I looked down at my laptop midway through the second quarter and the Bucs had 255 yards and the Eagles had 0 yards.
You really don’t have to be much of a football expert to understand this is not good.
In fact, it’s impossibly, unbelievably, astonishingly bad.
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The Eagles didn’t just lose a football game Sunday in Tampa 33-16, they embarrassed themselves. They were so thoroughly outplayed on both sides of the football it looked they hadn’t practiced or prepared all week.
And if that score looks remotely competitive, it was 21-0 a few plays into the second quarter and it was already over.
Yeah, the Eagles were missing a bunch of really good players, but that’s no excuse for the slop we saw out there Sunday, especially in the first half.
They just seemed out of it. Yeah, it was hot. Yeah, it was their third road trip in four weeks, including a trip to Brazil and a Monday nighter.
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But no excuses.
This was gruesome.
Let’s get to the 10 Observations.
1. Just when you were starting to feel good about the Eagles’ defense … this happens. Just a complete breakdown in every phase of the game. Everything the Eagles did right a week earlier in New Orleans they did wrong Sunday in Tampa. Their tackling was horrifying. Just unbelievably bad. Missed tackles all over the place. Maybe 20 of them? Is there a record for that? Guys were out of position all over the field. Once again they didn’t get any takeaways. They allowed big play after big play. They finally got a sack from an edge for the first time in eight games, then immediately gave the ball back to the Bucs on a special teams turnover. They were down 24-0 halfway through the first half and that's ballgame. The rest was just a matter of determining the final score. The Bucs had 219 yards 3 ½ minutes into the second quarter. The Saints last week had 219 yards the entire game. This was like something out of the Matt Patricia playbook. They looked unprepared, unmotivated and incompetent. You never want to question effort, but for most of that first half it was like the Bucs were playing against air. Nine of their first 28 plays went for 13 yards or more. It got a little better. But not much. I don’t care who you’re playing, if you’re not mentally and physically prepared, this is what happens.
2. And then there’s the offense, and as wretched as the defense was in the first half, the offense may have actually been worse. Their first three drives netted negative-5 scrimmage yards – or negative-10 if you want to include penalty yards. I believe Kellen Moore did a nice job as play caller the first few weeks, but this was an offensive catastrophe. And missing a bunch of starters – including maybe their three-best offensive players – is no excuse for this level of, I don’t know, lethargy? There is no excuse for having a negative yardage total while the other team has already scored four times. The offense did some really good things the first few weeks, and when they’re at full strength they should be borderline unstoppable. But even without A.J. Brown and DeVonta Smith and Lane Johnson, they should be better than this. Way better. They managed 226 yards, 16 first downs and 113 net passing yards and allowed six sacks against the NFL’s 28th-ranked defense. Unacceptable.
3. What does it mean when a team gets outscored 24-0 and outgained 255-0 in the first 23 minutes? It means it just wasn’t ready to play football at 1 p.m. EST in Tampa, Fla. And that’s completely on Nick Sirianni. When you’re a CEO coach and you’re not calling plays, a big part of your job is getting the team mentally and physically ready to play and that includes the way you practice, the way you run walkthroughs, the way you watch film, the way you warm up before the game, and the reality is this football team just wasn’t ready for the game to start. And it wasn’t just this game. The Eagles trailed the Packers 6-0 after the first quarter, they didn’t score a point in the first quarter against the Falcons and they were scoreless into the fourth quarter in New Orleans last week. They’ve gone six straight games without scoring a 1st-quarter point, and their last 1st-quarter touchdown was scored by Julio Jones, for crying out loud. But this was worse than all of those.
4. You really want to cut Jalen Hurts some slack being out there without DeVonta Smith, A.J. Brown and Britain Covey, not to mention Lane Johnson. But he just looked out of it for much of this game, and I don’t care who your receivers are, you go out there and run the offense with crispness and clarity and energy. But the Eagles didn’t even record a first down until they trailed 24-0 with 6 ½ minutes left in the second quarter, and I’m not sure Jalen was the worst of the offense’s problems during that stretch when they got outscored 24-0 but if you’re an MVP candidate type of guy, you need to be able to help pull your team out of that kind of morass, but all we saw was balls flying 10 feet over Jahan Dotson’s head or five yards out of bounds. Hurts was 1-for-7 for seven yards on those first three drives. Just looked out of sync, off kilter, whatever you want to call it. He calmed down a bit briefly, threw a touchdown to Parris Campbell and then drove the Eagles inside the Tampa 20. But then another turnover. He fumbled on a strip sack by Lavonte David with the Eagles inside the Bucs’ 20-yard-line. That’s turnover seven this year for Hurts. He finished with just 158 passing yards, took six sacks, and just looked bad. I keep waiting for 2022 Jalen Hurts to show up. He will eventually. Right? Right?
5. One thing to keep in mind is that after the bye the schedule gets much easier. Their first four opponents are currently a combined 9-6, and three of them have winning records. Their first nine opponents after the bye are 10-23 and only Commanders have a winning record at 2-1 with a game later Sunday in Arizona. That’s one winning team the first nine games back. In particular, their next four opponents – the Browns, Giants, Bengals and Jaguars – are a combined 3-12. So as ugly as this loss was, 2-2 isn’t the worst place to be with four games coming up that look pretty winnable. Of course, if they play like they played Sunday in Tampa, it really won’t matter who they play.
6. The Eagles’ turnover issues are just a flat-out epidemic at this point. They were minus-two Sunday – no interceptions but two fumbles, one by Hurts and one by Cooper DeJean on a punt return that really wasn’t his fault – and they’ve now gone an astonishing 12 straight games without finishing in positive territory in giveaway-takeaway ratio. That’s impossible. It’s the 2nd-longest streak in franchise history, the longest since a 15-game streak over the 1967 and 1968 seasons. And they’re minus-15 during those 12 games. They have two takeaways all year – both Reed Blankenship interceptions – and that’s their fewest after two games since they had one four games into the 1998 season. And get this: This is the first time EVER the Eagles have been minus-1 or worse in turnover margin in each of their first four games. What does this all mean? Pretty simple. Not enough playmakers on defense and Jalen has to stop giving the ball away, especially in the red zone. The Eagles are 22-1 under Sirianni – with 22 straight wins – when they win the turnover battle. It’s been 22-1 for a long, long time.
7. I don’t know what options the Eagles have to fix their tackling problems because you can’t practice live tackling at practice these days, but Vic Fangio and Co. have to do something because this was a tackling disaster. How many tackles did they miss Sunday? Had to be 20? You’re not going to win football games missing 20 tackles. Sometimes two or three guys missed tackles on the same play. Seemed like every big third down, someone missed a tackle. I thought starting Nakobe Dean was the right move, but he was the biggest offender Sunday and he’s had tackling issues all year. What options are there? You have Devin White on the roster, but he didn’t even make the trip to Tampa because of some sort of personal issues and you don’t want to speculate on that, but here’s a former 1st-round pick who’s been inactive all year and we know he’s not happy so hard to imagine he’s going to magically start playing and making an impact. The Eagles tackled well in New Orleans Sunday, so it is possible. But all I know is if they don’t fix what they did Sunday they’re not going anywhere this year.
8. Saquon Barkley and Dallas Goedert combined for 178 yards – 116 for Barkley, 62 for Goedert – and the rest of the backs, receivers and tight ends had 93 yards. And I get that the Eagles were missing their starting WRs, but I expect more from the other guys, especially Jahan Dotson, who cost the Eagles a 3rd-round pick. Dotson caught two passes for 11 yards and now has five catches for 25 yards with a long gainer of seven yards in four games. He’s been here long enough that he should be way more integrated in the offense than he has been. This is a guy who was the 16th pick in the draft just two years ago and had 84 catches, 1,055 yards and 15 touchdowns over the last two years. And that was with Carson Wentz, Sam Howell and Jacoby Brissett. Disappointing for the 16th pick overall, but he should be more of a factor than he has been. I thought this was a great opportunity to get him going. He’s been here for five weeks now and he should be able to contribute a lot more than he has.
9. The Bucs came into this game with a smart gameplan and if the Eagles aren’t careful it could be a template to attack this team. Quick release to neutralize the pass rush, short high-percentage passes to get the ball in receivers’ hands, then count on missed tackles to pick up big yards. And why not? If you have an accurate quarterback like Baker Mayfield – he’s at 71 percent this year – you can put up points without taking risks down the field. The only way for the Eagles to prevent teams from doing this is to tackle. Because when those four-yard plays turn into 13-yard plays, teams are going to keep moving the sticks without going vertical. And when you do get into third downs, they’re going to be very makeable 3rd-and-shorts. The Bucs perfected this sort of dink-and-dunk attack Sunday, and it worked perfectly. Factor in the heat and ball-control and keeping the Eagles’ defense on the field for a bunch of long drives – 36 ½ minutes in all – worked perfectly. Todd Bowles and the Bucs’ staff flat-out outcoached Nick Sirianni and the Eagles’ staff. They had a plan and carried it out to perfection. The Eagles had no plan.
10A. Can we just talk about Saquon Barkley for a minute? He was pretty bottled up in the first half – 8-for-22 rushing with a long gainer of seven yards. First carry in the second half he goes 59 yards a week after his 61-yard touchdown, and he finished . Barkley now has 435 rushing yards, 520 scrimmage yards and a 6.0 rushing average a month into the season. The 435 yards are 2nd-most in Eagles history after four games (LeSean McCoy had 468 in 2013) and the 6.0 average is highest in Eagles history after four games. Barkley should have had more carries Sunday but when you keep going 3-and-out and you keep finding yourself in 3rd-and-10 it’s tough to get the best running back in the game 30 carries. I wasn’t sure about Barkley. Here’s a guy who averaged 3.9 yards per carry over the last four years, and I wasn’t sure if that meant he was a fading veteran or that he just didn’t have a chance to succeed because he was on a crappy team without any other weapons. It’s clear now Barkley still has a ton left in the tank.
10B. One other positive thought: It was pretty cool that Kelee Ringo and Isaiah Rodgers, who battled all summer for playing time at corner, combined to get the Eagles two unlikely points in the third quarter. Ringo and Rodgers competed throughout camp for the starting corner job that ultimately went to Quinyon Mitchell. But through it all they remained close and kept team goals at the forefront. On Sunday Rodgers blocked a two-point conversion and Ringo scooped up the loose ball and returned it 60 yards for two Eagles points, the first time the Eagles have ever scored on an opponent’s extra-point try. Three-point turnaround. It wasn’t enough. Didn’t really matter in the big picture, but it was a cool play.
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