NFL
By: Mark T. wioosn
The Philadelphia Eagles needed their Bye Week more than any team. Following their ass whopping at the hands of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers last Sunday, the Eagles should be ready to take on the Cleveland Browns this coming Sunday.
During this downtime, the Eagles must fix a slew of things. The main one is to get healthy. As good as this offense can be, they have only played 1 game as a unit and that was the season opener against the Green Bay Packers. Since then, AJ Brown has not touched the field.
Against the Buccaneers, the Eagles were down Brown, DeVonta Smtih, and Lane Johnson. That’s two Pro Bowl-caliber receivers and a Pro Bowl offensive lineman. I don’t care how good your QB and RB are, those are 3 major pieces of an offense missing.
Another area that has to be fixed is their pass rush. Where the hell is it? Baker Mayfield is not Lamar Jackson or Patrick Mahomes but he damn sure looked the part of his new nemesis Tom Brady as he competed 30 of 47 passes for 347 yards and 2 TDs.
This is the same Eagles defense that limited a potent New Orleans Saints offense to 12 points the prior week. Vic Fangio must find a way to get his defense dialed in. Any game with just 1 sack, well, that’s not going to cut it.
As far as the offense goes, Jalen Hurts is just too loosey-goosey with the football. The turnovers on his part must stop. With the money he’s making and the microscope he’s under, Hurts must take accountability for all the issues he’s providing to the team. He must do better. This bye week is when the offense should be connecting and working on their chemistry issues.
Coordinators earn jobs off reputations. However, both Kellen Moore and Fangio must look in the mirror and ask if this is working for them. A defense in this league not getting pressure on the QB, that’s a huge area of concern. An offense not utilizing their weapons correctly, that’s another area of concern.
Luckily for the Philadelphia Eagles, their struggles are showing early and not late as they did last year during their infamous last-season slide. But still, something has to change and it needs to start during their Bye Week.
Moore must find a way to get his receivers in a better position in the middle of the field. I get it, there is a difference when Brown and Smith are running routes compared to John Ross, Jahan Dotson, and Parris Campbell.
The finger-pointing will always be at Nick Sirianni but I can’t do that. This is a collective issue here. Hurts is making too much damn money to be playing like Daniel Jones. It’s time to break it down and rebuild on the fly. Something is wrong here.
Looking back at the skid from last season, you know something is wrong but can you pinpoint it. It’s a number of things and it’s something that can be found in the game tape. The Eagles are sitting at 2-2 and they have yet to reach who they could be.
A Bye Week is a time when players can rest and hope injuries heal. It’s also a time to work on things that’s not working. the Philadelphia Eagles should have taken this extra week and corrected the mental mistakes. Find a way to get the ball moving down the field. Hurts must self-reflect. Fangio has to reconstruct the defense to get after the QB. And Sirianni has to determine if he’s built to be a leader.
