November 28, 2025
Bill Streicher/Imagn Images
Nick Sirianni doesn't have any answers for his expensive, struggling offense.
Playing on Black Friday, the Philadelphia Eagles lost their second consecutive game, this time at home to the Chicago Bears. The offense, defense, and special teams all kinda stunk. As always, win, lose, or tie, we hand out 10 awards.
The Eagles' offense sucks. #Analysis. But it's not that they suck. It's how they suck.
They held the ball for barely over one-third of the game, as the Bears beat the Eagles in time of possession, 39:18 to 20:42. The Bears doubled them up in first downs, 28-14. They ran 85 plays to the Eagles' 51.
The Eagles had four three-and-outs, plus another two-play possession that ended in a Bears INT. If you used the bathroom during a commercial break, there was a decent chance that by the time you sat back down on the sofa, the Bears already had the ball again. There's the "West Coast Offense, the "Run and Shoot," the "Spread" Offense, the "Wing-T," etc. The Eagles run the "No Pee Breaks" Offense, because if you have to pee, you'll miss it. And really, congrats to those of you who did.
Beyond the general unproductiveness, they don't exploit defensive weaknesses. In this case, the Bears were missing their top three linebackers, and opposing tight ends were averaging 6.5 receptions per game against them. Dallas Goedert somehow had just 4 targets.
There's no rhythm, no flow, rarely plays that complement others, no creativity. It's bad, and it's boring. It just sucks.
Hurts was 19 of 34 for 230 yards, 2 TDs, and 1 INT. It was very windy, and much like in the windy game against the Lions, both Hurts and the opposing quarterback didn't have good numbers. But, I mean, windy or not, when you have golden opportunities like Hurts had on this throw to DeVonta Smith, you have to capitalize.
Hurts is leaving too many plays on the field.
The Eagles had one of the best rushing attacks in league history last season. That's gone. Saquon Barkley simply isn't the same runner he was a year ago, and he's not being helped by Hurts, who I'm told does not love having a lot of designed QB runs in the gameplan.
Barkley carried 13 times for 56 yards (4.3 YPC), which wasn't in the top five of his worst statistical performances of the season. But unlike in other games, there actually seemed to be holes to run through, and Barkley just... didn't... or couldn't.
"We got a lot of edge pressure, a lot of nickel blitz... and I think we executed pretty well when we got into those plays, and it didn't correlate to a lot of yards," Cam Jurgens said. "That's a little frustrating, feeling like we're doing a good job up there, and getting crushed in yards.
"We didn't know exactly how they were going to handle it with all their linebackers out. They ended up playing a lot of nickel and dime, should be able to run against that."
Even the old reliable Tush Push isn't working for the Eagles' offense anymore, as the Bears were able to rip the ball out of Hurts' arms for a turnover.
The Lions did a good job of stopping it a couple games ago, and the Giants should have had a turnover on a ball they ripped out of Hurts' grasp during a Tush Push earlier this season, but the Eagles were lucky that the officials determined that Hurts' forward progress had stopped.
The only good play the Eagles had doesn't work anymore, either.
You know who did run the ball well? The Bears. They had 281 rushing yards, with Kyle Monangai running for 130 yards and D'Andre Swift running for 125. The defensive line got owned up front, while the linebackers were often caught out of position, and the safeties were missing tackles.
When you're that bad against the run, it's a team effort.
The Bears turned the ball over on downs on their first drive of the game. That was actually the 10th consecutive stop the Eagles' defense has gotten on teams trying to go for it on fourth down, dating back to the Week 10 game against the Packers. But as usual, after the Eagles got a key stop, the offense failed to score points on the ensuing drive.
In fact, during that streak of 10 consecutive fourth-down stops, the Eagles' offense scored just 13 points on their ensuing drives. That is unacceptable.
Near the end of the first half, the Eagles got the ball at their own 35 yard line, with 2:47 left on the clock. They ran one play and then let the clock run down to the two-minute warning. Is it possible to score a touchdown in under two minutes, with all three of your timeouts? Of course! Do you give your offense a better chance to score with two and a half minutes? You sure do.
It's pretty clear that Sirianni doesn't have great confidence in his offense. Nor should he. But if you're a fan, it's tough to watch your team waste ~40 seconds at the end of the half so it's harder for the other team to score after you inevitably punt.
And if we're being truthful, the strategy did kind of work. The Eagles went three and out, punted, and the Bears ran out of time before they could score. So, you know, mission accomplished! 🥳🎉
Elliott missed a PAT and a FG. The PAT kinda hurt a bit.
As noted repeatedly throughout this article, the offense sucks. I know it, you know, the coaching staff knows it, and certainly, the owner knows it. The Eagles must make some kind of significant change. They cannot keep rolling out this trash offense every week. They have 10 days between Black Friday and their next game on December 8th against the Chargers. It's time. They can't do nothing.
My guess is that someone else will be calling plays for the Eagles in that Chargers game. Though Kevin Patullo is far from the only problem — and in my opinion, hardly their biggest problem — he has not brought anything to the table and is the easiest high-level switch the team can make.
Postgame, Nick Sirianni was asked if he would consider making a switch during their extended break between now and the next game.
"We're not changing the play caller," he said.
OK, well, if it's not that, what's it going to be?
This is where the Lurie needs to step in and demand a plan involving some kind of significant change, and if he doesn't get a satisfactory proposal, he should make a change himself.
First of all, forget the 1 seed. The Eagles need to just figure out how to win some games and secure the NFC East. Following the Eagles' Week 11 Sunday win over the Detroit Lions, the NFC East standings looked like this:
| NFC East | Record |
| Eagles | 8-2 |
| Cowboys | 3-5-1 |
| Commanders | 3-8 |
| Giants | 2-9 |
Huge lead. At that time, the Eagles had five more wins than the Cowboys, and analytics site Inpredictable had the Birds as 99 percent likely to win the NFC East. There was a reasonable possibility that the Eagles could mathematically clinch the division before December.
Since then:
• The Cowboys convincingly beat a bad Raiders team Monday night of Week 11.
• Then they beat the reigning champion Eagles at home after falling behind 21-0.
• Then they beat the other team that played in the Super Bowl last season, the Kansas City Chiefs, in front of a national audience on Thanksgiving.
• The Eagles lost to the Bears.
The standings now look like this:
| NFC East | Record |
| Eagles | 8-4 |
| Cowboys | 6-5-1 |
| Commanders | 3-8 |
| Giants | 2-9 |
The Eagles are still favorites to win the division, but it's officially dicey. Assuming the Eagles don't tie an opponent the rest of the season, tiebreakers won't come into play between the Eagles and Cowboys, because the Cowboys tied the Packers Week 3. They simply have to win more games than the Cowboys.
If the Eagles win at least four more games, they will win the NFC East, no matter what the Cowboys do. Their "magic number" is four. Each Cowboys loss going forward reduces the number of games the Eagles must win by one.
Here are the Eagles' and Cowboys' schedules mashed together, from Week 13 on:
| Week | Matchup | Good Eagles result? |
| 13 | Chiefs at Cowboys | ❌ |
| 13 | Bears at Eagles, Black Friday | ❌ |
| 14 | Cowboys at Lions, TNF | |
| 14 | Eagles at Chargers, MNF | |
| 15 | Raiders at Eagles, Sun, 1:00 | |
| 15 | Vikings at Cowboys, SNF | |
| 16 | Eagles at Commanders, Saturday | |
| 16 | Chargers at Cowboys, Sun, 1:00 | |
| 17 | Cowboys at Commanders, Thurs (Christmas) | |
| 17 | Eagles at Bills, Sun, 4:25 | |
| 18 | Cowboys at Giants, TBD | |
| 18 | Commanders at Eagles, TBD |
Again, the Eagles only need four ideal results (an Eagles win or Cowboys loss) in the remaining 10 games, and they will win the NFC East. Would you bet on that right now?
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