After the Detroit Lions fell to the Dallas Cowboys on Saturday night, the Philadelphia Eagles had a great shot at least to get the second seed in the NFC playoffs, and a outside shot at the number one seed.
To get the two seed, they only had to beat former defensive coordinator Jonathan Gannon and the lowly Cardinals at home on Sunday and the Giants on the road in the season finale.
Well, that is why you play the game. The Eagles were dominated and defeated by the Cardinals 35-31 at Lincoln Financial Field.
After 11 games, the Eagles were 10-1 and many felt they were the best team in football, but after losing four of five, the perception of this team has changed.
The Eagles led 21-6 at halftime, but Arizona outscored them 29-10 in the second half. Offensively, the Cardinals(4-12) did everything they wanted. They ran for 221 yards, dominated the time of possession(39:39 to 19:21), and scored touchdowns on four straight possessions in the second half, including a seven-play, 70-yard drive, which ended with a two-yard James Conner touchdown run with 32 seconds left.
Although their 11-5 record says otherwise, Philadelphia is not very good right now. They lost to one of the worst teams in the league at home. They can’t stop anybody on defense, and on offense, even though they scored 31 points on that side of the ball, things look slightly disjointed; however, on Sunday, that might have been a byproduct of their poor defensive play.
Following the loss, Eagles coach Nick Sirianni gave his thoughts on what went wrong with his defense.
“Obviously they controlled the game by running the football,” Sirianni said. “We weren’t good enough there stopping the run and they were able to take a lot of chunks off the clock. I think they did a good job executing. But we know we have to be better putting the guys in positions to succeed and also executing.”
Two weeks ago the Eagles changed defensive coordinators from Sean Desai to Matt Patricia, but despite the change, the defense looks the same. However, Sirianni still has faith in his defense.
‘I still believe in the guys in that locker room, the players,” Sirianni said. “I still believe in the coaches. I think we’ve got the guys in this place to get turned in the right direction. We don’t have much time, obviously, right? We’ve got one more game before playoffs starts, and we’ve got to do everything we can do to get back on track this upcoming week. I think there’s been spurts, obviously, the last couple games where we played good ball on defense. Tonight wasn’t one of those times.”
Time seems to be running out for the Eagles to fix things, and at this point, Philadelphia, who is now the fifth and will stay there if the Cowboys defeat the Commanders next Sunday, will have to go on the road if they want to go to the Super Bowl; at this point, Sirianni is not concerned.
“Obviously, we are not playing the type of football or coaching the type of football we want to be right now at this time,” Sirianni said. “Again, we have to go back to the drawing board and think through everything, what we’re doing.
“So, concerned? No, I don’t think we think that way. All I think we think is how do we get these things fixed. How do we get these things fixed. How do we put the players in positions to succeed. How do we execute as a team. And so that’s what’s going to be on our minds is how do we get these things fixed.”
Unfortunately, fixing what is wrong might not be in the cards for the 2023 Philadelphia Eagles.
Notes:
Jalen Hurts set a franchise record with his 36th total TD of the season. He was previously tied with himself from a year ago and Randall Cunningham in 1990 for the most total TDs. Hurts also reached single-season career highs in both passing yards (3,803) and passing TDs (23).
With D’Andre Swift reaching 1,000+ rushing yards for the first time in his career, Philadelphia has produced a 4,000+ yard passer (Jalen Hurts), two 1,000+ yard receivers (A.J. Brown and DeVonta Smith) and a 1,000+ yard rusher in the same season for the first time ever.
The Eagles have featured 1,000+ yard rushers in back-to-back seasons (also Miles Sanders in 2022) for the first time since 2013-14 (LeSean McCoy)
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