Horrendous Second-Half Coaching From Eagles Results In Rams Stealing Win From Philadelphia

The Eagles had the Super Bowl favorites right where they wanted them, and then all of a sudden, they didn’t.

The 2026 season has not gotten off to a good start for the Eagles, and as they enter the thick of the regular season, the issues with this group are loud and plentiful.

While Philadelphia is 2-2 through the first four weeks, it doesn’t sound so bad, but they could just as easily be 0-4. The first two weeks they snagged close wins against the Washington Commanders and Tennessee Titans, two teams that, talent-wise, the Eagles are better than. While it took until the final minute to secure those wins, they still walked away with two victories to open the season.

The argument seemed to be that the wins weren’t pretty, but they were wins at the end of the day. However, since then, the tide has flipped with back-to-back disappointing losses, one to the Bears with a backup quarterback starting and the other against the Rams where you had a double-digit lead heading into the fourth quarter.

The loss to the Chicago Bears can be tacked up to the Eagles being outcoached and out-schemed by a coach in Ben Johnson, as the Bears had their way with the Eagles on both the offensive and defensive side of the ball. Sure, on paper, the Eagles shouldn’t lose a game started by Case Keenum, a player who hasn’t started in multiple years, but following the loss, you have to just suck it up, push it into the past, use it as a motivation tool, and move on to the next game.

Philadelphia thankfully headed home following the Monday night loss, but the unfortunate part of their next game was that it was against the Super Bowl favorite Los Angeles Rams. The Rams and the Eagles have had many battles over the past decade since Sean McVay arrived in Inglewood, but he’s never been able to get over the hump that was Philadelphia.

Despite walking into the game with multiple starters out and a wet and rainy day, the Eagles still managed to jump out to an early 20-10 halftime lead and firmly establish themselves as serious contenders to upset the Rams.

Despite losing Saquon Barkley to a hamstring injury, Quinyon Mitchell to a knee injury, and Jonathan Greenard to an ankle injury during the game, and not having DeVonta Smith, Zack Baun, Lane Johnson, and Dallas Goedert before the game, the Eagles somehow were in control against Los Angeles with just one half remaining.

However, like the previous weeks, the second half was where things went disastrously for Philadelphia, and it resulted in a comeback 24-20 win for the Rams. The Eagles had six drives in the second half, and the results of those drives went: punt, punt, turnover on downs, turnover on downs, punt, turnover on downs.

Philadelphia scored zero second-half points for the second straight week, and 17 of the Eagles’ 21 second-half drives this season have resulted in a punt or a turnover. In the Rams loss, they had no passing first downs in the second half, and now, this season, they have been outscored in the second half 54-20.

The offense had 172 total yards, the lowest by an Eagles team in 12 years, and 68 total net passing yards, the lowest by an Eagles team in 23 years. It didn’t matter who was playing on offense; the play on that side of the ball was unacceptable, and it looked as though the group was lost.

“Poor execution. Poor execution,” Jalen Hurts said following the loss. “We’ve got to execute at a high level. I’ve got to be better. I’ve got to figure it out. However it looks, whatever that means, find a way to win the game, and you know we had our opportunities, and we didn’t take advantage of them.”

It was a disappointing loss, one in which it felt it was coming throughout the second half. The Eagles’ injuries were lining up, the offense couldn’t move the ball, and the Rams were heating up following a first half where they were doing almost nothing right.

Philadelphia had a lead in this game, but it felt eerily similar to last week’s loss to Chicago, where the Bears did everything right in the second half, and the Eagles did nothing. Over the past two games, the Eagles are three-for-27 on third and fourth down, and in the Rams game went 0-for-12 on third down, which was the most by any team without a conversion since the Chargers in 2023.

“I’m gonna wear a lot of this [Rams loss]. Our offense is gonna wear a lot of this (Rams loss). You win together, you lose together,” Nick Sirianni said. “I have no complaints on what happened there today, and there’s opportunity for us all to grow following this game: win, lose, draw. There are always opportunities for growth, and we got to be committed to continuing to get better, and that will be the emphasis this week.

“We got to play better. We got to coach better,” Sirianni said. “All of us have things to get better from. I don’t care who’s on the field. There are things obviously that I definitely have seen us improve, but then there are still little mistakes that we’re making, coaching, playing, that we’ve got to continue to clean up.”

You can have lots of opinions regarding what the true problem is with the Eagles right now. However, after watching the previous two games, along with the way they’ve won their first two games of the season, the simple answer to me is that the coaching has failed this team.

The biggest thing that leads to wins in the NFL is second-half adjustments. Being down any amount of points isn’t a great thing, but teams who can make the adjustments at half are teams that can mount comebacks and win games.

Right now, the Eagles aren’t doing that. On offense, it looks like a disaster, as the second they have any type of success, they immediately play way too conservatively. The play-calling from Sean Mannion has already not been good throughout all quarters, but the second half it’s even worse.

The defense bounced back after getting thumped by Chicago last week, but gave up two 10-play drives, one being 98 yards and the other being 79 in the fourth quarter. While aggressiveness from the group was there, they just couldn’t execute to their fullest potential, resulting in the Eagles losing the lead.

However, the real disaster of coaching this season has come from head coach Nick Sirianni. Sirianni’s coaching style has been a topic of conversation ever since he arrived in Philadelphia, but his winning ways have always quieted those concerns about his coaching.

As a “CEO” head coach, his job is to handle personnel and make executive decisions on and off the field. Off the field is one thing, but right now on the field, his decisions have been terrible. From the terrible decision to go for a tush push on a 4th-and-a-long-1 that didn’t convert, to screwing up the goal-to-go situation late in the fourth quarter where a touchdown would’ve likely won the Eagles the game.

Sirianni’s decisions are costing this team huge spots and putting them in situations that are costing them the game. Things like this can slide when the team finds ways to win, but when you blow leads in games that you have won, cause for concern comes up.

“We got to play better. We got to coach better,” Sirianni said. “All of us have things to get better from. I don’t care who’s on the field. There are things obviously that I definitely have seen us improve, but then there are still little mistakes that we’re making, coaching, playing, that we’ve got to continue to clean up.”

The Eagles are 2-2 and head to London to face a 3-1 Jacksonville Jaguars team that is rolling on both ends of the ball. The schedule won’t get easier for this team, so they need to figure out the issues with this group sooner rather than later.

The last time the Eagles started 2-2 with injuries depleting their team, they went all the way to the Super Bowl. Time will tell if that will be the case, but as the team stands now, they’re closer to having to make drastic moves to salvage the talent surrounding this football team than they are to lifting another Lombardi trophy.

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