Writer: Kevin Durso
Weekly Report Card: Eagles flop in Green Bay a failure
When you lose a game like the Eagles did on Sunday, the grades don't end up pretty. It was difficult to pull out the positives.
There were certainly a few good things from Sunday. But they were heavily outweighed by the brutal mistakes the Eagles made in a blowout loss to the Packers.
Here is this week's report card.
Pass offense: In the beginning of the game, the pass offense – from Mark Sanchez' point of view – wasn't horrible. Receivers dropped passes and the offensive line allowed pressure on Sanchez from the beginning. It wasn't until the second half when Sanchez joined in on the mistakes with two interceptions – one returned for a touchdown – and a bothced snap that went for a touchdown as well. 14 free points – something that can not happen against even the best team. The good part: Jordan Matthews had a solid game again and Jeremy Maclin found the endzone once again. Two touchdown catches at meaningless junctures of the game don't change anything. D
Run offense: LeSean McCoy couldn't get going again. Darren Sproles was rarely used. And the Eagles lost another fumble on a bad handoff exchange between Sanchez and McCoy. It's not McCoy's year, but the Eagles will insist nothing's wrong. There's something very wrong with the Eagles running game. F
Pass defense: On Monday, they were nearly perfect. There were some lapses in the secondary, but the pass rush was phenomenal. It was the opposite on Sunday – no pressure on Aaron Rodgers and a very shaky secondary performance to go with it. The Packers had a field day. F
Run defense: In terms of the numbers, the Eagles held the Packers run game in check for the most part. But again, the Packers success passing made the running game more of a necessity to run out the clock more than anything else. There were also plenty of missed tackles from the linebackers. A modest effort, but nothing was going to change the result. C-
Special teams: This was the first week where the special teams really got burned. The punt return allowed to Micah Hyde was again a brutal coverage and too much open space to allow Hyde to find his way into the endzone. Lapses like that from the special teams unit have been rare. The positives: Cody Parkey remained hot with two more field goals and other than the Hyde touchdown, special teams did a decent job on coverage. C-
Overall: A slop fest from start to finish. The Eagles got what they deserved in the final result, an embarrassing 53-20 loss. This was a rip it up, throw it out and burn the tape game. Have a short memory and forget it happened – no matter how hard that may seem. D-
Kevin Durso is a contributor for Eagledelphia. Follow him on Twitter @KDursoPhilsNet.