Eagles’ Offensive Coaching, Game Plan Continue to Fail: ‘We Have to do all the Little Things Better’
Oct 18, 2026; Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA; Philadelphia Eagles offensive coordinator Sean Mannion walks the field before a game against the Carolina Panthers at Lincoln Financial Field. Mandatory Credit: Bill Streicher-Imagn Images
It has been a disappointing stretch of Eagles football in October, and the way it’s looking, the end might not be in sight.
Injuries have stacked up to the point where the backups are getting hurt, but even the remaining starters can’t seem to get anything going on either side of the ball. This has been the most frustrating iteration of Eagles football in quite some time. They have lost four straight games for the first time under Nick Sirianni, and the first time since 2020. While the defense has worked through most of its kinks, pretty much being the only reason the Eagles have been in any of the past few games, the offense has been downright awful, arguably the worst unit in the league.
During those four games, the Eagles have averaged 218.5 yards per game, ranking dead last in the NFL. They are the only team in the NFL averaging under 4.0 yards per play in that stretch (3.9), and they are the only team that is averaging under 4.5 net yards per pass attempt (4.4).
Philadelphia hasn’t gained more than 250 yards in any of the past four games, or allowed fewer than 375 yards in any game. They have a -723 yard differential during the losing streak.
Not only has the current losing streak been a poor display of offense, but all six games this season have been. The Eagles are averaging 17.7 PPG through the first six weeks this season, the lowest output of offense for the franchise through the first six weeks of the season since 2003 (16.2 PPG).
“The goal, I mean, offensively, you got to score points, and we’re not doing that right now,” head coach Nick Sirianni said after the Eagles’ 25-14 loss to the Carolina Panthers Sunday afternoon. “There’s a lot of things, a lot of reasons why that we got to improve on. We have to do all the little things better. I have to coach the little things better. Details”
While hearing talk like this is the thing you normally want from a team going through a tough stretch, this has been the same speech from this group after every single game. At some point, you can’t keep coming to the podium after a loss and spewing the same, “oh well, we have to be better.” You have to show it on the field; you have to show it on the line of scrimmage.
Right now the Eagles look completely checked out, and in a way it’s understandable. Saquon Barkley has been missing for weeks, Lane Johnson, their longest-tenured player, retired midseason, and the laundry list of injuries continues to pile up a third of the way through the year.
Not to mention the biggest question mark: will Jalen Hurts play again this season for the Eagles after being diagnosed with a blood clot and being placed on blood thinners? Hurts was put on injured reserve Saturday, putting him out for at least four games and inserting backup Tanner McKee.
McKee has shown flashes of both poor and successful play in the few opportunities he has been given when put into games, but in his first start of the season, it was far from a good display, as poor drives, mistakes on calls, and lazily executed plays led to another terrible offensive performance.
The Eagles’ communication in huddles, at the line, and with protections was off all day, and McKee even mentioned postgame that that was their biggest issue on Sunday.
“Communication. Whether it was guys in the wrong spot, I got to get them fixed,” McKee said. “That falls on the quarterback. That is nobody else’s responsibility but the quarterbacks, and so that’s on me. We had two drives that stalled just from miscommunication or things like that that I got to get fixed. I think I got to settle down a little quicker.”
The communication wasn’t great, but the Eagles offense is just plain old boring and not uninspiring. Everything in the air is outside the numbers, the creativity in runs is lackluster, and every play feels like it’s always coming back to the passer and never in motion or down the field.
It’s not working, and while coaching has admitted and has preached in press conferences that they change up how they’re calling plays, nothing has changed. You just hope after essentially the week of saying the same things, change can finally come next week against the Dallas Cowboys on Monday Night Football.
“We’re gonna have to do different things to help the offense get going,” Sirianni said. “Now we’re never gonna make an excuse on anything. We have to do different things to get them going and score more points, plain and simple. To do the same thing over and over again and not get the results, that’d be foolish, so everything’s on the table of what we need to do to be able to put points on the board.”
You can blame the lack of players due to injury, the poor communication, or not changing things up enough, but the one common denominator in all of this falls on the person scheming things up, or at least trying to scheme up an offense: offensive coordinator Sean Mannion.
While it’s only been six games with Mannion calling plays, the Eagles clearly are unable to effectively run the type of offense that Mannion has schemed up, running plays that the other teams seem to know before they’re run. Now that may seem like an overreaction; they don’t know every play, but if people can pick up when the Eagles are running on offense, it doesn’t seem like the hardest system to figure out for opposing defenses.
Teams are literally figuring out what the Eagles are running at the line, essentially giving them free opportunities to blow up the start of drives and force quick drives out of the Eagles. Mannion’s inability to adjust so far this season is resulting in poor, inexcusable offensive possessions.
When the Eagles brought Mannion and his West Coast offensive style, he was described as one of the brightest up-and-coming minds in the entire NFL. He was being called a genius, not just by experts and analysts, but by some of the Eagles themselves.
“Sean is an evil genius. That is my first impression,” Jordan Mailata said back in June. “The guy knows ball. If I were to lock the three smartest people in the facility in one room, Sean would be there. And I think Sean would just be by himself. It would just be Sean. He’s a wizard. And man, I’m super excited. As the year goes on, we get to display what is in that beautiful mind of his.”
Well, through six games, we haven’t seen that evil genius. There’s definitely been evil, but no genius. Until they make a change, no matter who’s back at quarterback or who’s on the offensive line or in the backfield or catching passes, this offense won’t succeed.
Matt Brown
Matt has been a Philadelphia sports fan all his life and spent four years at Penn State University majoring in Broadcast Journalism and minoring in Sports Studies. He previously covered Penn State’s field hockey, men’s and women’s basketball, and baseball teams while writing for a Penn State blog called Onward State. He has now covered the Phillies, Eagles, and Sixers for Philly Sports Reports since October 2024 and wants to pursue a career in Sports Journalism.
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