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ME NEITHER.
The majority of Eagles nation is more than likely locked in and focused on the Browns. I’m still digesting last week’s loss, and quite frankly, I'm not over it. The Eagles lost to the Giants 27-17 on Sunday in what felt like a game that was out of reach from beginning to end. The Eagles put on a dismal performance on both ends of the field outside of the running game, leaving fans to wonder what exactly the Eagles’ coaching staff did with their week off?
This has been all too familiar in the Pederson, Schwartz, Roseman era: the offense looking inept despite it’s talent and a defense, like clockwork, turning QB’s like Daniel Jones into a solidified franchise talent. The Eagles’ defensive line is the most expensive in the league, but failed to get off blocks in the run game. Darius Slay is a lockdown corner being used 10 yards off the ball in soft coverage on third downs. Sanders and Scott only accounted for 18 carries when the running game was averaging more than 6 yards a carry! How are common sense things apparently uncommon? Is everyone Jeff Fisher!?
In a press conference on Friday, Doug mentioned Sanders deserves more touches, then followed that up with we want to have more of a “committee approach”. Even during Doug’s Monday presser, he admits (eleven weeks in, mind you) he should dial up more plays that get Carson Wentz out of the pocket. Some analysts were even exposing playcalling, trying to make sense of some unbelievingly dumbfounded route concepts.
Execution didn’t come without it’s own question marks, either. Certain timing plays didn’t look timely. Doug had a propensity for long-developing plays that amounted to nothing if not negative something. With 11 penalties last week, the Eagles are now 9th in the league in penalties per game. To add insult to injury, special teams play left a lot to be desired and left very little for the Giants offense to recover from.
It may shock no one if the Eagles do find their wings and manage to “fall with style” into a playoff spot, which this team has been prone to do at the end of seasons under Doug Pederson. However, we should not so easily turn the other cheek on the notion that the Eagles are a bad football team and that your expectations should be so low at the beginning of every week for the sole purpose of finding joy in the nominal things they do right.
Make no mistake, this is a bad football team. The path they tread now only determines the shifting of blame for Jeffrey Lurie come the offseason. Although fans call week after week for swift justice, we may just have to strap ourselves to our chairs, peel our eyelids back with our speculums, and endure the rest of the “pepper spray to the face” that is the 2020 Eagles.
