Eagles' offense completely collapses vs. Rams: Who's to blame and what needs to change

The offensive meltdown after having the chance to deliver the knockout punch to Los Angeles highlights an uncomfortable truth in Philadelphia

By Garrett Podell

Oct 4, 2026 at 9:04 pm ET

The Philadelphia Eagles' 24-20 collapse at home against the Los Angeles Rams in Week 4 on Sunday is a five-alarm fire for the back-to-back NFC East division champions. 

Philadelphia had Los Angeles on the proverbial ropes. The Eagles led 20-10, and they had the ball on the two, just a couple of yards from scoring a touchdown that would land the knockout punch and put the game entirely out of reach with under eight minutes to play. At that moment, the NFL's Next Gen Stats assessed the Rams had a win probability as minuscule as 3.2%. 

But Los Angeles stuffed quarterback Jalen Hurts on Philadelphia's famed "Tush Push" play before he threw incomplete on fourth-and-goal to force a turnover on downs. From that moment on, on their final two drives, the Eagles' offense lost a combined 14 yards. The Rams mounted consecutive, 10-play touchdown drives capped by rushing touchdowns from running back Kyren Williams. 

The Eagles lost for the first time with Hurts when up double-digit points in a game's final five minutes, per CBS Sports Research. They were previously a perfect 41-0 in such situations (including the playoffs). The last time the Eagles lost in regulation when leading by at least 10 in the final five minutes was all the way back in a 2018 game against the Carolina Panthers, with Carson Wentz starting at quarterback. 

So how did we get here? Let's take a look. 

Who's to blame after Week 4 collapse?

What killed the Eagles was a couple of things, starting with injuries and head coach Nick Sirianni's inability to assemble an offense that provides easy answers for Hurts. Running back Saquon Barkley, the player Philadelphia built its offense around, exited the game with a hamstring injury. Even before kickoff, the Eagles knew they would be without top wide receiver DeVonta Smith, tight end Dallas Goedert, offensive guard Landon Dickerson and right tackle Lane Johnson. 

With all those players sidelined, Sirianni and offensive coordinator Sean Mannion couldn't build a game plan that provided Hurts and Co. with easy answers in high-leverage situations, particularly third down. The Eagles didn't convert on any of their 12 third downs, which is Philadelphia's most third-down attempts in a game without a conversion in the past 35 seasons, per CBS Sports Research. It's also the most third-down attempts without a conversion by any team in a game this decade, per NFL Media Research. 

"Oh-for on third down, it hurts your drives. It hurts your being able to do the things you want to do on offense," head coach Nick Sirianni said postgame. "It can put you in a pressing situation at times. ... That to me is where we had our biggest issues here today was there."

Third down disaster

How much did the Eagles' third-down inefficiency kill the offense? According to The Ringer, Philadelphia's 172 total yards of offense ranked as its lowest in a game in the last 12 years, while its 68 net passing yards are its lowest in a regular-season game in 23 years. On all of Philadelphia's third-down plays, it's clear Hurts didn't have the opportunity to execute key plays. He chalked it up to execution by the players, not an issue with the coaching staff. 

"Poor execution. I don't think there's any other way to put it. ... I have to be better. I have to figure it out. However it looks, whatever that means," Hurts said postgame.

We'll save you the trouble of digging into every third-down play from the Eagles because it was ugly. But on third-down attempts, they had:

• Six incompletions

• Two sacks

• Two penalties

• Three runs for a combined -3 yards

The most glaring execution issue came on the third-and-goal from the 2-yard line, in which the Eagles had a chance to put the game out of reach for good. Left guard Cam Jurgens, being too early coming off the line of scrimmage, threw off the timing of the Eagles' quarterback run play, and the Rams stuffed it for no gain. A play later, a Hurts incompletion led to a turnover on downs before Philadelphia netted minus-14 yards across their final two possessions. 

Including the goal-line miscue, the Eagles had six offensive possessions in the second half, and they ended as follows: punt, punt, turnover on downs, turnover on downs, punt, and turnover on downs. 

However, Sunday afternoon's offensive woes after halftime weren't unique to Week 4. In their 24-22 Week 1 win over the Washington Commanders, they scored 10 points. In their 24-20 Week 2 win at the Tennessee Titans, they scored 10 points. Across the last two weeks, a blowout "Monday Night Football" loss vs. the Chicago Bears and the loss against the Rams, Philadelphia went scoreless after halftime. The Eagles are now the league's worst second-half offense as a result.

Philadelphia Eagles' second-half offense, 2026 season		NFL ranks
PPG	5.0	Last
Total YPG	100.3	Last
Yards per play	3.8	Last
Yards per pass attempt	5.2	Last
Red Zone TD pct	33.3%	T-Last
Third down conversion pct	29.6%	T-27th
Expected points added (EPA) per play	-0.31	Last

What needs to change

New offensive coordinator Sean Mannion came to Philadelphia after spending last season as the Green Bay Packers quarterbacks coach under Matt LaFleur. He also played for Sean McVay and the Rams and Kevin O'Connell and the Minnesota Vikings across his nine-season playing career. 

He is a branch off the Shanahan-McVay coaching tree, which tends to have offenses that display heavy doses of motion, quarterbacks lining up under center and play-action passing. The scheme wants the looks for runs and passes to appear the same to defenses. That way, the quarterback should be able to easily run a given play as called and then take advantage of a defense that can't tell what's coming. 

In Mannion's offense under Sirianni, the Eagles are just average in motion rate (45.2%, 15th in the NFL) while ranking bottom-five in under-center rate (31.3%, 28th) and dead last in play-action rate (14.5%). Running the Shanahan-McVay offense without its core staples is like trying to win the lottery: The odds are that it isn't going to work out for you. 

In addition to needing better health across the board, the Eagles need Sirianni to let Mannion fully incorporate every element of his playbook that he would like. Otherwise, the easy answers won't be present in Philadelphia. 

"I have a ton of confidence in Sean [Mannion]. He's going to wear a lot of this, no doubt. I'm going to wear a lot of this," Sirianni said postgame. "Our offense is going to wear a lot of this. You win together, you lose together. I have no complaints with what happened there today. There's opportunity for us to grow."  

Sirianni's confidence in Mannion and what he wants to do needs to be more than lip service going forward. Otherwise, he'll have to explain why the Eagles missed the playoffs for the first time in his tenure come January.

https://www.cbssports.com/nfl/news/eagles-collapse-vs-rams-whos-to-blame-nick-sirianni-jalen-hurts/

In short summation, this seems like the perfect storm brewing with potential failure coming this season.

• Bad free agency decisions

• Wrong decisions on extending players or not resigning players

• Not drafting well (our 2025 draft is a really bad one)

• HC/QB Duo is failing

• If Mannion fails then that is 3 horrible OC hires in what should have been a 2-3 year SB window for this organization

• 2024 wore the heck out of Barkley

• Defense lacks a premier pass rusher

• Special teams rarely helps us on returns

• Don't know if the Stoutland decision was the right move

• O-Line is about to be completely revamped........thanks Johnson, Jurgens and Dickerson!

After 4 games, you want to see gradual progress on offense. The offense, on occasion, has shown some flashes but that's it.....a flash, no consistency, no attack mode.

What I'm seeing is:

1). The Jurgens/Kendall move isn't working. And Dickerson will never be the player he was.....Johnson is old and has off-field distractions, Mailata and Steen are not playing well and may have hit their developmental peak.

2) Mannion's play calling goes thru long lulls and mind boggling choices......I'm not seeing the creativity that was talked about in preseason.

3) Mannion can't make adjustments after halftime.......the 2nd half numbers are appalling.

4) When Hurts is being blitzed so much, the OC has to adjust the play calling to make a defense pay.....simply not seeing that at all. Does Hurts have the ability to change the play? He MUST see the blitzes coming but he doesn't seem to make adjustments.

5) 3rd & 4th down conversion is beyond embarrassing......

6) The defensive line is overrated...... Greenard has been a huge disappointment....injury after injury. Hunt was hyped up in preseason, but hasn't produced. Smith finally showed up yesterday.....Carter is getting double and triple teamed......because DCs don't worry about anybody else.

7) Sirianni lost that game with his idiotic decisions. The 4th down tush push near midfield put the defense on a short field for no reason. Head coaches need to realize they can be aggressive if they have the horses up front....the eagles do not.

8) The eagles lost 2 huge NFC match ups with playoff implications.

9) We're once again going to go thru a season with a novice OC......with Sirianni blabbing about it always "being on him".

10) Campbell is not Nakobe Dean.

11) With these 2 games agains the bears and rams, it's time to experiment with sitting some "starters" on the O-line.......it may not be the answer, but let's find out.

12) The TE situation is pathetic. No immediate answers there. Maybe Ertz can be a little productive....but even when Goedart comes back, he'll get hurt again. But there's little help on the immediate horizon at TE.

13) The tackling still remains poor......

14) This season may determine Sirianni's future here.......and I don't think he's capable of hard decisions or forcing positive changes during the year. The eagles have actually gotten worse with each game....and none of the defenses they've played are top defenses.

15) I'm disappointed that we may have to go thru another year of floundering to either squeak into the playoffs or lose the division to the f------ cowpies.....

16) I doubt that Roseman can do anything before the trade deadline to boost the team......because there remains too many issues.

We need to be sellers at the deadline to get more mid to late picks and shed some salary off the cap