December 31, 2023
Bill Streicher/USA TODAY Sports
The Eagles' ship under Nick Sirianni is sinking like a rock.
The Philadelphia Eagles stink. As always, win, lose, or tie, we hand out 10 awards.
The final score was 35-31, but make no mistake, the Eagles got their asses kicked in this game. The final team stats:Â
| Stat | Cardinals | Eagles |
| First downs | 32 | 17 |
| Total yards | 449 | 275 |
| Plays run | 72 | 47 |
| Rushing yards | 221 | 91 |
| Passing yards | 228 | 184 |
| Punts | 0 (!) | 2 |
| Time of Possession | 39:39 | 20:21 |
The Cardinals had 15 more first downs, 174 more yards, they ran 25 more plays, they held the ball for for almost 20 more minutes of game clock, and they didn't punt.Â
And it all happened at home against a 3-12 team with nothing to play for but pride.
In the first half the Cardinals had three offensive drives that took up a ton of time, but only resulted in 6 points, and actually a pick-six going the other way:
⢠Drive 1, FG: 14 plays, 64 yards, 7:46
⢠Drive 2, INT: 8 plays, 43 yards, 3:52
⢠Drive 3, FG: 16 plays, 59 yards, 9:54
⢠Drive 4, End of half: 2 plays, 9 yards, 0:16
Despite the lack of points on the board, the Cardinals were methodically moving the ball, and the Eagles' defense wasn't offering much resistance. The interception came on a play in which Kyler Murray had a miscommunication with his receiver and the Eagles were gifted a turnover. Sydney Brown made the pick, and he had an electric return for a score, but the Eagles' didn't exactly force the action on that turnover.
In the second half, the Eagles' defense was helpless.Â
⢠Drive 1, TD: 10 plays, 75 yards, 6:18
⢠Drive 2, TD: 9 plays, 77 yards, 5:03
⢠Drive 3, TD: 8 plays, 77 yards, 4:29
⢠Drive 4, TD, 7 plays, 70 yards, 2:01
The Eagles played worse defense in the second half against a 3-12 Cardinals team missing their starting LT and their best receiver than they did in their legendarily bad second half of the Super Bowl against Patrick Mahomes and Andy Reid.Â
The panic move to demote Sean Desai and promote Matt Patricia to defensive coordinator did nothing.
The Eagles' run defense was especially bad. The Cardinals' rushing stats:
|  Player | Rush | Yards | YPC | TD |
| James Conner | 26 | 128 | 4.9 | 1 |
| Michael Carter | 7 | 61 | 8.7 | 0 |
| Kyler Murray | 5 | 24 | 4.8 | 0 |
| Rondale Moore | 2 | 8 | 4.0 | 0 |
| TOTALÂ | 40Â | 221Â | 5.5Â | 1Â |
The Eagles' run defense was good at one time this year. Those days are long gone.
32 Kyler Murray dropbacks, 1 sack. Last week the Eagles' pass rush only had 1 sack against a historically bad Giants offensive line. They simply haven't been good enough. Or maybe more accurately, they simply haven't been good.
The offense played reasonably well in this game. Jalen Hurts was sharp and as a team they scored 3.4 points per drive. But with 4:13 left in the game, with the score tied and facing a 1st and 20 from the Cardinals' 30 yard line, the Eagles' offensive staff went uber conservative.
With the offensive weapons that the Eagles have assembled, somehow they seemed to be settling for a field goal.
One of the comical moments of this game while watching from the press box was when a fan was able to loudly yell "REALLY?!?" during the 1st and 20 called run to Hurts, before the rest of the crowd was able to react to the play call. Give that guy the game ball.
Nick Sirianni disagreed that they were conservative play calls.Â
"I don't think that's a conservative there," Sirianni said. "If they're blitzing a bunch of gaps right there, you're running a gap scheme that has a chance to hit for big yards, and we needed to get back into it. We could have thrown there, too. We chose to go [with quarterback runs]. It didn't hit, but I think sometimes with the gap scheme stuff you do you have to do some different things to cancel out gaps if they're bringing everything out, so that's why we went that way. It didn't work.Â
"The screen, we're 3rd and [19], you're going to have a hard time converting and we have to get ourselves in range â the wind was blowing into our faces a little bit on that side earlier in the game â so we needed to get into better range to make sure we took a three point lead there. And hey, they went down and scored and we didn't win the game."
That mumbo jumbo aside, I would say that if the defense is running a scheme that causes you to believe that two consecutive quarterback runs give you the best chance of getting big gains on 1st/2nd and long, you got out-schemed.
Oh, and on that screen call to Gainwell, DeVonta Smith's leg got rolled up on, and he left the stadium on crutches and in a walking boot. So there's that.
Credit where it's due â Gannon and the Cardinals' staff outcoached Sirianni and the Eagles' staff.
I actually thought Gannon's onsides kick attempt was a great move, even though it didn't work. If you recover it, great! If not, it shortened the amount of time the Eagles' offense would have the ball, and no matter the outcome of their ensuing drive, the Cardinals would have more time to drive the field yet again against the Eagles' shit defense. Kinda brilliant, really.
All the Eagles had to do was beat two of the worst teams in the NFL in the Cardinals and Giants and they would win the NFC East as well as earning the 2 seed in the NFC, at worst. Now? If the Cowboys beat the woeful Commanders next weekend, they will clinch the NFC East, the Eagles will be the 5 seed, and barring some incredibly unlikely playoff outcomes, any path to the Super Bowl (lol) will exclusively consist of road games.
At one point the Eagles were 10-1, and every other team in the NFL had a minimum of three losses. To go from that position of power to the freaking 5 seed (!) is just a stunning collapse.
True or not, do you think that Howie Roseman thinks that he built a really strong roster this season? I do. đââď¸
Do you think that he and Jeffrey Lurie are going to be happy if the team closes the regular season the way they did and then go one-and-done in the playoffs? I don't. đ ââď¸
I guess there's still a chance that the Eagles' can somehow turn their season around and maybe end on some level of respectability. I mean, I certainly wouldn't hold out any hope on that at this point, but it's possible, I guess?
If that doesn't happen, heads are going to roll. It's just a matter of how high up in the chain of command that Roseman and Lurie will be willing to go to fix the issues with this team.
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