Abysmal. There’s no other word for it. For the second week in a row, the Philadelphia Eagles were utterly embarrassed. The only difference is, this loss came against a Dallas team that was more than beatable. What went wrong? It’s easier to answer what didn’t, but here are some quick takeaways.
It was doomed from the get-go
The Eagles broke a 25-game streak of deffering when winning the coin toss in a bid to start fast. The offense ranked 31st in first-quarter points coming into this matchup and it had to change if they had a chance of winning.
Just as the Eagles started to build momentum, Dallas Goedert fumbled the ball and it resulted in a Cowboys touchdown.
It was all downhill from there.
Turnovers, lapses in concentration, penalties, you name it, the Eagles suffered from it.
Nelson Agholor struggled to track balls, the Eagles turned the ball over four times and defensively, still found ways to make it look easy for their opponents. There wasn’t a single phase of this game that was pleasant outside of Hassan Ridgeway’s play, but even he picked up an injury.
Help…
After Pederson guaranteed a win on WIP earlier in the week amidst a flurry of other un’Eagle’like actions, the team laid an egg. After Carson Wentz was criticized by an anonymous teammate, he looked uncertain in the pocket and wasn’t helped by a dismal showing from the offensive line and his receivers.
Malcolm Jenkins got in Dak Prescott’s face late on as frustrations boiled over and at this point, it’s safe to say that the Eagles have some soul-searching to do. This was just dreadful and with all the noise surrounding the team pre-game, stopping an implosion has to be a priority.
The Eagles acted prematurely…
At the start of the week, the Eagles cut LB Zach Brown, who was third in team tackles and has long been known as an elite run defender. They also had the best run defense in the NFL and held backs like Dalvin Cook, LeVeon Bell, and Derrius Guice to under 3 YPC.
Zeke put up 111 yards and received for 36 more.
The linebacker play was shoddy and tackles were missed frequently.
I’m not attributing this solely to the loss of Brown, because Bradham was down too…but if the Eagles didn’t do anything to re-enforce the position, it begs a question…
Where were the playmakers?
Dallas have a history of blanketing Zach Ertz, but the franchise TE went untargeted for 2.5 quarters. Nelson Agholor seemingly let an absolute sitter pass him by, Lane Johnson was sporadic, Miles Sanders still has obvious setbacks rushing the ball, and I don’t even know what Mack Hollins did outside of wave his arms around.
There’s a lot more to this game, and we’ll get to that in due course. But for now, get some rest and dream…hoping that when you wake up that it was all a nightmare.
But hey, at least Jalen Mills leapt like a Salmon to pick off a pass in his return. Every cloud…
Mandatory Credit: Tim Heitman-USA TODAY Sports
