The Good, the bad and the ugly: Week 10 at Giants

[e-a-g-l-e-s eagles!]

The Good:

1. Sanders and Scott… the running game—While they’re very very very few good things to come out of this game, the Eagles running game was the lone bright spot. Even Corey Clement got into the act as he was able to run for a 5 yard touchdown. On the afternoon, the Eagles rushed for 156 yards and 23 carries for a 6.8 yards per carry. The Eagles trio of RBs combined for 153 of the 156 rushing yards. It was nice to see Sanders back out there after missing the past couple of games. He looked spry and like his old self. He was finding holes and hitting them with burst. He also made some thing out of nothing a couple of times as well. On the day, he had 85 rushing yards on just 15 carries for 5.7 yards per carry.  Additionally, he saved Hurts and Doug by picking up a botch snap by Hurts and gaining some positive yardage off of it. Scott had a huge 56 yard touchdown run to get the Eagles to within 3 after the two-point conversion. I am surprised the Eagles got the touchdown. It looked like his heel touched the out of bounds line. Nevertheless, Scott finished with 63 yards on 3 carries and a touchdown. Frankly I think the Eagles should have relied even more on him and Boston Scott. They were running the ball effectively and efficiently until the end of the game where the Eagles kept trying to bounce it to the outside, which had been stuffed late in the game. With Carson and the passing game struggling, the Eagles should’ve have continued to lean on the running game. This has become a problem that Doug refuses to realize his passing game is not very good and his running game should be the thing he relies on more heavily. Furthermore, once Sanders appears to be going and the running game is taking off, Doug simply just goes away from it and becomes pass happy. I think Baker Mayfield is a bad QB, but the Browns have at least figured out that they can win games with their talented backfield in spite of his lackluster passing game. 

2. Run blocking—I actually thought this was the best game run blocking game that the offensive line had in quite some time. It has been awhile since the Eagles have had some of the holes they were creating. Scott had a sizeable hole on his long touchdown run. On many of the runs by Sanders early in the game, he was getting some holes that really haven’t been many over the past couple of weeks. On the Clement touchdown, Pryor was able to get a massive block to help Clement run into the end zone with relative ease. I am guessing the Eagles are going to get Seumalo back in the next two weeks and Herbig as well. I actually think the Eagles running attack might be able to get better and better as the season continues as long as Sanders stays healthy and Doug is willing to admit his team is better off in the hands of his running back then in the arm of his QBs.

3. No turnovers on offense—Give the Eagles credit, they might have looked like complete crap on offense, but they didn’t turn the ball over even when there were multiple botched or bad snaps. Really don’t remember Wentz throwing a pass where I believe the Giants had a good chance at picking it off. In a game that didn’t have a lot of positives, at least the Eagles didn’t turn the ball over. So baby steps for the offense. 

4. Red zone offense—The Eagles were not able to actually make it into the red zone more than one time on the afternoon. That is a major problem. At least when they did find their way into the red zone in the third quarter, they were able to capitalize with a Corey Clement 5 yard touchdown run.  

5. Rodgers more productive then Goedert and Ertz—Rodgers on the afternoon hauled in 4 catches fro 60 yards. He has been more productive than both Goedert and Ertz this season. On the season, Rodgers has 19 receptions for 244 yards. Meanwhile, Ertz has 24 receptions for 178 yards and Goedert has 18 receptions for 186 yards.  That is not good. 

 

On the fence:

1. Reagor usage and performance— While Reagor didn’t have a bad game, I have been pretty underwhelmed by how the Eagles have utilized him in the offense and his lack of overall production when he has been out on the field. I think Reagor is talented enough to be a good starting WR in this league. I think he has the speed and athleticism to create mismatches for opposing team. However, I feel Doug and this offensive coaching staff has no clue how to utilize their young receiver. The last two years, I watch the Niners figure out creative ways to get the ball into the hands of Deebo Samuel and Aiyuk. It is not the simplistic run this route. They are using them in a variety of ways. Having them come across the field in motion and getting them on a sweep or a shovel pass to utilize their speed and athletic ability. They use crossers over the middle of the field or deep shots or curl routes. They aren’t limiting their players to just a certain dimensions of the offense. They are building the offense to their strengths and maximizing them to their fullest. Here it feels very vanilla and bland type of play calls. On the day, Reagor had 4 receptions for 47 yards and no rushes. In fact he has 1 rush all season in his four games and really it was because Wentz threw behind him so it counted as a rush. On the season, the Eagles first round pick has hauled in 12 receptions for 159 yards and a touchdown. Injuries have halted some of that but so has poor creativity and offensive coaching.  

2. 3^rd down defense—When you look at the overall numbers, the Eagles did a decent job of getting off the field on third. The Eagles were 5-for-14, which is 35.7 percent. However like the first game against the Giants, this stat feels like fools gold. Early in the game, the Eagles had a chance to get off the field on a 3^rd and 8. Instead Jackson commits an encroachment penalty and then the Eagles proceeded to give Engram a 4 yard reception to pick up the first down and on the very next play Jones rushes in for a 34-yard touchdown. On the second drive of the game, the Eagles had an opportunity to get off the field on third down. Shepard picked up 3 when he needed just two and the drive resulted in another Giants touchdown. The Eagles had more than just those two opportunities on third down to do something and make a play and yet they didn’t. I give the Eagles credit because after the 1^st two drives they held the Giants to just 3-for-11 (27.3%), but they seemingly just cannot get off the field when they need to at times particularly in the red zone.  

 

The Bad: 

1. Carson looks bad and like a game manager— I do not think this was Wentz’s worse game of the season. He actually didn’t commit a turnover, which is a rarity this season for the Eagles and himself. Actually the first time he hasn’t turned it over all season. However, he just didn’t look like the best player on the field all game even though he is being paid to be the best player on the field. He had some guys open where he just sailed the ball on them. Goedert early in the game and late in the game, he just missed him high. He had a ball that was behind Fulgham. Heck even the PI called on the Ward pass was debatable because the refs were not sure Ward had a chance at catching it with how overthrown the pass was even with Ward being mugged. Additionally, he looked off some of his receivers who were open. He isn’t seeing the field well whatsoever. Add He completed only 57% of his passes; even with the drops it was going to be in the low 60%. Heck he only completed one pass over 22 yards.To Wentz’s credit, I thought most of the day he was smart about when to get rid of the ball and he wasn’t making awful decisions with the ball where turnovers could occur. I think the bigger disappointment on the day is that Wentz was thoroughly outplayed by Jones. Jones gave his WRs chances to make plays and even beat the Eagles routinely with his legs.  Jones’ pass to Slayton, which all but sealed the Giants victory was a dime. Heck Jones had back-to-back passes to Shepard and Tate on the touchdown drive after the eagles cut the lead to 4 where he gave his WRs chances to make big time plays. It never felt like Wentz gave his WRs chances to make big time plays. It felt like he played this game very conservatively. I am not sure what to think with Wentz. This game he was much better than he was against Dallas, which really isn’t a great barometer. He was downright god awful in that game. This game, he felt like a marginal QB. I have watched a lot of football over the years, this felt like I was watching an average to below average quarterback playing not to make a critical mistake and not really being the guy the Eagles are paying him to be. I hate saying it, but he looked like a game manager trying not to lose the game and not a star quarterback this team needs to win this game. I do not know how many more games your offense can managed to score 15 and 17 points and not make some sort of change, but it is about to get really ugly especially if the Eagles cannot figure out ways to score against Seattle’s awful defense in two weeks. Wentz is locked in due to his contract for at least the next 2 seasons, but there has to get to a point if he keeps looking like he has for much of the season about finding out if Hurts is a starting caliber QB. I do not think that time has come yet, but I also do not think it is too far off if we get to after the Saints game and this offense is still only managing 16 points like it has the last two games. 

2. Slay the playmaker?—For much of the year Slay has been a bright spot for the Eagles secondary. He is asked to cover the best WR on the other team and he really has done an excellent job when he has been out there most of the year. Against Slayton today, he had some issues. Slayton was able haul in 5 of his 7 targets for 93 yards. He was able to make a critical 40-yard reception late in the game that pretty much sealed the Eagles fate. Nevertheless, it just feels like we needed someone to make a big time play and we have yet to get that big time play by Slay. On the season, Slay has 0 interceptions. This isn’t his entirely his fault, teams are attacking NRC and Maddox along with our other corners because they know they aren’t very good. But I feel like for the most part Slay has been good but not the playmaker or interception total the Eagles were hoping to get at corner simply as he has left some games early and our other secondary players are average or not very good. 

3. Oline solid in the run blocking and bad pass pro—I actually thought the offensive line was solid at run blocking until late in the game, but not very good against the rush. The Eagles particularly in between the tackles were doing an excellent job to create holes for Sanders. Additionally, they were being the attacker early on in the game and pushing Giants’ defenders off the line. On the other hand, the Giants were able to sack Wentz 3 times and hit Wentz 13 times. While a good portion of the season, Wentz has put himself in harms way by holding onto the ball way too long, this game it didn’t feel like that. Yes there was a play or two, but really the Eagles offensive line was just not overly great at picking up the blitzer and allowing pressure to get to Carson. I do give Peters and Lane credit as they were able to make it through the entire game without leaving the field. That said, I would have played Mailata at tackle and moved Peters back to RG. I do not need to see Peters at LT anymore. Yes he wasn’t the major problem today for the Eagles offensive line, but this team isn’t exactly going place besides maybe a first round playoff exit. I would like to see Mailata developing more then peters who is not going to be here the next couple season. Then again, Lurie and the Eagles cant seem to just accept they need to move on from Peters and not pay him anymore. 

4. Where’s freaking Fulgham?— I am absolutely baffled by how the Eagles managed to only look Fulgham’s way 5 times in this game. He has been the Eagles best offensive player since the 49ers game in week 4. Yet he has seen his targets over the last 3 weeks decline with every week that passes. Over the last 3 weeks, his targets have gone from 11 to 7 to 5. Perhaps the league has caught up with the Eagles and Fulgham or maybe it is the Eagles that aren’t giving their young WR enough targets and forcing a square peg into a round hole by throwing out Alshon onto the field or targeting Greg Ward and Dick Rod as many or more times then Fulgham. I do not think this is the league catching up to Fulgham as much as it is the Eagles seemingly just do not look to him enough. Even in the first Giants game, it took Doug and the offense 3 quarters to remember him. Against Dallas it felt like there were long stretches where the Eagles just do look to him. I love getting Reagor back, but it feels like the Eagles are trying to prove a point by force-feeding Reagor with some passes. That fourth down pass to Reagor is not the guy I want to go to with Bradberry on him. I want to find my big WR who is facing the less Giants corner. Heck I was perplexed that the Eagles used Clement for a red zone target and failed to look Fulgham’s way inside the red zone where his size and length would massively help the Eagles. At this point, it is criminal that we only have targeted Fulgham on average 6 times against Dallas and the Giants. He finished the afternoon with 1 catch for 8 yards. 

5. Unimpressed with Goedert in past 2 games— I know fans were really high on Goedert and thought he would be the guy going forward as Ertz would be dealt away at the trade deadline or this offseason.  I still think that is ultimately the case, however, I have been really underwhelmed and unimpressed by Goedert since returning from his injury and really outside the first game of the season; Do not get me wrong, Wentz hasn’t helped him. Also I think his week 8 performance was more the Eagles suited him up because of his blocking prowess and not his receiving in that game. In this game, he had two throws in which one was massively overthrown and the other was overthrown and nearly got Goedert hurt. That said, it feels like Goedert is always leaving the field or getting hurt. He left the field in the first quarter to go to the medical tent. This seemingly has been an issue with him that he has had nagging type of injuries and this year a major fracture. Since returning, he has hauled in 5 receptions for 48 yards. He has basically been as useful as Ertz when he was on the field. Heck Dick Rod has looked like the Eagles best TE this season. In fact he has hauled in more receptions and yards than Ertz and Goedert who are more talented players. I still believe Goedert is going to be a very good tight end in the NFL, but I do think it is a stretch where fans just assume he is going to be as good in the receiving aspect as Ertz or that he becomes as good as Celek in his prime. So far he has shown glimpses of being that good, but he has also had 4 games this season where he has failed to reach 35 receiving yards. I would like to see him get more involved in this passing game because I think he is a mismatch, but outside of that Washington game it doesn’t seem to be trending that way. 

6. Kelce’s snaps—I love Kelce, but today was a really bad day for him in this aspect. There were about 5-6 snaps that were way too low or botched cause he didn’t get a good snap back to Hurts or Wentz. We were fortunate that none of them led to turnovers. Nevertheless, hard to be mad at Kelce as he has been one of the only players on the field every game this year and is still playing at a high level considering the musical chairs going on at both guard spots. 

 

The Ugly:

1. Doug the playcaller needs to go—I think Doug is a solid to good head coach in terms of getting his guys to play hard and responding to adversity, but his play calling leaves a lot to be desired. We are now in the 5^th year under Doug and in 4 of the 5 years the offense has been stagnant, stale and uncreative for large portions of those 4 years. Really the year that is looking like the outlier is 2017. The Eagles are not going to fire Doug midseason nor do I think they fire him at all after winning a SB just 3 seasons ago. However, the only solution I see right now for the Eagles is for him to give up play calling duties. It simply isn’t working. This team has faced two bad defenses over the last 2 games and has barely managed to score 17 and 15 points. Additionally, the Eagles offense over the last 3 weeks against the Giants, Cowboys and Giants has averaged 18ppg. On the season, the Eagles offense has scored under 20 points in 5 of their 9 games (Niners and Cowboys got defensive touchdowns). It feels like this offense is very predictable and easy to defend. Even the Hurts trick plays have become stale and predictable. Like the I know what is coming. We keep Wentz on the field at WR and teams know he is useless out there so it is basically 10 vs. 11 and add on we refuse to let Hurts throw it more to keep teams honest. This offense just feels like a disaster waiting to happen. There is no flow or juice or rhythm. When I watch a lot of the good offenses around the league I see coaches using one play to set up the defense on another. There isn’t any of that going on with the Eagles. This game to me was far worse then any of the previous games as the Eagles have a ton of weapons back at their disposal and we managed to see the same dead offense we have most of the year. Heck even the Ravens and Steelers games are looking more like fools gold as the points came when the Eagles found themselves in deep holes and maybe those teams just took their foot off the peddle.  At this point, you have to change something. Doug and the play calling has really been bleh all season and really a large portion of his tenure. I am not sure who the Eagles give the play calling to or if that even works, but at this point it is better than seeing the same thing over and over again. 

** Also an issue is the Eagles always seem to be rushing to get the play in and the playclock is running out. We need to be quicker with getting the play in, getting the play called and lining up. This is another thing that could fall under why Doug should give up play calling duties. 

2. Eagles D to start the game and team after the bye—Another issue the Eagles have had over the years with Doug is not looking ready to play after the bye week. His first year, they lost to the Lions. In 2017, the Eagles found themselves down 9-7 to Cowboys team down Zeke. In 2018, the Eagles lost to the Cowboys. In 2019, they looked good on the opening drive against the Patriots and then disappeared for the rest of the game. In Doug’s tenure, the Eagles are now 1-4 after the bye week. So instead of getting healthy, fresh and some renewed energy, they have looked as bad if not worse after the bye weeks. It wasn’t just the offense today, the defense was atrocious to start the game. The Giants marched down the field with relative ease on their first two possessions of the game. The Giants who had the 31^st ranked offense in the league, scored touchdowns on 75 and 85 yard drives. The defense just came out expecting the Giants to just roll over and play dead after Barnett got a sack. Instead, Gallman gashed them and Daniel Jones picked their defense apart and even used his legs to beat them. The Eagles defense the rest of the game only gave up 13 points, but the first two drives of the game couldn’t stop anyone. That to me is just not showing up and also likely overlooking your opponent. The Giants might stink but they always fight until the very end and aren’t a pushover. Felt like the Eagles defense didn’t believe that and just thought they’d dominate. Additionally, how many guys really looked ready to go from the opening whistle with a chance to beat a hated division rival and really take a stranglehold over the division? It felt like this team was just flat and unprepared. 

3. 00000’fer on 3^rd down—You want to know why the Eagles lost this game, this is one of the biggest reasons. The Eagles failed to convert on a third down the entire game. the eagles were 0-9. First time they’ve failed to convert on 3rd down for an entire game since 2004. That is really really hard to do. Even Dallas with Dinucci at QB was able to convert a couple 3^rd downs against the Eagles. What makes this even worse is the Eagles weren’t facing one of the best defenses in the league. The Giants were ranked 26^th overall in the league on third down. Heading into the game, the Giants were giving opponents conversions on 48% of their third downs. This is the 4^th consecutive week in a row where the Eagles have just not been very productive on third down. Over the last 4 weeks, the Eagles are converting at 23.8% (10-42), which is far and away the worst in the NFL over that time. Yup even worse than the pathetic Jets. One of the major reasons the Eagles find themselves struggling on third down is the amount of times they have found themselves in 3^rd and 7+. In this game, the Eagles were in 3^rd and 10 or more 5 times.  The Eagles were only in 3^rd and less than 7 on 4 occasions. On the season, the Eagles have had 116 third down opportunities. The Eagles have been in 3^rd and 7+ on 57 of those third downs. That is 49% of the third downs are 3^rd and 7+.  Heck that number is higher than their conversion percentage, which is just 29.7 percent on the year (46-116). This is offense is going to continue to be stagnant and unproductive until the Eagles can figure out how to cure their ills on first and second down to put themselves into more manageable positions and until they figure out how to get this offense to generate first downs. 

4. Linebackers— If you only looked at the box score and saw Singleton and Edwards having 16 and 12 tackles respectively then you’d think they were very productive, active and solid on the day. However, they were very routinely out of position against the run early in the game, which allowed the Giants to go up 11 points before you knew what hit you. They were basically playing like Nate Gerry who seemed to always be chasing from 3-5 yards behind to make a tackle. This is going to continue to be a problem as the year continues and I fully expect teams to exploit it more and more when we face some of the better offenses in the league. I like Edwards and Singleton as quality depth, but I do not think either is a starter in this league. Singleton is just not talented enough to be a starter. He can make some plays here and there like on 3^rddown when Jones ran, but for the most part he isn’t a guy who should be more than a quality backup. As for Edwards, I thought he would be solid against the run. It is why I was surprised that he was all over the place to start the game. In the passing game, that is where I figured he would struggle. The stats over the last two games looks great, but really I do think he has played all that well. I think like Singleton, he is a nice backup LB for depth, but the more and more he plays the more and more he is going to be exposed. As for Taylor, I saw they got him on the field when the Giants got inside the 5. He didn’t really do anything to impress me. I am not going to even go into Duke Riley, if you are using him for anything other than ST then you should already know you are likely screwed.   

5. Containment of QBs— Nothing irritates me more than seeing the same mistake continue to happen week after week after week. That is how you get fired and should be fired. I do not know how many times I need to see Josh Sweat continue to make the mistake of just going all in and crashing down on the read option. This was a problem for him in the Ravens game. It was a problem even in the Giants game and Cowboys games prior to this one. He routinely is doing it and teams are killing the Eagles for long runs by the QB cause of it. On Jones 34-yard touchdown run against the Eagles today, he did it once again. Additionally, he then did it a couple of drives later and was fortunate the other Eagles defenders bailed him out. This isn’t just him though, Graham was killed on this on Jones 80-yard run in the first meeting with the Giants. It seems to be an issue for all of the Eagles DEs. At some point in time, you have to respect the RO and not just sell out to make a tackle on the running back. In two games against the Eagles Danie Jones has had a run of 34 and 80 yards. Furthermore, Jones has rushed for 156 yards on 13 carries against the Eagles this year. This is going to continue to happen especially with Mayfield and the browns running attack as well as Wilson coming up over the next two weeks.  

6. This Pass rush/DL is overrated— For a team that tried to sell us on the ideas of signing Hargrave and Malik Jackson so that we could have an elite defensive line it feels like that money could have been better spent elsewhere. The Eagles are paying everyone along that defensive line to be one of the best if not top 3 units in the league, but for the most part it feels like some weeks they play the part and other weeks they are just an average group. This is a game where the Eagles defensive line should have dominated a mediocre to below average Giants offensive line. The Eagles might have registered 3 sacks and 8 Hits, but it felt like they didn’t do enough to force a turnover from the turnover prone Daniel Jones. Jones was able complete 75% of his passes. Additionally, the Giants were moving guys like Cox, Hargrave and Jackson out of the way on their runs early in the game. This might have been Malik Jackson’s worse game of the season. He only registered a QB hit and I don’t even remember the play where he did that. He had more penalties then he had Hits, sacks and tackles combined. Hargrave might have played better than he has all season, but really he still underperformed in my book. He still hasn’t looked dominate and the Eagles are paying him to be better than just a rotational DT. I feel like the Eagles backups could be giving you the same amount of production as he is. 

7. Run defense— As this season continues, this feels like one of the worse run defenses the Eagles have had under Schwartz. The first two drives by the Giants, they were able to accumulate 94 yards and two rushing touchdowns. Now it isn’t just the running backs that are killing the Eagles, it is also QBs scrambling and misdirection trick plays as well. In this game, the Eagles gave up 151 yards on 36 carries and 3 touchdowns. That is a 4.2 yards per carry average. This now marks the 7^thtime this year the Eagles have given up over 115 yards rushing in a game. The damage isn’t all coming from the RB position, but their opponents are just routinely beating the Eagles on the ground. In previous years, the Eagles maybe had 2-3 games in a season where they gave their opponent 100 yards on the ground. This season it has been almost every game. 

8. Starting field position—Another reason why the Eagles have struggled on offense to score points is their average starting field position. On the season, the Eagles have had 107 offensive possessions. They have started at the 25 or inside the 25 on 74 of those offensive possessions. That means on average, the Eagles are starting at or inside their own 25 yard line on 69.2% of their offensive possessions. It is really hard to score touchdowns in this league when you have to go 75+ yards on a majority of your possessions. In this game, the Eagles had 10 possessions, their best starting field position all day was starting at the 25-yard line. Their average starting field position for this game was the 16-yard line. That means on average the Eagles would have to go 84 yards to get a touchdown. This falls on the Eagles not being able to flip field position. That means special teams no doing their job on returns, defense not getting off the field and the offense not sustaining drives long enough to flip the script for the defense. 

9. Maddox and NRC— I am tired of seeing these two on the field. I much rather see what Jacquet has and see if he becomes a player then continuously rely on these two week in and week out. They simply are just not very good. NRC has an easy interception hit him in the facemask and just gets outmuscled by Tate cause he is too small. It is weekly that teams are just burning him over the middle. As for Maddox, he just simply isn’t as good as the Eagles keep thinking he is. He has regressed every season since his rookie season. He isn’t an outside corner. He isn’t big enough to defend against the bigger WRs of the league who will use their size and strength against him. Frankly I am not sure he is good enough in the slot either. You want to know a reason why Slay hasn’t been given more opportunities to make some plays, it is because teams are purposefully just targeting these two because they aren’t very good. This offseason I made the statement that the Eagles needed to address their other outside corner position because it wasn’t good enough. It is proving to be an issue and it is wasting much of the performances we are getting from Slay this season. 

10. Red zone defense—Another area where the Eagles used to be very good and have completely fallen off the map this year is red zone defense. Against the Giants, who ranked 31^stin the league inside the red zone at 45.8%, the red zone defense managed two give up 2 touchdowns on three trips. On the season, opponents have entered the red zone against the Eagles 29 times and have scored touchdowns on 20 of those trips. That is 69% of the time that Eagles opponents are scoring touchdowns inside the red zone. It is actually worse when you figure in that Washington gave the Eagles turnover on downs in the first game of the season cause their was basically no time left.  It really should be 71%. If you really want to dive deeper Dallas had the ball in the red zone when the clock ran out otherwise it could be 21 tds or could say 20-27. This is one of the worst red zone defenses in the league.  

11. Lack of turnovers— Coming into this game, you had to think the Eagles had an excellent chance to continue their turnover trend from the previous two weeks. Jones was one of the most turnover prone QBs in the league. Unfortunately, the Eagles were not able to force a turnover. The Eagles had chances in this game to force some turnovers, but NRC dropped an interception and the pass rush was not able to get enough pressure on Jones for large portions of the game. On the season, the Eagles are 0-5-1 when they force 1 or less turnovers. This is a big problem for the Eagles. They are going to have massive when they run into Wilson, Rodgers, Brees and Murray if they are not able to create turnovers.  It feels like all four of those games might turn into blowouts with how the offense looked today and the defense’s inability to create a turnover or stopping their opponents after the offense does give the team some momentum. 

12. Just IR Jeffery— I just saw Alshon Jeffery give us his best JJAW impersonation. Personally, I do not care if we ever see him again in an Eagles uniform as I much rather these snaps go to Fulgham and the other younger WRs. I do not need to take away from the development from younger guys with a future on this team so that an aging player who is past his prime and cant stay healthy can get on the field. I rather these snaps go to Hightower or Watkins and see if we can continue grooming them so they can contribute even more in 2021. That to me is more important than seeing Alshon who is gone this offseason. Also this team whenever he seems to be out there just doesn’t have the same vibe and juice. 

13. Special teams regression—While special teams might not be as bad as the offense was today or the defense was to start the game/after we score points, but it was not very good. There has been a clear regression on all aspects on special teams since 2017.  Our return units have not had a big return in what feels like Barner’s return against the Cardinals in 2017. It feels like every year it gets worse and worse. In this game there is multiple instances. Reagor knowing that the Giants punter is kicking with the wind needs to be standing further back so he can run up and make the catch and not have it sail over his head so we are starting inside our own 10. This is a coaching thing as he has not played in the Meadowlands before. Fipp has to explain this to him and irritate it so that doesn’t happen. Also it wasn’t just Reagor, Ward allowing for punts to just go over his head or not catching them so they bounce like 7-12 yards and we get even worse field position. So put it on Ward, Fipp and even Reagor for putting the offense in even worse position. Their inability to just filed a punt or be in the right position killed the Eagles field position all day. This wasn’t the only issue, I do not know why we have guys poor decisions on blocks on kickoffs. We have Bradley committing an illegal block that cost us 10 yards when the play was basically over and there was no need for the block. Finally, the Eagles gave the Giants a short field. Johnston hits a nice 50-yard punt. Unfortunately, the Eagles didn’t do a very good job on the punt coverage. The Eagles did have one play down the field, but he was not very close to where Peppers was fielding the ball. Went back and watched it 3 times, the Eagles player tried to draw a block to the back penalty but it was clearly an acting job by him. It wasn’t a block to the back. He dove. It was a poor job in coverage by him because if he has his head up when running he might have been able to run to Peppers and make a play. Instead he is across midfield and into Eagles territory and already on the fringe of FG range. But that has been the thing with the Eagles special teams: Just penalties, inadequate return units and coverage as been ok at best. Really the only special teams’ player who’s consistently performed has been Johnston. 

14. Penalties— This team was very undisciplined and it showed with the penalties today. Coming off the bye, this team looked like it lacked focus on the job at hand. The Eagles were called for 11 penalties for 74 yards. Furthermore, their penalties were just boneheaded plays. For instance, Malik Jackson getting an encroachment penalty on a 3^RD and 8.  This 5 yard penalty made the Giants 3^rd and long into a 3^rdand short and they ultimately cashed in for a touchdown after converting on that third down. Jackson had another penalty late in the game for a personal foul, which was beyond stupid even with the game being over. This is now the 4^th time this season, the Eagles have accumulated 70 or more penalty yards. 

15. Somehow lead this division and still likely to win it—Sadly, the Eagles still somehow lead this awful division. However, I do not think it is a sure thing that they win the division. If they beat Dallas and Washington, I do think they will wind up winning a hallow division title. Looking at the Giants schedule, I really only see two games where they would be the favorite: Bengals and Cowboys. Means they would only get to 5 wins if they win both of those games. They’d have to imo upset the Browns or Cardinals just to get to 6 wins. I do not see that happening. Meanwhile, Washington if they would’ve come back to beat the Lions had the best chance imo. They still have Dallas, Bengals, SF, Carolina and the Eagles left on their schedule. If Smith plays like he did in the second half of the Lions game, I do think it is impossible to see them win 4 of those 5 games. However, I think they likely win just 3 of those 5. This all means, if the Eagles somehow lose the next 5 games to the Browns, Seahawks, Packers, Saints and Cardinals then they still might sneak into the playoffs beating just Dallas and Washington. Frankly the Eagles even though they have won 2 of 3 games seem to be trending in the wrong direction. Offensively they’ve gotten healthy and regressed and defensively you don’t get consistency. I could see the Eagles losing out, but I have a feeling they wind up beating Dallas, Washington and somehow winning another game along the way. 

16. Greg Ward the returner—Ward shouldn’t be back there returning punts anymore. I have had enough of it. First he isn’t very good at it. He rarely gets much of a return when he does return the punt. He is just not dynamic enough. Second, today he was just awful at judging when to catch it and when to let it bounce. He cost the Eagles major field position. Third, we have Reagor. He was a returner in college so lets use him more than just one time back there. I get he is your starting outside WR, but right now the offense is a disaster so you might as well see if he can give you a spark or change field position. I am tired of seeing the league leader in fair catches or poor decisions on whether to catch the ball as our returner. 

17. Offense in 4 of 5 seasons— We might need to call 2017for what it is…. An OUTLIER. It really feels that way when you look at the Eagles offense over the last 3 seasons. It feels like the offense has regressed every single season since 2017. Heck this offense looks as awful as the 2016 offense that had no playmakers besides Ertz. For the first time in a really long time, I don’t even look forward to tuning into Eagles games. They’re so many more teams out there that are fun to watch. You see the creativity they have with their players and utilize their players’ strengths. With the Eagles it feels very stale and very predictable with mediocre to poor QB play. I hate to say it, but the Eagles offense was bad in 2016, largely poor for much of 2018, besides December in 2019 not good and this year outside of 3 games unable to even get to 20 points.  Today we were the healthiest we have been since week one and I would arguably one of our worse performances of the season. 

18. Pressing the issue—I think the time to fire Taylor was during the bye. I doubt the Eagles make this move unless they get eliminate from playoff contention. But I am annoyed that the Eagles fired their WR coach nearly every single offseason for not meeting expectations. Yet Wentz has regressed every season under Taylor and we still get this BS he is young, creative and innovative. At this point I question what is the value he has brought to this team since he has gotten a promotion. The Eagles have gotten worse not better. Ditto for Wentz. 

19. JJ inactive-whiteside; abandoning Hightower—I feel like we are seeing the end days of JJAW. I would be surprised if he is active on game day unless someone at the WR position gets hurt. Even then I would be more for playing Watkins then playing JJAW. Also I do not get completely abandoning Hightower. I would have to re-watch and see the snap count, but it feels like he had none or just a couple offensive snaps. He had one of the bigger plays in the first Giants game to get us going. 

20. Hurts to see Jalen—If you aren’t going to use Hurts arm and run the ball out of his packages like 99 times out of 100 then teams are going to figure you out and make it useless. That is what has happened. Additionally, I am tired of see Wentz lined up out at WR. Teams know you are not going to take a chance with him as a receiver and if you do then they are going to deliver shots to him so really having him out there for these plays are pointless. You are basically giving the defense one less player/weapon to worry about. Additionally, it is absolutely idiotic to come with this package when the running game is humming along and then you do this and teams gear up for a Hurts run and you lose a yard. You are better off just sticking with what had been productive. I like creativity of using that type of package, but I dislike forcing it and running every time out of it. 

[Captain F]

Thy bad list groweth

[hoosierdaddy]

Excellent summary as always. 

[NCTANK]

this is all on Doug

[Damanick10]

The good: Nothing

The bad: Some things

The ugly: Everything

[Alphagrand]

Have to agree with NCTANK — reading through this detailed summary 80-90% comes down to Pederson, and the other 10-20% on poor talent evaluation, which is the coaching staff as well.  Doug is an extremely poor in-game coach; going for two constantly is just chasing points.  The first one worked — wonderful.  Then he turns around and tries it again down 21-11 where kicking the extra point keeps you within a FG.  Instead it’s a hard sack on Wentz and the Eagles are still down 4 points.  Too many trivial and unnecessary gambles on 4th down this season, and the Eagles are about 4-for-17 on 4th down this season.

Reagor should be the full time PR; Ward is a waste of space back there.  Speaking of space, Doug has mismanaged Reagor badly so far; get him the ball out in space.  Doug has been even worse with Jalen Hurts — Doug was selling a bill of goods on that pick by saying he’d develop a package of plays for Hurts.  It’s nine games so far and I haven’t seen a creative play call yet.

Lots of players I want/need to see gone after this season:

Ertz, Desean, Jeffery, Mills, Maddox, NRC, Gerry, Peters, Riley — there’s a whole lot of roster overhaul to be done.  Sorry to say it, but I also want to see a coaching overhaul 

[Jeep_man]

If we lose out from here, we may get a shot at Trevor Lawrence, trade Wentz for picks..

[Road to Victory]

The 3rd down issue is mostly on Wentz. He has to take a page from Tom Brady and take what the defense gives you. If it’s 3rd and 5 and you have a receiver open for 6 yards just take it. Don’t force the ball to someone 20 yards down the field. Choose the higher  percentage pass. I’m not sure what Wentz is trying to prove. He’s always trying to make a spectacular play rather than just a good, smart play. 
 

[Road to Victory]

49 minutes ago, Jeep_man said:

If we lose out from here, we may get a shot at Trevor Lawrence, trade Wentz for picks..

Howie will some how F that up.

[Captain F]

59 minutes ago, Jeep_man said:

If we lose out from here, we may get a shot at Trevor Lawrence, trade Wentz for picks..

You have to wonder what Wentz trade value would be if his season stays on this trajectory... 

[Alphagrand]

11 minutes ago, What The F said:

You have to wonder what Wentz trade value would be if his season stays on this trajectory... 

His contract carries $59M in dead cap for 2021 if he’s moved; how much dead cap do you want the team to eat?  Even after 2022 it’s about $24.5M in dead cap.  
 

The more logical move is get him better coaches 

[Cthulhu]

I despise Cam Newton

 

Edit: lol, sorry about this. it was meant for AtNFL and i guess I Backpaged or something to get here.  doh...

[e-a-g-l-e-s eagles!]

35 minutes ago, Alphagrand said:

His contract carries $59M in dead cap for 2021 if he’s moved; how much dead cap do you want the team to eat?  Even after 2022 it’s about $24.5M in dead cap.  
 

The more logical move is get him better coaches 

Yeah it makes more sense to make a coaching move or moves because it’s obvious they can’t get out of Carson Wentz‘s contract for at least two more years. Also I don’t think it’s necessarily all his fault. This offense feels very stale and it’s not very creative or caters to what the players do well. Like Jalen reagor has not run a jet sweep all season long. We aren’t running crossers across the field to utilize his speed. We aren’t utilizing our guys to their strengths

I’ve complained about this for the last two years. The Philadelphia Eagles do not know how to utilize their players to their best ability until like December. Magically in December Doug and the rest of the coaching staff figures it out and get the most out of there guys by playing to their strength. This should not be the case every single year that we can’t figure out how to utilize our players to the best of their ability until 4-5 games left. 

Add on this offense four of the five years has not been good. They’ve had moments where they were good but really only 2017 was the offense consistently good. That is a problem. The fact that the Eagles haven’t taken the playcalling away from Doug Peterson is ridiculous. You don’t play this many games under him and only have one season where they’re top 10 offense He’s not a good play caller and it is obvious. 80% of his seasons coach the offense has been bad or mediocre for a majority of the season. 

[TidesofWar]

Wow, 20 uglies

Sounds like my local pub 30 minutes before close

 

 

[UK_EaglesFan89]

Wow fair play to you bud. You found 5 things to be positive about. I was struggling to think of 2 or 3.

Great read as always. 

[Cochis_Calhoun]

Not sure how Richard Rodgers being more efficient that Ertz or Goedert is a bad thing?  To me it just reinforces my view that Ertz yardages are volume driven and we shouldn't pay him top dollar, what I would say is if Wentz keeps hanging TE's out to dry with high throws in traffic we are going to need to have at least 3 good TE's on the roster and probably 4 if we plan playing 2 TE sets regularly.

[20dawk4life]

9 hours ago, e-a-g-l-e-s eagles! said:

16. Greg Ward the returner—Ward shouldn’t be back there returning punts anymore. I have had enough of it. First he isn’t very good at it. He rarely gets much of a return when he does return the punt. He is just not dynamic enough. Second, today he was just awful at judging when to catch it and when to let it bounce. He cost the Eagles major field position. Third, we have Reagor. He was a returner in college so lets use him more than just one time back there. I get he is your starting outside WR, but right now the offense is a disaster so you might as well see if he can give you a spark or change field position. I am tired of seeing the league leader in fair catches or poor decisions on whether to catch the ball as our returner.

Reagor was back there to return the first punt that went over his head and rolled down to the five or whatever the hell it was. 

[20dawk4life]

9 hours ago, e-a-g-l-e-s eagles! said:

8. Starting field position—Another reason why the Eagles have struggled on offense to score points is their average starting field position. On the season, the Eagles have had 107 offensive possessions. They have started at the 25 or inside the 25 on 74 of those offensive possessions. That means on average, the Eagles are starting at or inside their own 25 yard line on 69.2% of their offensive possessions. It is really hard to score touchdowns in this league when you have to go 75+ yards on a majority of your possessions. In this game, the Eagles had 10 possessions, their best starting field position all day was starting at the 25-yard line. Their average starting field position for this game was the 16-yard line. That means on average the Eagles would have to go 84 yards to get a touchdown. This falls on the Eagles not being able to flip field position. That means special teams no doing their job on returns, defense not getting off the field and the offense not sustaining drives long enough to flip the script for the defense. 

According to football outsiders we are ranked 24th in average starting field position. On the chart in the link it's LOS/Dr. on average we start at the 26.74 yard line  

https://www.footballoutsiders.com/stats/nfl/overall-drive-statsoff/2020

[JayEcho]

waiting for this to be the only thing listed under good:

Quote

 

The Good:

Cleaning House

 

and the bad and ugly just filled with everything else.

i had the same reaction of alshon coming back as i did jaccpot.. "great, taking snaps from a young developing core..".  it's true they are not perfect, but they need a chance over the veterans which will not be here next year.  reagor, fulgham, ward, and hightower as a core were doing well.

there's a lot more wrong with the team, but stunting your young talent which are showing promise hurts you going forward.  this season is a throwaway for me.  if they manage to make it to the post season, to me it'll be one more game to suffer through, rather than to be hopeful about.

[NCTANK]

9 hours ago, Jeep_man said:

If we lose out from here, we may get a shot at Trevor Lawrence, trade Wentz for picks..

i’m thinking somewhere between 5-10 now. Lawrence should be long gone by then.

[weko]

The great decline in now upon us.  Years of horrible Howie drafting can no longer be overcome with vet signings.  You build a team thru the draft and he has no clue.  Coaching is horrible.  O scheme is limited unimaginative, doesn't create space for others to fill.  At best we win 1 of our next 5 to go to 4-9-1.  We may lose all 5.  Before the draft we need to move assets like Ertz for a 3 & Cox for a 2.  Get a new GM and rebuild

[weko]

43 minutes ago, JayEcho said:

waiting for this to be the only thing listed under good:

and the bad and ugly just filled with everything else.

i had the same reaction of alshon coming back as i did jaccpot.. "great, taking snaps from a young developing core..".  it's true they are not perfect, but they need a chance over the veterans which will not be here next year.  reagor, fulgham, ward, and hightower as a core were doing well.

there's a lot more wrong with the team, but stunting your young talent which are showing promise hurts you going forward.  this season is a throwaway for me.  if they manage to make it to the post season, to me it'll be one more game to suffer through, rather than to be hopeful about.

Older vets like Jeffery are playing because of their contracts.  Howie is more interested in protecting his job status than in winning games.  He is a black cloud hovering over the franchise, a cancer that must be cut out.

[e-a-g-l-e-s eagles!]

6 hours ago, Cochis_Calhoun said:

Not sure how Richard Rodgers being more efficient that Ertz or Goedert is a bad thing?  To me it just reinforces my view that Ertz yardages are volume driven and we shouldn't pay him top dollar, what I would say is if Wentz keeps hanging TE's out to dry with high throws in traffic we are going to need to have at least 3 good TE's on the roster and probably 4 if we plan playing 2 TE sets regularly.

It would be a bad thing because you’re paying Zach Ertz a lot of money and your future at the tight end position should be Dallas Goedert and Dallas Goedert has not looked better than Richard Rodgers over most of the season when he has played. Even with some of those poor throws by wentz, it’s not as if Dallas goedert has asserted himself into being worthy of a big payday that’s coming up if you let ertz go. That’s the problem. Everyone wants to get rid of Zach Ertz because we don’t wanna pay him but you have to have somebody that could step in and be as productive as he was over the last four seasons. Right now Dallas goedert hasn’t proven he can stay healthy and when he does play some of wentz’s fault but also some of his fault to show he is capable of being as productive as ertz was from 2017-2019. If Richard Rodgers is showing me more ability to get open and make plays on the field then Dallas goedert outside of the week 1 game then we have serious issues going forward at the position

[West_Philly]

14 hours ago, e-a-g-l-e-s eagles! said:

4. Red zone offense—The Eagles were not able to actually make it into the red zone more than one time on the afternoon. That is a major problem. At least when they did find their way into the red zone in the third quarter, they were able to capitalize with a Corey Clement 5 yard touchdown run.  

Really were stretching to find some things for the Good 🙂

[e-a-g-l-e-s eagles!]

1 minute ago, West_Philly said:

Really were stretching to find some things for the Good 🙂

Yeah it was tough. But they were awful in the red zone against Dallas. the one for one was an improvement lol