Eagles Evaluation: Birds Experience Minimal Success

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By Paul Bowman, Sports Talk Philly Editor

The Eagles entered their second game looking to pick themselves up after a brutal loss.

Instead, they were equally embarrassing this week.

The offense started to look good following a sputtering start, but that quickly changed while the defense apparently forgot there was a game this Sunday.

The offensive game plan changed and made some sense before disappearing altogether while the defense never figured out how it seemed like they had fewer players on the field than the offense each play.

Ultimately, it was a game the Eagles absolutely should have lost as they appeared to learn nothing from last week. Without better decision making and some improved play, the team is going to continue to limp to the finish line.

• At receiver, John Hightower, who was used heavily in week one and was a massive disappointment all around, was active, but a total non-factor as fans could have easily forgotten he was even on the roster.
• The return of Miles Sanders made it no surprise he was the top back, but it was a bit surprising to see how little the team turned to Corey Clement following his return.
• On the line, Nate Herbig drew the start again, but an injury to Seumalo put Matt Pryor back in the lineup. Herbig also suffered an injury late and with Brown and Opeta inactive, tackles Driscoll and Mailata were the team’s only healthy options.
• At safety, the Birds had Marcus Epps much more involved this week as the third safety on defense.
• On the defensive line, the Eagles looked to be continually compounding the mistake of trading for and using a roster spot on Genard Avery as they named the end as an inactive this week in favor of seventh-round pick Casey Toohill.
• The Eagles also made Sudfeld inactive and elevated Jalen Hurts to the primary backup QB.

Previously one of the top corners in the league, the Eagles signed Robey-Coleman to what seemed like a steal of a deal. Instead, it has so far been NRC that has been stealing from the team as he was beat nearly every snap Sunday and had at least three missed tackles on the day. Frankly, there was no reason Cre’Von LeBlanc should have been kept out of the game. NRC needs to improve or it wouldn’t be a surprise to see the team drop him like a bag of rocks like they did with veterans Akeem Spence and Zach Brown last season.

Wentz had plenty of factors that lead to his poor performance last week like dropped passes, lack of blocking from both the line and running backs and failure of receivers to return to and fight for the ball. This week, he had only a few drops and the poor play was on him. He technically had two interceptions in this game, though the second being a trap rather than a catch. Unfortunately, the decision was still a poor one as was throwing into double coverage deep downfield intending to get a touchdown to JJAW and throwing into quadruple coverage to Goedert over the middle on fourth down.

We saw an excellent display of Wentz avoiding sacks through throwing the ball away a few times, but the signal caller tried to do too much when there was nothing available in those poor decisions. The Goedert and JJAW targets both featured wide-open options much closer to Carson. While he needs to establish the down-field ball, he also can’t try to force that into double or higher coverage whenever he attempts to do so. The offensive failures are squarely on Wentz this week for forcing things instead of taking what was being given.

After an awful showing last week, Scott improved all around in week two where he no doubt benefited from a stronger offensive line. He averaged 4.8 yards per carry on just four carries as a change of pace back, but also roped in three catches for 24 yards as a change of pace back before disappearing from the game plan. Can’t ask much more for the limited amount of snaps he saw.

After appearing like a world beater against the Washington Team, Josh Sweat registered jest three tackles in the contest and was not forcing nearly the pressure he did last week. Sweat was always going to fall after that performance last week (unless he became Reggie White), but this was far more disappointing a showing than the Eagles would have hoped for.

One of the only bright spots of the team is of course a player that wound up injured before halftime. After a rough week last week, Seumalo was very good, even holding Aaron Donald at bay on his own at points. Of course, the sample size is smaller because he wound up playing less than half of the game, but a positive development there.

The stat sheet shows six catches for 64 yards on nine targets, but not only did DeSean fail to get deep in this game, but his catching was very poor.. In addition to his drops, the veteran had some of the ugliest catches possible with nearly all of them bobbling and shifting around. The Rams could have challenged a fe of them and probably had them overturned there was so little control. That, particularly in the absence of no downfield threat, is extremely concerning moving forward.

The supposedly elite talent that the Eagles signed as a future building block made his much anticipated debut. In it, he failed to sniff the score sheet or even impact the game. At this point, it looks like the cash-strapped Eagles sunk a large portion of their cap space into a guy who has less impact that the formerly undrafted free agent Anthony Rush, who the team let go because of all their depth.

• The Eagles got a rough start with Sanders fumbling the ball away, but the Eagles were strong in their play calling following that by adding dump offs and having Wentz throw from outside the pocket. Unfortunately, they failed to parlay that into any gains of longer than 20 yards, never established a deep threat and ultimately strayed away from the plan when continuous three-yard gains were not moving the chains. It was a good start, but that needs to be transitioned into a big gain at some point to really shift the momentum.
• A nice job by TJ Edwards to force a fumble on the kick return and get the Eagles in a position that they could have actually won the game from just before the half.
• The Eagles defense allowed 192 yards rushing in this contest. For a team that is “stacked” on the defensive line, the team was not only awful in coverage, but also awful in run stopping and making tackles on screens. Just putrid for a line that has so many resources invested in it.
• Behind them was a coverage unit that allowed Jared Goff to start the game 12 for 12. That had nothing to do with Goff being great. Almost any fan could have gotten at least nine of those completions themselves. The Rams would move a bit and the Eagles would leave at least one player uncovered every single play. The longest of those throws might have travelled 20 yards in the air, but he had 145 yards in those 12 passes. That’s how poor the coverage was.

The Eagles have their only game to start the season that could otherwise have been seen as easy next week against the Bengals, but with their awful play the past six quarters, they will need to be totally locked into the coming game just to make the game competitive.