January 19, 2026
Steven Bisig/Imagn Images
The 49ers had to play a team with an actual gameplan and couldn't hang.
It's stress-free playoff watching for Eagles fans the rest of the way, but man, it was really that easy.
The Seahawks absolutely walloped the 49ers, 41-6, in Saturday's NFC Divisional Round game.
From the opening kickoff, which Rashid Shaheed housed 95 yards for a Seattle touchdown, to the final ticks of the clock, it was as thorough a beatdown as you'll see maybe all season.
Brock Purdy, Christian McCaffrey, and the San Francisco offense got crushed, and could only muster two second-quarter field goals, while their defense got run over for three touchdowns and 116 yards by Kenneth Walker.
The Niners, who the Eagles just couldn't figure out a week ago, were completely toothless.
They couldn't move, and they couldn't stop anyone in a Seattle uniform from moving. They were in over their head, and they looked like they didn't belong anywhere near the playoff field.
Beating them was that easy, and the Eagles couldn't do it.
This isn't to say the Eagles would've fared any better as they were. Had they won the Wild Card to keep their infuriating season alive for just one more week, they go to Chicago, and the likelihood is they don't stick around into overtime the way the Rams did to hang on for the win on Sunday night.
That offense wasn't prepared to do much more than go three-and-out within a minute of every possession, which really would've only prolonged the agony of watching that miserable unit try to win a game 10-7 for just one more week, while leaving all the responsibility for it at the defense's feet.
The Eagles really did deserve to lose last week's game the way they did, and have their season end because of it...
But man, they really did gift this crappy, whiny 49ers team one extra week, and really, for no good reason.
Now the team is staring down a long offseason, another offensive coordinator search, and months of decisions to come that fans are undoubtedly going to track with hyper fixation.
A couple more thoughts on all that now that it's been a week since the Eagles' season ended...
At the end of the day, for his entire body of work here, no Eagles fan should be upset with A.J. Brown.
Yeah, those drops last week against the Niners, to cap off a bizarre year of rumored and not-so-rumored drama, leave a bitter taste, along with a cloud hanging over all of it that looks like it's bringing on the end of his run in Philadelphia.
But, unquestionably, he's one of the best receivers the franchise ever had, and formed, even more unquestionably, the best receiving duo the Eagles have ever had between himself and DeVonta Smith.
He was a major part of bringing on two Super Bowl appearances, and a win in one of them, and then he still managed over 1,000 yards receiving this season for as broken as the offense was – which he did call out, warned about, and was ultimately right about.
And when that draft night trade with the Titans broke four years ago, it was one of those moments where you just knew on the spot that it was going toward making the Eagles special. You could see it on Jason Kelce's face when he read the deal out loud on a livestream.
But that run might be over now, and the Eagles' offense will have to start evolving because of it.
Brown, who was known to be frustrated with the offense to some degree all season, hasn't spoken to the press in weeks. Quarterback Jalen Hurts said during locker clean out at the NovaCare Complex last week that they have talked and indicated they're in a "good, great place" after there being long swirling rumors of a rift between the two dating back to last season, and general manger Howie Roseman said his peace a couple of days later, dancing around the subject of possibly trading Brown, but noting that "It is hard to find great players in the NFL, and A.J. is a great player."
The door is still open and the possibility is still there for Brown to come back, and if it does, that might have a lot to do with how the offensive coordinator search ends up.
But it still doesn't feel quite that way now that there's been time for the dust to settle a bit.
There are salary cap ramifications to moving him, but more manageable than many would expect, as our own Jimmy Kempski outlined. And as many fans and pundits have pointed out already, Roseman used similar language five years ago to tiptoe the prospect of trading Carson Wentz, and the former QB was shipped to Indianapolis a month later. There's no better GM in the league when it comes to managing seemingly impossible deals.
So if this is it for Brown as an Eagle, he'll be remembered for the Super Bowl runs, the deep bombs, and the slants that his unique blend of speed and strength made him near impossible to cover on. But then it'll come with the realization that it was only for four years, if it does indeed end up that way, when it maybe should've been for much longer.
Sorry for the repetitiveness, but again, the Eagles' offense was a total, uninspired mess this season.
Kevin Patullo had to take the blame for that, and has since gotten the boot as offensive coordinator. Head coach Nick Sirianni had to take it on the chin, too, because this is the second time an established OC left after a successful season, only to have his internal hire drop the ball while he himself could do nothing to step in and stop it.
Then there's Hurts, who also has to own a share of the Eagles' failure this year.
Jalen Hurts has to come back better next season.
He wasn't great in the Wild Card loss, and really, he wasn't great in a lot of games the Eagles either just got away with or fell apart in. And the scrutiny has come in droves in the aftermath, with questions getting posed about his willingness to continue running, to take snaps from under center, to utilize motion and read defenses, and to make the riskier throws because he also had his part in the Eagles offense's habit of avoiding in between the hashmarks like the plague.
And look, it's going to be on Hurts this offseason to get better from it and to get better established with whoever the new OC is going to be. And yeah, the questions and criticism of what he can really do are warranted... to an extent.
Because there is an extreme view out there that he isn't actually the guy, that he isn't why the Eagles win, despite having been to two Super Bowls, having played out of his mind in both of them, and winning the last against the NFL's longtime boogeyman while taking Super Bowl MVP honors in the process.
Hurts had a bad year, but he's far from a bad quarterback. The Eagles can continue to win with him. He's shown it. He can lead them. He's shown that, too. And if the trend of the past few years has shown anything – aside from the frequent turnover with OCs – it's that when there is an established, creative playcaller in charge, he thrives, and when that happens, the Eagles become one of the league's toughest teams to beat.
It was a bad, miserable year for the Eagles' offense, for a variety of reasons, and it was ultimately the root of the team's downfall.
But Hurts really should have the benefit of the doubt that he can rebound. He's done it before, and the Eagles walked away with the Lombardi Trophy not even a full 12 months ago because of it.
And if anyone really thinks otherwise, and that there's better out there, they can ask themselves this: What's Josh Allen's excuse this time?
SIGN UP HERE to receive the PhillyVoice Sports newsletter
Follow Nick on Twitter: @itssnick
Follow Nick on Bluesky: @itssnick
Like us on Facebook: PhillyVoice Sports
