Bad Day

[time2rock]

Bad Day

Posted: November 28th, 2021 | Author: Tommy Lawlor 

Weird things tend to happen in rivalry games and that certainly was the case today. The Eagles delivered a sloppy, uninspired performance and lost a key game to a bad Giants team.

Jalen Reagor dropped two potential TD passes in the final minute. Those are the headline moments. The first was a deep ball that hit Reagor’s facemask and he wasn’t able to pull it in. The other drop came on a fourth down in the final seconds. Reagor might have scored. The Eagles would at least have been at the Giants 1-yard line with time to get a play or two off.

Reagor’s drops would not have been so critical if Jalen Hurts hadn’t thrown 3 interceptions, including two in scoring territory. If the Eagles had just kicked field goals in those situations, the end of the game is very different. Hurts forced things and it cost the Eagles in a big way.

Hurts ended the game at 14-31-129 with 3 INTs. He did run the ball well (8-77), but that didn’t make up for the passing. Hurts has to be at least functional as a passer. This might have been his worst start in the NFL.

In his defense, the receiving corps was bad today. Greg Ward dropped a TD. Reagor stunk up the joint. Quez Watkins and Kenny Gainwell both had questionable effort on some crossing routes. Dallas Goedert dropped a key pass late in the game. Guys have to make plays for the QB, no matter who it is.

Hurts and the offense weren’t helped by the playcalling early in the game. The Eagles came out throwing and it didn’t work. That got them into a funk and they struggled to come out of it.

Injuries affected the game. Jason Kelce got dinged up and missed a few series. Nate Herbig replaced him and had a pair of holding penalties. One of them negated a Boston Scott TD run. That was a questionable call, but it did get called. Kelce came back and then Jack Driscoll got hurt. Herbig replaced him at RG. Miles Sanders hurt his foot/ankle and didn’t play much after that.

Scott took Sanders place and played pretty well, going 15-64. Unfortunately he fumbled on a run on the next to last drive when the Eagles had already crossed midfield and were on the march. Ugh.

Reagor will catch the most heat, but this was a team loss. This game is a big crap sandwich and everyone is taking a bite, not just Reagor.

The defense limited the Giants to 264 yards and 13 points, but Jonathan Gannon’s group couldn’t come up with a big play. Daniel Jones had one of his rare NFL starts without a turnover. The Eagles DL struggled to get hits on Jones, let alone sacks. This was a game where the Eagles needed the defense to make a big play and that just didn’t happen.

A lot of the good will the Eagles built up over the past month is gone. You just can’t lose to the 3-7 Giants when you’re fighting for playoff position. The Eagles are now 5-7 and only half a game up on the 4-7 Giants.

The good news is that the Eagles still have a soft schedule remaining. If they learn from this debacle, it can serve them well over the final month of the season.

The Eagles said all the right things leading into the game, but actions speak louder than words. The Eagles didn’t play like a hungry, focused team. They played like a group that was more worried about outside noise than the guys lined up across from them. Do that in the NFL and it will bite you in the ass.

Four turnovers plus costly penalties plus killer drops equals a bad loss.

Sirianni doesn’t need some magic potion to fix this team. They just need to stay focused and play smart football. Despite all of their struggles today, the Eagles still almost won that game.

But they didn’t.

Learn from it and move on. There is still plenty of season left.

Just not much margin for error.

http://igglesblitz.com/2021/11/bad-day-4/

[LacesOut]

Take care of the damn ball!! That game would have been a win. Four TOs is pathetic. 

[birdman#12]

When a young QB make the mistakes Hurts made yesterday, it's really easy to throw in the towel about him......but one thing a young QB has to learn is to put that stuff out of your head and continue to compete.

Hurts made some awful decisions.  That's not debatable.  But he also moved the offense late in the game and Scott and Reagor made mistakes that killed any chance of winning that game.

Scott's fumble inside Giants territory was a huge blunder....But Reagor's drops on the 2 great passes by Hurts was inexcusable.

The INT's by Hurts

The holding calls on Herbig, one bringing back a TD.

The drops by Reagor.

Scott's fumble.

The ridiculous underuse of Smith, Goedart and Gainwell is infuriating.......

The playcalling is still very vanilla.......for a guy like Sirianni, who was advertised as a offensive minded coach, he has displayed almost no innovation or creativity.

The defensive line continues to live up to their overrated status.....1 sack?  Fletcher Cox and non factor?  This was the giants...with a lousy line. Defense wasn't the problem but a turnover or two could go a long way in games like that.

The playoff talk was fun.....but this team lacks consistency, which is vitally important to be a contender.