Eagles Evaluation: Eagles Do What They Can To Prove They Are Not A Good Team

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By Paul Bowman, Sports Talk Philly Editor

The Eagles headed into this game looking to turn things around.

The team with Super Bowl aspirations needed to come in and work out their kinks while beating up on the bottom-dwelling Bengals.

The Eagles did not beat up on the Bengals and instead continued to play the same sorry game they did the past two weeks.

They did not prove that they can work out the kinks.

Instead, they proved they belong in the cellar of the league with the likes of the Bengals and Jets.

• The Eagles chose to trot out Matt Pryor at right guard and moved Nate Herbig to left guard.
• Dallas Goedert left early with an ankle injury so the Eagles rolled out Richard Rodgers, who appeared to have good chemistry with Wentz on his limited targets.
• DeSean Jackson left the game and the Eagles wound up relying on Greg Ward, John Hightower and Deontay Burnett. JJ Arcega-Whiteside did not see a target.
• Avonte Maddox missed the end of the game with an injury and Trevor Williams took over for him on the outside. While he got burned on a short touchdown pass on his first snap of the game, he was solid in coverage after that.
• Jason Peters got injured in overtime and the Eagles chose to send out Jordan Mailata in his stead over Jack Driscoll, who started for the team week one.
• Cre’Von LeBlanc got a boost in this game, playing more snaps than Robey-Coleman following a week that NRC was brutalized throughout the game.
• TJ Edwards, for the first time this season, seemed to take hold of the second linebacker position as he was on the field more frequently than Duke Riley for the first time.

Two sacks, three tackles for loss and four quarterback hits in addition to numerous pressures. Graham really came alive at the end of the game and made sure the Eagles did not lose this game in the fourth quarter or overtime. One might think that would result in a win, but Graham’s performance was nonetheless dominant.

19 second left in overtime and instead of taking a chance on a winning kick a la 2017 Giants game, Doug Pederson was more afraid of a missed kick being returnable or leading to a score from the Bengals. If that happened, the Eagles deserved to lose anyway. An argument could be win that the playoffs are more attainable with a tie in the NL East, but what does that really matter if the team can’t beat the Bengals? Certainly any playoff team will be far better than Cincinnati. A tie earns the team nothing but the reputation as, for risk of using an inappropriate word, “scaredy-cats”. In addition to that error, the Eagles play calling was stagnant, they abandoned the run for a large portion of the game and many of the failed short plays that could be considered a poor read by Wentz looked more like designed plays that Wentz was told to run. Nothing good out of Pederson at all this week.

Wentz averaged 7.2 yards per carry on the ground with a total of 62 yards and a touchdown. When the pocket collapsed he was able to scramble and took off nine times. His running ability was at a level that fans really have not seen since 2017. While he did start to run more at the end of the 2019 season, he has not seen this type of success or seemed so willing since the Eagles’ run. If he can continue with this, it will e a major development for a team once again lacking playmakers.

On the flip side, Wentz was still not good as a passer. He completed just 29 of 47 passes for 225 ards in this one. He looked pretty good in the early game with the major miscue being that Matt Pryor let his guy right next to the QB to tip a ball for an easy interception. In the second half, however Wentz became much more inaccurate again and threw a second interception that was entirely on him. Unless this magically fixes itself, the Eagles are in for a long season and, if he does nothing to address it, a long few years as they wait to get rid of that contract.

Sanders nearly made it to 100 yards on Sunday with 95 coming on the ground across 18 carries. He setup the Eagles for their touchdown just before halftime with a huge run, but did not get credit for the score himself. In the passing game, he had just 12 yards with all of the easy-to-sniff out screens forcing him to lose yardage, but he also could have added around 50 yards and a touchdown through the air if Wentz had actually hit him with passes instead of throwing to the 5’ 11” back as though he were 7’ 6”.

Peters was beat all first half and while he cleaned it up a bit in the second half, he eventually left with an injury. Things are not going well for the left tackle that wanted more to play the position he is playing so poorly. Peters is lucky that Wentz was able to bail him out pretty regularly by not surrendering sacks on all of the plays that Peters allowed a defender to run right on by.

There are still those who don’t like Ward because he lacks major speed or size, but what matters is that he is a trusted target who doesn’t drop passes and moves the chains. In this contest, the former quarterback recorded eight catches for 72 yards. Of his eight catches, three were passes at or behind the line that probably shouldn’t have been attempted, three went for first downs and one went for a touchdown. Say what you will, but Ward can move the chains when given a chance (maybe stop throwing it to him five yards behind the line, though).

The Hurts pick was near-universally hated by fans of the team, but many of those fans were fooled by training camp reports of what he will be able to add to the offense. On Sunday, it was one run and a few handoffs. He also managed to fumble the ball in his four snaps, so his value has been minimal bordering on negative.

• I thought about putting a buy section in for him, but I am not sure his stock has risen. Still, Jake Elliott has been stellar for this team even though they appear not to trust him. In this one, he made all three field goals (including a 54-yarder) and both extra points that he was asked to handle.
• The Eagles defensive front managed to register QB Hits on 18 of 44 pass attempts that Joe Burrow registered, good for just under 41% of his attempts. That also doesn’t include plays called back for penalties like the controversial Malik Jackson roughing the passer or any pressures that may not have resulted in a hit. One would think that such pressure would be enough to limit an offense, but obviously it didn’t.
• Josh Sweat made some noise early, but Derek Barnett had the more complete game. On fact, Jalen Mills ended up outpacing Sweat in both sacks and QB hits.
• At least Herbig and Pryor have each other to lean on as they both made unacceptable errors in clutch moments to make sure this team lost. They can commiserate with each other as the rest of the city grows their disdain for the pair. The pair combined to lose the game twice as Herbig committed a hold on an 11-yard run and moved the Eagles from the Bengals’ 32-yard line to their own 48-yard line while Pryor had a false start move the team outside of field goal range on the very next drive, both essentially taking the win from the team on the final two offensive drives of the game.

Technically, the Eagles play the 49ers next week, but maybe they will opt to begin focusing on their October 22 matchup with the Giants since they might have a prayer to compete in that game.