January 15, 2024
Nathan Ray Seebeck/USA TODAY Sports
Will Nick Sirianni survive such a monumental collapse?
It's over, and exactly in the way most expected, feared, or just wanted over with already.
The Eagles got embarrassed by the Bucs, 32-9, in the NFC Wild Card down in Tampa on Monday night, and that's how a startlingly disappointing season ends. A six-loss in seven-game spiral comes complete with a thunderous crash back down to earth. A season with Super Bowl or bust expectations, a roster thought to be loaded with talent, and at one point an NFL-best 10-1 start to line up a direct path to the division title and the No. 1 seed in the NFC, all out the window as the Eagles squandered nearly every opportunity from Week 13 onward. They imploded.
And now there's just nothing. Nothing but bitterness, apathy, and the looming unknown of what happens next.
It was all the usual suspects for the Eagles' demise on Monday night: An uninventive and thus ineffective offense with a stubborn refusal to run the ball or work the middle of the field, a defense full of blown assignments that couldn't stop anything in the secondary – plus probably the most atrociously bad tackling effort seen by anyone all season – overall play-calling that seemed to continue to lack any rhyme or reason, and the worst of it all, a team that looked physically and mentally spent.
There was nothing left.
So what does happen next?
Does Nick Sirianni stay on as head coach? Yeah, he's not even a year removed from guiding this team to the Super Bowl, but he also just oversaw a monumental collapse, one to a level not seen since the Chip Kelly era crashed and burned – and it's arguably even more disastrous than that.
The offense completely stagnated and got to a point where despite having an MVP-caliber quarterback in Jalen Hurts, three of the game's best pass catchers in DeVonta Smith, A.J. Brown (though out with injury), and Dallas Goedert, a dynamic running back in D'Andre Swift and what was one of the NFL's top offensive lines, they just couldn't move the ball.
A prayer of a throw from Hurts 55 yards downfield to Smith at the Tampa 5 late in the first half led to the Eagles scoring six right after and showing some kind of pulse, but after getting gifted a two-point try right up against the goal line thanks to a defensive offsides call, the Bucs went and did the unthinkable: they stopped the "tush push."
.@Buccaneers stop the 2-pt tush push!!
— NFL (@NFL) January 16, 2024
📺: #PHIvsTB on ESPN/ABC
📱: Stream on #NFLPlus https://t.co/rFlj59UzNi pic.twitter.com/Lpl1piR1IY
It was like that touchdown didn't even matter anymore. And that safety later on in the third resulting from Hurts failing to find an out and holding on for way too long? Just salt in a wound that was already overflowing with it.
SAFETY!!! 😳
— NFL (@NFL) January 16, 2024
📺: #PHIvsTB on ESPN/ABC
📱: Stream on #NFLPlus https://t.co/rFlj59UzNi pic.twitter.com/0B4YZd9q3E
The run game that was the Eagles' bread and butter from halfway through 2021 and all the way through to the Super Bowl in 2022, they removed themselves from it almost entirely once again – D'Andre Swift only had two carries outside of the opening possession in the first half – all while the passing game kept getting built on play calls that bafflingly relied on long-developing deep routes and nonsensically-timed screens that often got Hurts and the offense nowhere.
It's a massive indictment of offensive coordinator Brian Johnson, who's been the immediate source of blame all season, but just as much – if not more – of Sirianni too, who has repeatedly fallen on the sword that this is his offense just for it to continually get worse until even the basement-dwelling Giants could blank the starters.
This unit has fallen apart, suspicion has been circling for the past couple of weeks now that Sirianni's seat is hot, and after all Hurts and Co. could muster were nine points and 276 yards of total offense against the Bucs, it may have just hit supernova.
What do the Eagles do on defense, too? They don't really have a defensive coordinator right now. The question around Sean Desai, after he was unceremoniously demoted following the Week 14 thrashing from Dallas, feels less about if he's coming back and more about why he would even want to. And is anyone really in the mood to see Matt Patricia back after the further mess he made once he was left in charge? After all that open space left uncovered, all those free yards surrendered, and that godawful tackling we just saw Monday night?
Too smooth! David Moore takes it in for a 44-yard TD 🙌
— NFL (@NFL) January 16, 2024
📺: #PHIvsTB on ESPN/ABC
📱: Stream on #NFLPlus https://t.co/rFlj59UzNi pic.twitter.com/K04XZqqPvb
The defensive backfield is in pieces, linebacker depth is non-existent, and the front seven that was so historically fierce last season just couldn't get home to the quarterback anywhere close to the same pace, and on the whole, the entire unit started hemorrhaging points and couldn't stop once it did – of which can also amount to now glaring misreads in positional needs on the part of GM Howie Roseman.
And what becomes of the core four? Lane Johnson has always said he has a couple more years left, so he'll more than likely be back, but what about Fletcher Cox? What about Brandon Graham? And what about Jason Kelce? He's been operating year-to-year for a long time, and coming off the run in 2021, he wanted to keep going for just a bit longer because with Hurts and Sirianni, he said he was having too much fun.
But where's the fun now? Is it finally time?
Top to bottom, what happened to the Eagles – or rather, what the Eagles did to themselves – in the past month and change has been outright catastrophic for a team that had such high expectations.
And all of it leaves them in a brutal spot fraught with a lot of uncertainty and tough decisions ahead, ones that everyone knows are coming, but have no idea where they will leave them.
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