After the Eagles’ 20-16 win over the Browns, star right tackle Lane Johnson eloquently described the Eagles’ offense in a way only he could get away with.
“We’re a constipated offense,” Johnson said. “That’s what it f—ing feels like.”
It’s not like the Eagles were awful on offense in their Week 6 win over the Browns. They did some good things. And they did enough to win a football game — that matters.
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But they also scored just 20 points and failed to get any points in the first quarter for the fifth straight game to start the 2024 season. That’s a problem that dates back to last year.
For an offense that’s loaded with star power, that’s just not consistent enough.
“We’re definitely frustrated,” Johnson continued. “We have a lot of ability, a lot of talent and we are making games more competitive than they need to be. It’s something that we’ve got to fix. As far as talent-wise, this is one of the more loaded offenses I’ve been a part of but we still have to go prove it.”
The Eagles actually ended up with 372 yards and 19 first downs on Sunday. But they need to find more consistency.
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There’s no question that this offense has star power. And getting back A.J. Brown and DeVonta Smith after the bye week was a huge boost. Brown had 6 catches for 116 yards and a touchdown and Smith had 3 for 64 and a touchdown. (It is worth noting that Dallas Goedert left this game in the first quarter with a hamstring injury and did not return.)
Having Brown and Smith means that the Eagles are always seconds away from a big play and they got a few on Sunday. But, at times, they end up being overly reliant on those guys making that big play.
All you have to do is look at the Eagles’ drive chart to find the inconsistency in their play offensively:
Punt
Punt
Field goal
Touchdown
Blocked FG
Punt
Field goal
Touchdown
End of game
The Eagles are the only team in the NFL that hasn’t scored in the first quarter this season. And they’re just the fourth team in the last 10 years that hasn’t scored a first quarter point through the first five games of a season.
“Yeah, I think it's all fixable things. All fixable things,” Jalen Hurts said. “I think the most important thing is getting the first down. I think that's the most important thing is getting the first, first down. And then after that, you kind of just play ball. You know, couldn’t connect on some and it's all fixable things, all being on the same page.
“And then those are things that I can accept, because it's easy to learn from. And so we know the importance of starting fast and how that helps our team and how to put more pressure on their offense which helps the defense out for us. So we just got to continue to build on it.”
Brown said he’s not too worried about the inconsistency because he knows they need to learn and at least they’re learning from wins.
Smith said something similar.
“Definitely leaving points out there,” Smith said. “You can complain about winning. When you can play the way we played and win, you kind of feel good about yourself, knowing that you can get a whole lot better.”
But there’s no question they need to improve.
Will Smith still feel this way if it keeps happening?
“I don’t know,” he said. “Hopefully that time don’t come.”
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