Patrick Causey, Eagledelphia Writer
The Philadelphia Eagles got embarrassed by the Dallas Cowboys Sunday in front of the entire country. There is simply no other way around it.
The game was so bad that the Eagles might have been tempted to not even watch the tape. Just push it aside, consider it an aberration and focus on preparing for the must win game against the New York Jets.
But I am a gluten for punishment. I could not help myself. So I went back and rewatched the game tape. In a weird way, it was as bad as I thought but at the same time seemed somewhat reassuring.
So here is a breakdown of the Eagles v Cowboys game: the Good, the Bad and the Ugly style.
The Good
Believe it or not, there was actually some good to take away from this game.
Bad Luck
Wait — how is bad luck a good thing? When it is unreasonable to expect that it can continue at this rate.
Literally everything that could go wrong in this game went wrong. From bad play calling, dropped passes, a quarterback that looks like a deer in the headlights, to blown blocking assignments, inopportune turnovers and injuries to key players.
The Eagles simply could not get a break.
At one point, Chip Kelly just looked like he wanted to laugh incredulously and walk back to the locker room. What else could they do?
In other words, yes: the Eagles played horrible. Arguably the worst 60 minutes of football they have ever played under Kelly.
But it might have just been one of those games where nothing would go the Eagles way. Consider the parade of horribles that was the first three offensive series for the Eagles:
Series 1:
- Jeremy Mincey blows up run play, stopping DeMarco Murray for a 1-yard gain.
- Nelson Agholor catches a pass (!) for 8 yards.
- 3rd and 1, Kelly dials up a pass play (why you no run?), but Sam Bradford throws the ball about 2 feet short of an open Jordan Matthews.
- Punt.
Series 2:
- Murray has no where to run on first down, falls forward for 3 yards.
- Bradford throws incomplete to Josh Huff, but a defensive pass interference penalty is called for the Eagles only first down of the half.
- Darren Sproles loses 4-yards on a sweep because Jason Kelce blows a blocking assignment on Sean Lee.
- Murray turns a Bradford dump off to 7 yards.
- Matthews drops a pass when he was wide open for a first down.
- Punt.
Series 3:
- Murray gains 2 yards.
- Murray loses 2 yards.
- Miles Austin drops a would-be first down.
- Punt.
Ugh.
A lot of these plays weren't a result of the Eagles being a bad football team. They were bad luck or bad execution — Matthews doesn't always drop passes, Kelce is a Pro Bowl center for a reason. So it would be unreasonable for this string of bad luck to continue.
As Cian Fahey of BleacherReport.com said:
Anyway, just finishing film room for tomorrow. Eagles offense is going to figure it out. Have lots of minor issues rather than one major.
— Cian Fahey (@Cianaf) September 22, 2015
The Defense
If you are like me, you might have blocked from your memory how good the Eagles defense was on Sunday. They started off in dominant fashion in the first two series, giving us a false sense of hope that maybe the Eagles would run roughshod over the Cowboys.
Consider the first play of the first Cowboys series: the Cowboys overload the line in a power run formation with only one receiver split out wide. They run to the strong side of the line with the guard and center pulling to potentially lead the overloaded front.
But Mychal Kendricks was able to blow up the run play for a 1-yard loss. Note that the Cowboys Pro Bow left tackle Tyron Smith was unable to get to Kendricks before he was in the backfield:
Perhaps my favorite thing from this play was at the tail end — did you notice it?
There is some GREAT blocking going on here by the Cowboys:
On the following play, the Cowboys are faced with a 2nd and 16 (after a false start penalty set them back five yards).
Connor Barwin was able to sack Tony Romo by running a stunt with Vinny Curry:
Believe it or not, Byron Maxwell even had a pretty good game before getting burned late for a touchdown. He made a nice play early in the first quarter to prevent Cole Beasley from getting a first down and followed that up later in the game by forcing what could have been a game changing fumble…. if Bradford and Kelce didn't botch the very next snap to give it right back to the Cowboys.
The Eagles weren't as dominant as the game progressed, but that is to be expected when you are on the field for 40 minutes. Even though the Eagles defense tired down the stretch, the Cowboys still didn't score an offensive touchdown until 4:20 left in in the 4th quarter.
Yes, the Cowboys were missing Tony Romo for part of the game and Dez Bryant for the entire game, but the Eagles still turned in a much improved effort from the game against the Atlanta Falcons.
The Bad
Chip Kelly
Whenever a team plays this bad, some blame needs to fall on the coaching staff. The players looked lethargic and sloppy, and they failed to execute even the simplest of plays. Part of that is on the players. But part of that is also on the coaches: they are paid to have players ready for a game, and the Eagles clearly were not ready for this game.
But the problem goes deeper than that. Kelly's play calling has become stale. So much so that Josh Huff admitted hearing Cowboys players calling out the Eagles plays before they happened.
This happened last year with the San Francisco 49ers, when their players claimed that they too knew what plays the Eagles ran before the snap. Not coincidentally, that was one of the uglier games the Eagles have played under Kelly.
Kelly was able to make the adjustment last year, and the odds are he will add new wrinkles this week to try to slow down defenses ability to sniff out a play before it happens. So there is hope.
But from a fundamental play calling perspective, Kelly made some really questionable decisions against the Cowboys.
Take the first offensive play from the Eagles. It is the inside zone, the Eagles bread and butter run play. Kelly places Jordan Matthews in motion, but then asks him to block defensive end Jeremy Mincey.
Matthews is 6'3 212 pounds. Mincey 6'4 280 lbs. As you could imagine, it did not end well:
I don't care how good of a blocker Matthews is; asking him to overcome a 68 pound difference is a tall order. Matthews literally gets spun around like a rag doll as Mincey is able to make a play in the backfield.
Kelly continued to dial up running plays that required the Kelce and either Allen Barbre or Andrew Gardner to pull out in space, leaving tight ends or wide receivers blocking on a defensive end.
On one such play, Brent Celek, considered by many to be one of the best run blocking tight ends in the league, was simply overmatched, resulting in another run for negative yards:
Until the offensive line fixes its issues, Kelly would be wise to limit the amount of run plays that require Kelce and Gardner/Barbre ("Garbre"?) to pull. Defenses have been shooting through the gaps vacated by the pulling lineman to stop the play in the backfield, and Kelly's design to have a receiver or tight end block that lineman has been, unsurprisingly, wildly unsuccessful.
Kelly can use the defense's aggressiveness against it by going to draws, screens and quick, short passes. It will keep the defense honest and make things easier on the offensive line.
One final play, because I am sure it is on everyone's mind. It is the Eagles first drive of the game. 3rd and 1. Kelly lines up in a power I formation and Murray runs behind Brent Celek (who is operating as a fullback) for the first down!
Ha — who are we kidding. Kelly called a pass play:
Matthews was open, but Bradford does his best Donovan McNabb impression and skips the ball two yards in front of him. It was bad execution for sure, but that does not relieve Kelly of blame for calling a bad play in the first place.
Despite being a run first team, the Eagles have consistently struggled in 3rd and short situations under Kelly. It says here that instead of running away from the problem (no pun intended), the Eagles need to come up with a bread and butter power run play that can be used in short yardage situations. They simply cannot rely on lower percentage pass plays when a simple run up the middle could suffice.
Wide Receivers
I will be brief here: the wide receivers did not help Sam Bradford. At all.
There were six – count em — six drops in the game which robbed the Eagles of the opportunity to sustain drives.
Like this killer drop from Philadelphia's favorite player, Riley Cooper:
Or this drop from Matthews on a third down in the first quarter:
Or this one from Miles Austin:
Or this one…. okay you get the point.
These drops seem to be the result of players pressing to hard to make a play. They should be fixable. But given the relative youth (Matthews, Huff and Agholor) or lack of skill (Cooper), it might be an issue that plagues the team all season. It really is impossible to tell at this point.
The Ugly
Sam Bradford
There is no way to dress this one up: Sam Bradford was dreadful on Sunday. Yes, his receivers dropped passes. And yes, his offensive line was ineffective in run blocking, which limited the effectiveness of the passing game. But Bradford failed to make proper reads on many throws and simply missed others when he did make the right reads.
Like…. what is this?
I have watched this at least 15 times and have been unable to even identify which receiver Bradford was throwing the ball to. Ertz was open, but Bradford clutches and fails to connect. He then stares down Matthews, who is double teamed.
My first reaction was to assume that Bradford spiked the ball because he knew the play was covered. But his reaction after the play does not support this: he looked visibly frustrated, shaking his head and rotating his arm like something clearly went wrong with his delivery.
He also had this deer in the headlights look in his eye, a look that we saw repeatedly as the game progressed:
I'm not trying to get psycho-analytical on you here, but teammates notice reactions like this, especially when it's coming from the quarterback. The quarterback is the bedrock of the team, the leader that a team turns to when the chips are down. Bradford's demeanor was troubling during the loss to the Cowboys and will need to be fixed moving forward
Bradford's worst throw — without question — was the killer interception that he threw in Dallas' end zone. The Eagles are running virtually the same play that they ran against the Green Bay Packers in the preseason, when Bradford stared down pressure and delivered a strike to Trey Burton for a touchdown.
Same play, different outcome. Bradford feels a little bit of pressure and lofts up a soft ball to Sean Lee, who was blanketing Zach Ertz, for the interception.
This throw was even worse given that Bradford missed two receivers that were wide open for potential touchdowns.
Watch the clip above again and you will see Nelson Agholor flash across the middle wide open. Bradford's head never moves off Ertz though, so he does not see Agholor.
Here is a better shot:
Agholor is circled in yellow; the nearest defender, who is a good five yards away, is circled in red. Even if the defender was able to break on Agholor, odds are the ball would have been caught in stride giving Agholor at least a passable chance at getting into the end zone.
Bradford also missed a wide open Riley Cooper, who was running a deep in route across the back of the end zone:
You can see that Cooper has a good five yards separation from his defender. But again, Bradford was locked in on Ertz, so he does not even see Cooper open.
I have pointed out that Bradford has struggled with accuracy when under pressure throughout his career. Per Eliot Shorr-Parks of NJ.com, those struggles have continued this year:
Sam Bradford is currently sixth worst among QBs in accuracy percentage under pressure (52.9%) #Eagles
— Eliot Shorr-Parks (@EliotShorrParks) September 22, 2015
Look. It was one bad game (ok, 1 1/2 if you count the Falcons game). But all is not lost. The season is young, and Bradford has the skill set to be very successful in this offense if he can put it all together. We should not jump ship just yet. He is still adjusting to playing again in the NFL after a lengthy layoff. He is also still getting acclimated to a new offense and new teammates. Give him a few weeks to turn it around. If he is still playing this bad by week 7, then we have reason for concern.
The Offensive Line
I am saving the worst for last. To put it mildly, the offensive line was terrible. And while Andrew Gardner and Allen Barbre are getting the majority of the criticism, it is not entirely fair. Yes, they both played horribly. But so to did Jason Peters, Jason Kelce and, to an extent, Lane Johnson.
We knew there would be an adjustment period. Not one player on this line had played a snap next to the person they were lined up with: Peters had never played next to Barbre who never played next to Kelce who never played next to Gardner who never played next to Johnson.
Which explains why there seems to be communication issues with the line. Consider this run play in the second half, where Peters and Barbre let Cowboys defensive end Jeremy Mincey make a clean break to take Murray down in the backfield:
It's unclear who was responsible to block Mincey, but I am going out on a limb and assuming that one of them were. Not many run plays are successful if you leave a defensive lineman unblocked on the side of the field you are running towards.
Barbre had a particularly rough game. Some of it, like the play above, was simply sloppy technique. That is presumably correctable through coaching and practice.
But some of it was Barbre getting dominated by defensive lineman, like this play:
I haven't seen enough from Barbre to know whether this was simply a bad game or is going to be a recurring problem. Kelly spent the majority of the offseason talking about how confident the Eagles were in Barbre. Two weeks into the season, that confidence seems misplaced.
Kelce played so poorly that I couldn't help but wonder whether there is some underlying injury contributing to his bad play. These first two games are the two worst games I have seen him play in his career. Something has to be wrong.
On the run play above, Kelce is assigned on linebacker Sean Lee (who had a monster game, by the way). Kelce stumbles his way through traffic and completely misses on Lee, who is able to blow the play up in the backfield.
But it wasn't just his quickness that was lacking. Kelce was getting manhandled at the point of attack throughout the game. Like this run play in the first quarter where Kelce gets pushed a good five yards into the backfield, forcing Murray to adjust his running lanes and getting stopped for a loss:
Kelce needs to bounce back with a strong showing this week. He is simply too good to play this bad. Ditto Jason Peters and Lane Johnson. They are the strength of this offensive line. If they don't play well, the entire line will struggle, causing a ripple down effect to the run game and passing game, which in turn affects the defense, because it will be on the field for too long.
No pressure, guys.
The Conclusion
If there are silver linings that we can draw from this game, they are the following two points: one, the Eagles were bad at almost every single aspect of the game at a rate which does not seem sustainable. We should expect some of these plays to break our way in the future. And second, despite playing three halves of God-awful football, the Eagles were still in a position to win both games.
Up next is 2-0 New York Jets, who have what looks to be a dominant defense. I will break down the matchup problems we face later this week. But suffice it to say, it is a must win game for the Birds. If they can string together some first downs early on, perhaps the offense can get rolling and do what we all expected it to do this year. If not, the Eagles season will be over before it even started.
