.

I think one of the hardest things to know when retaining young players or drafting new guys is determining IF they can continue to develop. Sometimes even really good coaches can only get so much out of a young player. That's why some high draft picks fall off the cliff and some low draft picks become viable starters.

Also, it's tough when a team signs a guy to a big 2nd contract, only to have that players suffer a series of injuries that may end up making him a lesser player.

I don't think all is lost......I think we just have to be patient longer.

This team is so hard to get a read on.

On the one hand over the last year and a bit they have been poorly prepared, ill disciplined and an average team overall.

But we’ve seen that before right? We’ve seen this team go from being elite in 2022 to lost and trying to get it together in 2023 (despite a very good record they were not good that year). And then in 2024 they bounced back (after a rocky start) and were elite. And then last year again they weren’t good and never convinced.

So right now I’m going on what I’ve seen for over a year and that’s an average team. A team that isn’t good enough on offense and relies on the defense. And right now the defense is failing them. But they could turn that around because they have done before.

There’s talent on this roster but also I’m not sure they are as great as we thought. There’s potential but there’s also ageing and broken players who we hope can get it back together but maybe they can’t?