Welp…that stunk. The Philadelphia Eagles for the first time in the 2023 season have lost a football game in a pretty disappointing fashion. Philadelphia’s offense turned the ball over four times, the last of which set up a game-winning score, and the team fell to the New York Jets for the first time in franchise history.
As you can expect from a loss like this, there are plenty of negative takeaways to look at. Let’s go through the biggest ones here.
The Eagles are their its worst enemy
As good as players like Jalen Hurts, Dallas Goedert, and DeAndre Swift are, they are their absolute worst enemy on the field. Philadelphia was playing their C- game the entire contest and had a lead, but by turning the football over an ungodly four times, set themselves up for the loss.
Injuries certainly play a part in terms of effectiveness, but it’s absurd to think the Eagles deserved to win that game. They have played down to competition all year and it finally bit them in the but.
Things must change on the offensive end. Philadelphia is far too careless with the football and it has caused doubt to come into a fanbase that should not have any going into the new season. Four turnovers against a bad offense is unacceptable. Poor playcalling against a team missing four corners is unacceptable.
As much as we want to complain about the defense’s inabilities at times, the Eagles offense as a whole lost them their first game.
Injuries will keep team from true title contention
There is only one reason as to why the Eagles won’t match their championship aspirations from last season – injuries. The injury luck the team had in 2022 is not following them this year and it’s hitting all the positions they need to have ready for their gauntlet of a schedule.
Lane Johnson, Cam Jurgens, Avonte Maddox, Darius Slay, Jalen Carter, Reed Blankenship, Sydney Brown, Bradley Roby, and Justin Evans all missed time in Sunday’s game with injuries. If this list gets any bigger, it’ll be hard to see this team get the top seed in the NFC – that’s just the fact facing this team.
Philadelphia needs to get healthier to reach the Super Bowl again. Any other major injury and this team is going to be in serious trouble.
Luckily for them, it appears many of these players will be back shortly with the trade deadline coming shortly to potentially add an infusion of more talent on the roster.
There were quite a lot of problems outside of Jalen Hurts
Everyone wants to pile on Hurts because of his game-ending interception and the god-awful fourth quarter he put up. Those people conveniently leave out the fact though that the Jets defensive line feasted after Lane Johnson left the game, DeVonta Smith dropped three passes for the first time in his career, and a big field goal by Jake Elliott was hooked wide.
When your best players outside the quarterback are either not playing, or messing up in big spots, it’s not too far-fetched to see a quarterback try and do too much. It also doesn’t help that Philadelphia’s play-calling on offense was god-awful. There was little to no tempo, some plays were destroyed before they were even run, and Hurts looked confused based on what was being called.
There’s a lot to pinpoint as to why the Eagles offense hasn’t looked the same from last year. The fact of the matter is though that while the quarterback has taken most of the blame, he is far from the biggest problem.
That being said…Jalen Hurts wasn’t very good when the Eagles needed him
With all that being said, the Eagles had a two-point lead with two minutes to go, the ball on a third-and-nine, near midfield, and with their opponent not having any timeouts. Had Hurts not thrown the ball directly to Tony Adams, the Birds run down the clock or given the ball back with minimal time left.
Hurts did not have to make the throw that ended up being his third interception of the game – a spot where the team needed him to protect the football. Adams’ interception was as stunning as it was stupid. Philadelphia’s QB1 should have never made that throw and it effectively lost the game there.
Simply put, Hurts needs to play a lot better if the team is going to be competing for another championship run. There’s little doubt that he will correct his mistakes from this game, but it’s a loss that wasn’t necessary if he just didn’t throw the ball right to a defender.
This team is fine – stop panicking over one loss
Philadelphia played their worst game in recent memory. Everything that could go wrong, went wrong.
An All-Pro kicker misses a 37-yard field goal, a Pro-Bowl wide receiver drops three passes, an All-Pro quarterback throws a terrible pick, and the best offensive line in football couldn’t figure out how to manage a game without their right tackle.
There’s just so much that went wrong that it’s hard to see this team ever play worse.
That being said, they will lose more games this season whether fans want them to or not. That’s the reality of the NFL. The Eagles were not going to go undefeated and they won’t have only one loss the rest of the year. The fact of the matter is that this team needed to be humbled and now they have. The locker room is still together, they still have an unbelievable amount of talent, and the coaching staff should be given the benefit of the doubt to fix their mistakes.
To think this team can’t get back to their winning ways, or that this team will struggle to make the playoffs (as many now think) is an absolute ludicrous take. They lost to an AFC opponent – inconsequential when it comes to the #1 seed race in the NFC and will be getting healthier later in the year. They are a well-run team that knows what they need to correct.
Stop taking every loss as if it’s life or death – this Eagles team will be perfectly fine.
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AP Photo/Noah K. Murra
