The Eagles are now 1-4-1, and awaiting tonight’s Dallas-Arizona game to determine if they are 1.5 games out of first, or merely a half game. Frankly, the NFC East is pathetic. Looking back on the Eagles season so far is painful. They opened the season against the Washington Football Team who is arguably the second worst team in the league (Jets). After looking dominant to start the game, Carson threw a pick and the wheels completely fell off. Washington’s defensive front took over the game from there, and the Eagles started 0-1. Carson’s confidence, either in himself or his receivers, looked shaky, and despite having approximately 5 million coaches on the offensive side of the ball no one seemed able to make the proper adjustments for week 2 when they would host the Los Angeles Rams. Doug has traditionally handled McVay in these match-ups, but it wasn’t to be this year. More injuries, lack of confidence and a general inability to adjust to difficult situations saw the Eagles drop a second straight game.
In week three, they sorta-kinda started to figure things out against the Bengals, who aren’t very good despite a promising rookie campaign by Joe Burrow to date. This game ended pathetically in a tie after the Eagles were forced to storm back late in the fourth to send the game to OT. Neither team was very good in OT, but the Eagles had the upper hand late when they received the ball near midfield. After eking their way into FG range, they were backed up by penalty and “forced” to punt. I would have preferred they try to kick anyway. If they missed, then so be it. It was unlikely the Bengals would be able to win even getting the ball in that spot given how little time was left.
Then the Eagles finally catch a break and play the only other team as injured as they are in week 4, and the Eagles picked up a win against the 49ers to give us all hope. At this point they are 1-2-1 with games against the top ranked defenses in Pittsburgh and Baltimore next up on the schedule. Unsurprisingly, they lost those games, but they did show some fight in each of them and the arrow is pointing up.
Which leads me to my main point. Where the F******K was all this fight in weeks 1-3? I get it. Everyone is hurt (again), and Carson has to do it all himself because no one can catch, but seriously. They put up nearly 30 points in back-to-back games against the top two ranked defenses (per DVOA) in the league. Yet, somehow, they couldn’t muster even 20 against WFT and ended in a tie with the Bengals? Talk about a lost opportunity. In an alternate reality where Carson actually hits his receivers in the flat and the receivers actually catch the ball, the Eagles are no worse than 3-3 at this point in the season. A good, smart Eagles team could even be 4-2 (the Ravens weren’t really that impressive yesterday). The defense was poor against the Rams and Steelers, so we’ll assume those are losses anyway, but how good would 4-2 look in the NFC East right now?
Yesterday’s game was both encouraging for the performance they put forth to almost rally back from such a massive deficit, and infuriating for showing the kind of fight we should have seen earlier in the season. I hate the Patriots, but they have the right idea. DO. YOUR. JOB. If you had, you’d be running away with the division and maybe those rumors of being buyers at the deadline would actually make sense.
