Wow! That was ugly. The Philadelphia Eagles were soundly beaten by their “supposed” NFC East rivals, the Dallas Cowboys, on a nationally-televised game that most Philadelphia fans would sooner forget. It couldn’t have been the spotlight moment that Eagles head coach Nick Sirianni envisioned, as the Cowboys manhandled the Birds on both sides of the ball and left fans wondering if their week 1 victory against Atlanta was just a mirage.
Let’s start with the Dallas running game. The Eagles defensive line was systematically blown off the ball on nearly every snap. The Cowboys one-two punch of running backs Ezekiel Elliott and Tony Pollard caused the Eagles fits all night. Elliott, specifically, bore a hole in the Eagles defensive line, stiff-arming linebackers and churning his tree-trunk legs over the Eagles’ secondary. First-year Eagles defensive coordinator Jonathan Gannon had no answer for the Cowboys offense as the Bird’s D was consistently pulverized and penalized.
The Eagles offense was no better. Hurts, the seemingly anointed starter of this season, came up small time and again. Similar to last week, Hurts short-armed his receivers or threw behind them completely. His deep ball was off, but more troubling, Hurts couldn’t connect with the simple stuff. Six yard outs became treacherous, as the Eagles’ starting quarterback seemed to overthink every pass and press every play.
Not that the Eagles’ offensive line was much help. While the loss of left tackle Jordan Mailata wasn’t felt as much as Eagles fans had probably feared, Philadelphia’s failure to sustain long drives pointed to the fact that the Eagles lost this game on the line…on both sides of the ball.
Much will be made of Hurts’ underwhelming performance on Monday Night Football. Is he the Eagles’ future leader, or just a hopeful stopgap in a rebuilding year? Personally, as disastrous as the Eagles performance was against the Cowboys, I wouldn’t have minded seeing the untested third-string quarterback Gardner Minshew take over by the middle of the third quarter. Curiously, Minshew didn’t dress for this game.
Granted, the Eagles have spent a lot of PR assuring fans that Hurts is their starting quarterback. But after two lackluster performances by the Eagles second-round draft pick fans must ask themselves: “But what if he isn’t?”
Minshew brings with him a host of second-guessing about Sirianna and the Eagles’ management. But if you really want to win now, (and what Eagles fan doesn’t?) then, at this point, putting in the quirky Minchew could be the wild card that the Birds need to shake up their season that is quickly spiraling out of control.
Minshew has a pedigree for streaky football. And the Eagles are in desperate need of a streak.
If the Eagles head coach Nick Sirianni wants to remain an NFL football coach, then he might need to quickly abandon his script and bet big on a long shot.
