Postgame Report: Eagles Offense Musters Just One Drive In Embarrassing Loss To Giants

Embed from Getty Images

By Paul Bowman, Sports Talk Philly Editor

The Eagles entered the half after an absolutely embarrassing showing by Jalen Hurts to lead his team on long drives down the field but then throw two passes directly to defenders at the goal line to ensure the team came away with no points.

Despite a rather good defensive showing, the passing game only experienced a few good plays amidst three interceptions well into the third quarter.

The Eagles maintained their awful showing with the offense managing to fumble the ball away and have three drops in six plays on the final two drives that could have been the winning drives.

The whole game makes you think how easy of a win this would have been had the Birds had anyone even half competent at using their arm to fling a football down the field to someone in the green jerseys.

The Birds ran for 201 yards in this one and much of that came behind the stellar blocks of Kelce (who did not commit a penalty in the contest). This game really showed how huge Kelce is for this team, particularly when they have a totally inept passer.

Slay’s lone stat was a pass breakup and that’s impressive. Not only did Slay play strong coverage throughout the game, but the Giants essentially didn’t look to his half of the field the entire game. It was easy to forget Slay was even playing he was so far away from nearly every play the Giants tried to make. That’s incredible corner play and certainly the best the Eagles have seen in quite some time.

• After having a nearly full game two weeks ago, Jalen Hurts came crashing back down this week and was a pitiful passer for most of this game. With the way he was throwing today, Eagles fans should be jealous of the dumpster fire that is the New Your Jets because at least those guys don’t throw it to the other team THAT often. He’s been a solid rusher, but an offense isn’t going to be effective with a running back playing QB each week. Hurts needs to prove he can make some kind of play with his arm without relying on the running game. Through the first three quarters, Hurts was at 9/19 for 73 yards and three interceptions. Good for a rating of 13.6 (and that decimal is in the correct place). He actually had what could have been two other interceptions in the fourth quarter largely due to his staring at a single target for the entire play before throwing it. It’d be hard to find someone to do worse than that.
• The offense deserved to lose this game, no doubt, but Hurts actually pieced together a competent drive at the very end there and Dallas Goedert, who was barely targeted all game for some reason, had a drop while Jalen Reagor had two drops, each of which would have otherwise been a touchdown. Let’s see Reagor talk online about how good he’s getting after that embarrassment of a showing to end the game.
• On the flip side, as an outspoken critic of Jonathan Gannon, the Eagles defense did surprisingly well in this game. Nothing that they did was truly deserving of a loss. They even managed to keep Engram and Barkley, two skilled guys who were in positions that have brutalized the defense all season long, under control for large portions of the game. My major gripe there: Too much of Alex Singleton and TJ Edwards in coverage against Kenny Golladay – the Giants top receiver.
• On the linebackers, I actually think that TJ Edwards played another incredible game. Singleton was effective, though I’d like to see more pressure when he’s blitzing. Both of those guys have an obvious weakness in coverage so I credit Edwards for playing as strong in that area as he has. I’d like to see someone, perhaps a coach who could notice trends in the defense and act on them for the team, try to put these guys in a bit more of a position to succeed (particularly when the athletic Davion Taylor returns).

• The defense also was the recipient of some terrible luck with things like uncalled holds up and down the field, a touchdown pass that landed on a Giants’ leg instead of falling incomplete, a tipped pass by TJ Edwards that still popped up right back to the receiver, etc. Turnovers would have been nice, but the defense as a whole was not rewarded as they should have been for their level of play this week.
• Although I like Nate Herbig as a guard, he had to come in for about half of this game as a center before coming in as a guard. The dropoff from Kelce to Herbig at center is massive and Herbig had two extremely costly holds in that role. I’d expect Jeff Stoutland to work that out this week before their next game. The question for the future is should the Eagles be targeting a center in the draft and look to keep Dickerson at guard, or are they confident in their other guard options and Dickerson at center?
• Not a fan of the way the running backs were used in this one. The Eagles have done well rotating their backs, but the Eagles went into this one apparently focused on only using Miles Sanders. Once Sanders got injured, it was just Boston Scott. Both did well and Sanders was the more explosive of the two (though Scott did have a huge TD run called back), but I would have liked to see the two splitting reps rather than waiting for one to get injured to put the other in – especially when the second back is Boston Scott matched up with the Giants.

Philadelphia Eagles at New York Giants – November 28, 2021