Eagles football is back, has nothing changed? — Eagles suffer humiliating collapse on national TV

You know what, it’s not even that we lost. The Falcons are a good team and if this had just been a quality showdown between 2 good teams and we got the short end of the stick, so be it, we can improve off of good football. But that didn’t even come close to happening. The Falcons were sloppy tonight, it was a battle of both good defenses, but simultaneously bad offenses.

I’m getting ahead of myself, but the point I’m trying to make is that this felt like any other game from the end of last season. For me, it feels super similar to the Seattle game. Monday night game, Eagles hold a lead in a defensive battle in the 4th, and the defense goes from good to pee wee in the most important drive of the game. They both even ended in interceptions.

Let’s, try, to get through this one.

Is Kellen Moore just Brian Johnson 2.0?

The offense was hard to watch tonight. Due in part to being against a really freaking good Falcons defense, but also due in part to the, let’s say, questionable play-calling decisions by Brian John- I mean Kellen Moore. To start positively, I did like that they let Jalen just make things happen sometimes. He was way more confident of a runner than we’ve seen from him in a long time. So what went wrong? I’m so glad you asked, I actually have a list.

1. Only 4 targets to Dallas Goedert, he’s an elite TE use him
2. 1 Target to your new WR2 Jahan Dotson
3. The insistency on running RPOs when Cam Jurgens clearly didn’t know what he was doing
4. The first drive being operated through Grant Calcaterra and Britain Covey
5. Six offensive penalties
6. A draw play on 3rd and 9, seriously did we learn nothing?
7. Throwing the ball when you need 3 yards to seal the game
8. Literally everything about the final drive

God knows I missed a lot too. The biggest mistake of all, was no doubt throwing it on a 3rd and 3. You have Saquon Barkley. Run the freaking ball. Even if he doesn’t get the first down, He’ll probably get 2 yards and you can tush push. And even if he doesn’t get enough yards for a tush push at least you’re taking 40 seconds off the game clock! I get it, Saquon has to catch that ball. Kellen Moore isn’t at fault for that part. What he is at fault for is throwing the ball to the RB with the most drops in the NFL by an RB since 2021 (16) with the game on the line.

Everything but the finish, per the usual

The defense was actually great 90% of the game. Kirk Cousins was off target, the coverage was good, and the Falcons couldn’t score in the red zone to save their lives. The only hiccup was the run defense, Bijan had himself a night. Entering the 4th quarter I was thinking about how I was going to be able to write something nice about the Eagles defense this time. How Vic Fangio went out and made a statement on national TV that this is a new squad. Don’t get me wrong Vic Fangio made a statement, but far from that one. He proved nothing changed.

The entire 2023 season in one quarter , hell in 5 minutes

— Ethan Whitney (@Ethan_W6) September 17, 2024

Up by 6, just over a minute and a half left, you need to keep a team you’ve been dominating all night long out of the endzone. Surely the Eagles will learn from the Bills’ mistake a couple of years ago and not run essentially prevent defense? The Falcons cut through the secondary like a knife through butter. One of Dolphins fan’s biggest gripes with Fangio was coming to light early in his Eagles tenure. Not only did the Falcons march down to the field to win, but they did it in 6 plays. It was so fast they almost blew it by leaving too much time on the clock. Might I add almost identical to what happened in Seattle last year?

So how bad is it?

It’s early which is the good part. The bad part is it’s not getting any easier. First, we travel to New Orleans to face the Saints, who, apparently, have summoned some form of Deus ex Machina in the form of Klint Kubiak. In 2 weeks the Saints have gone from one of the NFL’s least menacing teams to one that nobody knows how to stop. That could very well be a loss putting us at 1-2.

It doesn’t get any easier with the Bucs next up. This will also be a road game and not only do the Bucs sort of have Jalen Hurts number, but they will be a tough out for any team in football, especially after their win over the Lions. This very well could have us at 1-3 entering the bye.

Eagles head to New Orleans and then Tampa before entering the bye. I predicted those two games as losses when the schedule initially came out. I was called crazy. It looks like it may be come to fruition.

1-3 heading into the bye off 3 straight losses. We may have an issue.

— Benjamin Goldstein (@BGoldsteinPSR) September 17, 2024

I know it’s only one loss, but here’s my biggest fear. Sometimes sports play out in mysterious ways. Things happen that just make no sense. My biggest fear is that we’re going to look back on this team and say that Super Bowl 57 broke them. They wouldn’t be the first team to fall to a similar fate. We haven’t seen this team play to its full potential since the 2022 NFC championship game. They haven’t been the same since the Super Bowl, and may never be.

Am I overreacting? Maybe, but think of the 28-3 Falcons, or the 2015 Panthers, and many more. The Eagles wouldn’t be the first or the last.

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