Eagles Postgame Report: Birds Tank Against Cardinals

The Eagles were up against what is one of the league’s worst teams.

That didn’t matter much to the Eagles, however. Through the third quarter, the Eagles defense had forced ZERO punts and the offense themselves had punted the ball away twice.

The game started off with a punt by the offense followed by the defense making a “stop” in the red zone.

Then the offense put together a touchdown drive. The defense spent four minutes letting the Cardinals putrid offense drive all the way down the field and then lucked into a pick-six where no Cardinals player was anywhere in the area. The defense came out and proceeded to allow a 10-minute drive that allowed another field goal.

The offense responded again with a touchdown in the two-minute drill before the half, and put the Eagles up two scores at the half.

No matter that lead, the Eagles made the adjustments to suck during halftime. With the support of their coaches, the defense allowed two 75-yard (or more) touchdown drives in a row along with a two-point conversion while Jalen Hurts threw a deep pass way off target and DeVonta Smith dropped it despite his somehow getting in position for force another three and out.

A tie game heading into the fourth. It must be what Sirianni preaches to the team at halftime since they’ve now consistently come out and somehow played worse following the break.

With a touchdown of their own to open scoring in the fourth, the Eagles managed to take a seven-point lead. The bad news, however, was that there was 10 minutes left for a defense that had failed to stop a single drive in the half and whose only stop of the Cardinals not coming away with points in the entire game was when Kyler Murray threw a pass to a defender with no receiver within 10 yards of him.

Adding insult to injury, Murray heaved one up that was either an incompletion or an interception. The interception was prevented by Greg Dortch pulling Kelee Ringo down by his collar as Dortch fell over of his own accord. Somehow, the morons charged with officiating called that DPI instead of OPI, granting the Cardinals 29 yards – a 44-yard swing from the correct call if one was to be made.

The Eagles forced a fourth and four at the five-yard line. To no one’s surprise, however, the Cardinals went for it and scored a touchdown easily as Kelee Ringo must have lost his receiver in all five yards of space down there. The game was tied again.

Jonathan Gannon tried an onside kick, but it was countered by a good recovery from Eli Ricks. Unfortunately, the barely burned time and forced the Cardinals to use only one timeout while also have Jordan Mailata, Jalen Hurts and Brian Johnson all sabotage the offense into an incredibly stupid screen on 3rd and 20, settling for a field goal.

It gave the Cardinals offense, which once again had not been stopped this game, over two minutes and two timeouts to put up three points. Avonte Maddox made his return known by allowing two catches for 48 yards while he laid on the ground both plays just watching things happen.

With 32 seconds, the Eagles had to move 75-yards down the field and score a touchdown to win. They had to do it without Smith since Brian Johnson injured him on the previous possession. To no surprise they couldn’t do it.

Handed an inside road to the division and the two seed, these unlovable losers handed it right back. Expect them to be blown out in all aspects of the game by whatever team they see in two weeks.

Offensive MVP: D’Andre Swift

Swift’s 61 yards on 13 carries was actually the best thing this offense showed all game. Of course, he was taken out for Gainwell’s “incredible” 20 yards on six touches. There’s no one you’d rather have on the field for the most important plays of the game than your absolute worst running back.

Defensive MVP: Milton Williams

It’s tough to pick an MVP for this defense. It was straight garbage and may as well have been a local high school defense out there for much of the game. Milton Williams, however, continues to make his case to get more snaps. He was one of the only players on that field who didn’t find himself hitting a runner and then not coming down with a tackle. He recorded three tackles according to the stat sheet, but it also shows no tackles for loss and he did have a big one to force a field goal on the Cardinals’ first drive instead of a touchdown. He also forced a fumble that looked ready to be a fumble six for Reed Blankenship until it took a bad bounce back into Murray’s chest.

Game Notes

• Someone on this coaching staff should be in charge of running tackling drills 24/7. This defense is an absolute embarrassment and the DC or scheme makes not difference at all if guys like Shaq Leonard, Josh Sweat or Eli Ricks can be in position and just bounce off the defender and let him go for an additional 10 yards after that. This is JV stuff that shouldn’t be an issue for dudes making millions.
• Julio Jones with two touchdown passes and he had space each time, it wasn’t like it was forced in there. Benching Quez Watkins was the first step. Now it’s getting Hurts to actually make throws like this to Jones and to Watkins.
• Offense was a bit tough to evaluate in the first half with how bad the defense was. They lucked into that pick-six after a long drive, but they could otherwise not make any stop at all. The offense shouldn’t be without the ball for over 15 minutes at a time, particularly against a team as bad as this.
• D’Andre Swift went over 1,000 yards on the season with his efforts today. It’s his first time in his career reaching that milestone. It’ll be interesting in the offseason if that feat inflates his market to the point the Eagles won’t commit the money to the position to bring him back.
• Is it too late to send Avonte Maddox back to IR? The supposed boost to the secondary was actually worth about as much as having a fan from the stands on the field for the final quarter of the game – you could certainly pay any fan in the stands millions of dollars to literally lay sprawled out on the ground while a receiver makes a catch in front of you then runs down the field.

Injury Notes

• Reed Blankenship exited in the second quarter but returned on the next drive.
• Jordan Davis limped off in the third quarter.
• On a garbage call, the Eagles had a four-yard screen on 3rd and 20 in the fourth quarter that saw DeVonta Smith come up limping with an apparent knee injury. He was then not available for the final drive of the game.

Arizona Cardinals @ Philadelphia Eagles – December 31, 2023