The Draw Play

The Eagles had lost two games in a row to the Cowboys and Bears. The fans were restless. The vibes were bad. There was only one thing to do. Put a giant inflatable bunny in the locker room.

It did not work.

This year’s Eagles are a fascinating team. This is the squad that won the Super Bowl last year in dominating fashion. Some changes occurred, yes. The defense had some talent drain in free agency, and OC Kellen Moore left to coach the Saints. But outside that, this is basically the same squad. If you looked at their overall record, you wouldn’t be too worried. But Eagles fans are not happy, and they are right to be.

In 2023, having lost the Super Bowl, the Eagles suffered a rough season where they won games but in an unconvincing, messy fashion until everything fell apart. This season has had the exact same vibe from the get-go. The offense is a complete mess. This team has gone on to show just how important playcalling, scheming, and coaching are. The offense from last year is mostly intact! Same QB, same RB, mostly the same offensive line, same WRs and TEs. But they suck! Saquon has looked like the 2023 guy Giants fans were content to move on from. AJ Brown has been stirring the pot all season. Hurts is turning the ball over. The playcalling is bland, uncreative shit. The line is dealing with injuries. Instead of an offense utilizing the massive talents involved and operating in a way to minimize Hurts’ shortcomings, the team is running bland gutless runs, asking Hurts to do things he isn’t good at, and praying AJ Brown just does cool shit and catches a 50/50 ball thrown his way. The result is terrible offensive efficiency and tons of 3-and-outs. Saquon isn’t breaking his big runs. There’s no life.

What was amazing last year is how the team worked around Hurts. Hurts has limitations. He’s not great at reading defenses. He’s not particularly accurate. He doesn’t have the strongest arm. But as the team proved, if you build the team right, you can mask all that. A strong line to give Hurts protection. A great running game to take the pressure off. Great weapons to give him options. Good scheming and playcalling to reduce what you are asking him to process. A lot of criticism this year has come for Kevin Patullo’s playcalling being “too vanilla”, but maybe that’s not the problem. Not entirely. Maybe they are asking Hurts to do stuff he’s not that good at, and the poor run game isn’t masking him the way it was.

The Chargers game was a Hurts disasterclass, one of his worst games ever. Honestly the Eagles probably win that game easily if Hurts doesn’t turn the ball over 5 times. Two of those turnovers were on a single play! Hurts completely misses Chargers DE De’Shawn Hand drop into coverage and sit in the middle of the field and he throws the ball directly to him as AJ Brown scoots across the middle. Hand quickly gets stripped and fumbles, and miraculously the ball ends up back in the hands of Hurts. Instead of just going down, Hurts tries to make a play, and he gets stripped. The ball bounces backwards and the Chargers fall on it. Fantasy owners of Jalen Hurts everywhere groaned as both turnovers counted against him. The record keepers checked back as far as they could (1978), and could find no other instance of a player doing this. We witnessed history. I’m in awe. The amount of things that had to go right for a play that stupid to occur.

Hurts threw another bad pick a drive later before the half ended. The Eagles would settle in and go ahead after a vintage Barkley sprint in the 3rd, but Hurts would then airball a heater towards an open AJ Brown in the 4th which forces Brown to leap and tip the ball instead for another pick. That one is mostly on AJ but it should have been a lower pass to reduce the difficulty. The Chargers force overtime and that’s when Hurts throws his actual worst pass of the night. Down deep in the redzone, Hurts keeps the ball and bootlegs right, directly into the face of a waiting defender. Instead of just throwing the ball away (it’s first down! No pressure at all to make something happen!), he tries to squeeze the ball to Dotson near the sideline and it is tipped and caught by the Chargers to end it.

I still don’t know if Sirianni is a good coach. His first year I thought he was. His second year I thought he was actually kinda great, despite being a tool. After 2023, it was fair to wonder if Sirianni was just a figurehead at the top of a great roster that was dependent entirely on his coordinators, as both Gannon and Steichen left to be head coaches. Last year I came back around to him somewhat. Maybe he is dependent on his coordinators, but he might just be a great culture guy. This year, he once again looks like he’s reliant on the skills of his coordinators and he might also not be a great culture guy? The vibes are rancid this year. That’s what I figured he’d be good at. Sirianni makes some utterly baffling gameday decisions that have put the Eagles in dire straits, even in games they win. I can’t tell what Sirianni brings to the table outside playing a good heel.

The Eagles are probably going to beat the Raiders and Commies and win the division and get washed out of the playoffs in the wildcard. The fanbase has been screaming for Kevin Patullo’s head (a few intrepid assholes even going so far as to egg his house) and Sirianni is just doubling down. Patullo likely won’t fix it by season’s end. He will be unceremoniously let go in the offseason after they fail. Sirianni won’t fire his drinking buddy. The defense and Vic Fangio are fine, nothing wrong there. Don’t fix what’s not broken.

Maybe what they need are more inflatable animals in the locker room. That might work.