Tick-Tock Goes the Eagles Doomsday Clock
When will the Eagles implode? Sunday against the Rams? In the Wild Card round? NEVER? Too Deep Zone tries to cut through the doomerism and look at the facts. And kinda-sorta succeeds.
Exactly one year ago next Tuesday, Jalen Hurts raced into the end zone in overtime to give the defending NFC Champion Philadelphia Eagles a 37-34 victory over the Buffalo Bills, raising their record to 10-1.
We all remember what happened next.
Sure, everyone knew there was some fluff in the 2023 Eagles record before their late season ELE. We also know there is some fluff in the current Chiefs record. Do you expect the Chiefs to go 1-5 down the stretch like the Eagles did? Lose to conference lightweights? Chump out in the Wild Card round? Didn’t think so.
The 2023 Eagles had just beaten the Cowboys, Chiefs and Bills. They looked great, if not 10-1 great. They had a Super Bowl pedigree. They …
There were lots of reasons for the Eagles’ grand mal seizure last year: Matt Patricia, a stale offensive scheme, Matt Patricia, lack of depth (and James Bradberry suddenly aging 30 years) in the secondary, Matt Patricia, and a rift among among Nick Sirianni, his staff, and the team’s biggest stars, which was exacerbated by Matt Patricia. However we parse the blame (Patricia Patricia Patricia), the Eagles went from Super Bowl shortlisters to a team with problems at the mitochondrial level.
That’s why it’s impossible to have much faith in the current 8-2 Eagles. They look like last year’s team: Sirianni, Hurts, A.J. Brown, DeVonta Smith, Darius Slay … heck, even their chorale group is still making records. They play the same, steamrolling opponents on the ground, thriving on deep passes, shoving their way into the end zone and then letting opponents back into the game with a spree of whoopsie-doodle bloopers. They even sounded the same, at least early in the year, when Sirianni spent most of his press conferences justifying his fourth-down dream logic and contextualizing his relationship with Hurts to the marriage counselors in the Eagles media.
These are NOT the 2023 Eagles. At least, I don’t think they are. But Iggles fans won’t be convinced until they win a playoff game. And most won’t be satisfied unless they reach the Super Bowl.
Welcome to another installment in Too Deep Zone’s Down the Stretch series, where we focus on one playoff hopeful, usually a team coming off a bye or a Thursday night game so I can get a jump on the gags and research. (Everything has an ulterior motive around here.)
The Eagles Story So Far
After a late-2023 meltdown that made Chernobyl look like a scrap of aluminum foil in a microwave, Jeffrey Lurie and Howie Roseman overhauled the entire roster (except Hurts and other core veterans) and coaching staff (except Sirianni). Gone were Patricia, who was so obviously a saboteur that Scooby and Shaggy could have figured it out without Velma’s help, as well as some big names who were both part of the solution (Jason Kelce retired) and part of the problem (James Toastberry, enigmatic weeb Haason Reddick). Newcomers included well-regarded coordinators Vic Fangio and Kellen Moore, Saquon Barkley, rookie cornerbacks Quinyon Mitchell and Cooper DeJean and former Saints defensive role-player Zach Baun, whose acquisition did not generate much attention at the time.
The fully-armed-and-hopefully-less-dysfunctional Eagles started the season 2-2, with a last-minute collapse to the Falcons and drubbing at the hands of the Buccaneers, not to mention a close call against the injury-plagued Saints. But they pulled themselves together during a Week 5 bye – Hurts said that he shared some “great moments” with Sirianni during that bye, which gives a sense of what their moments together must have been like in the preceding months – and have not lost since.
Oh, the Eagles have had plenty of close calls this season. Sirianni single-handedly kept the Saints victory close with his baffling fourth-down decisions. A blocked field goal return for a touchdown made the Browns game closer than it should have been. A Barkley fumble and another set of wacky decisions allowed the Jaguars to stay in the game in Week 9. And the Eagles offense generally spends the first quarter futzing around before it gets serious about feeding the ball to its superstars. But the Eagles have genuinely improved as the season has worn on, particularly on defense. The mood in Philly has therefore gradually shifted from “Sirianni must be fired yesterday,” to “Sirianni must be fired the moment the Eagles lose in the playoffs.”
Leadership Structure
Sirianni started his Eagles career exuding the positivity and enthusiasm of a rah-rah middle school gym teacher. Then the post-Super Bowl pressure wound him up tighter than Lars Ulrich’s snare head, and Sirianni began making the types of bad decisions (Matt Patricia deserves MORE POWER) someone makes when their fight-or-flight response gets stuck on “early stages of a zombie apocalypse.”
Early in the season, Sirianni came across as a garden-variety twitchy coaching paranoiac, mouthing reassuring platitudes about his relationships with his players while desperately exercising his dwindling authority by making the most irrational fourth-down decisions imaginable. He even used his children as a human criticism shield at one press conference.
Sirianni has loosened up a bit in recent weeks, going so far as to yuk it up on the Pat McAfee show, the go-to propaganda machine for mad NFL martinets who want to appear more human.
It’s worth noting here that Sirianni has the eighth-highest winning percentage in NFL history at .689. Only Jim Harbaugh (.696) has a higher winning percentage among active coaches. Sirianni must be doing a lot of things right. But his fourth-down decisions have been undeniably loopy, and he really gives off a bitterest-divorcee-at-the-bar vibe.