The Philadelphia Eagles enjoyed their bye week by watching their draft stock get better, and key conference rivals all lose. The Bucs and Packers may have helped the Eagles’ odds of securing the top seed in the playoffs, but they did not get any help from their division rivals.
The NFC East went an outstanding 3-0 on Sunday and owns a record of 16-3 outside of games in their own division. Exceptional defense, safe offense, and smart coaching have played a key part in the NFC East’s reemergence.
There are plenty of things the Eagles, as a team, need to improve after the bye week, but there are three key points that the Eagles coaching staff needs to improve.
Second Half Adjustments
The Eagles have been a lethal first-half team this season. They have set the record for most second-quarter points through the first six games in NFL history.
But the second half has been frankly not even close to the level of competence we’re used to seeing under Nick Sirianni. In fact, outside of overwhelming teams in the second quarter, the Eagles are actually being outscored in 1st, the 3rd, and 4th quarters.
A big reason for that is a lack of adjustments or the wrong ones entirely from the coaching staff. There’s Jonathan Gannon changing a dominant defensive performance in Arizona and Dallas to almost giving up the lead.
There’s Shane Steichen keeping this vanilla in clear blowouts to Minnesota and Washington. Or the special teams unit keeping teams in games with mental mistakes.
Philadelphia needs to be much better in the second half of games if they want to continue to be one of the best teams in football.
Physicality
The Eagles’ offense has no problems being physical. They have the most physical offensive line, receiving core, and running backs that make them so difficult to defend.
Their defense, on the other hand, has not been consistently physical. In fact, compared to the rest of the team, the Eagles’ defense has been horrific when it comes to securing tackles.
You can’t be considered a top 5 defense in the game when you miss as many tackles as the Eagles do. Jonathan Gannon and the Eagles’ coaching staff as a whole need to do a better job of actually preparing his group to tackle.
If they don’t, it could cost them key victories throughout the season.
Complacency
It’s easy to love the job Nick Sirianni and his staff has done through the first six weeks of the season. A 6-0 start to the season is not an easy feat.
But the Pittsburgh Steelers and Arizona Cardinals have each gone undefeated throughout the early parts of the season until end-of-year collapses ultimately had them as early-playoff exits as well.
The Eagles don’t have the luxury of going through that this season. Therefore, it will be up to the coaching staff to keep this roster hungry and prepared every single week. It’s not an easy task, but it’s one that the young Eagles’ staff will need to continue to show throughout the year.
AP Photo/Matt Slocum
