Attention to detail. Self-inflicting wounds. Penalties. Those were the common words uttered by the Eagles when breaking down the team's performance after their stunning 21-17 loss to the Denver Broncos Sunday at Lincoln Financial Field.
It was in fact a stunning loss, although the team was playing with fire through the first month of the season getting bailed out by strong defense, incredible special teams efforts and near flawless red zone play.
The Eagles led for the majority of the game before letting a 17-3 second half lead slip away while being outscored 18-0 by Denver in the fourth quarter. It was the first loss for Philadelphia since Week 16 at Washington last season, snapping a franchise-tying best 10-game win streak. It was also the first home loss since Week 2 against Atlanta last year, ending a 12-game winning streak inside the friendly confines in South Philly. It was just their second loss in the last 22 games played.
The Eagles, who were already rehabbing immediately after the game in the locker room, have less than five days to wipe the slate clean and prepare for the divisional rival New York Giants.
"Now we have adversity. Really adversity," Saquon Barkley said at his locker after the setback on Sunday.
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"We lost a football game. We haven't lost a football game since Washington last year. We have a lot of guys banged up. We have to get healthy and come to work. We have a lot of great leaders and a lot of great talent. We have super competitive people too and it's not going to sit well with anyone in this locker room."
The loss did not seem likely after taking a 17-3 lead early in the third quarter. It seemed more than likely the Eagles were destined for a potential statement making victory against one of the top defensive units in the NFL through the first month-plus of the season, proving that the offense could put a full game together. Until it didn't.
After striking on a 47-yard touchdown pass from Jalen Hurts to Barkley on their first drive to open up the second half, the Eagles positioned themselves to implement their winning formula that has been near unstoppable since last season. Running the football and playing good defense over the final 30 minutes of game play.
Instead, the Eagles' offense did the opposite, running 19 pass plays to just one play after the touchdown. In turn, the offense sputtered on their next four drives with 14 plays accumulating just three yards and one first down.
"We’ll have to go back and watch a lot of this stuff," Nick Sirianni said on why the team abandoned the run in the second half. "There were a couple scenarios right there where we got a little bit behind the sticks. I know the plays, whether it was a hold or a false start, got behind the sticks there. Those are some self-inflicted things that we did."
Sirianni is right. The offense did get behind the sticks, especially on third downs. Of the 11 third downs they faced, just one was under five yards which they converted (3rd-and-2). The other conversion was on 3rd-and-17 when Hurts connected with DeVonta Smith for a 52-yard gain.
The penalties and self-inflicted wounds were prevalent, especially when it mattered most. The Eagles were flagged nine times for 55 yards. Denver racked up 121 penalty yards on 12 penalties. But the penalties and the lack of attention to detail the Eagles committed were back breakers.
On a 4th-and-4 with 5:23 left in regulation, Hurts dropped another well-placed pass down the sideline to Smith for what would have been a 30-yard gain and a huge momentum swing trailing by a touchdown. The play was called back when Barkley was called for an illegal shift, nullifying the play.
“I just gotta be detailed better," Barkley said on his penalty. "Definitely could have came back faster. That’s how you lose football games by not being detailed and on that play that wasn’t definitely enough. We weren’t detailed in a lot of things throughout the game.”
Earlier in the game, the Eagles had a chance for another version of a dagger in the third quarter. However, A.J. Brown stopped running for a moment during his route and Hurts' pass sailed over the wideout's head.
“From my point of view we just missed," Brown said on the play. "It’s not that I didn’t think the ball was coming, I looked up and didn’t see the ball, I looked back I didn’t see the ball and then the ball was thrown. It was just a miss.”
Brown said that he and Hurts did not discuss what could have went wrong on the shot play.
“That situation in that play, that was a shot. So, you either hit it, or you don’t and we didn’t hit that one," Hurts said.
"We’ll watch the tape and we’ll get the opportunity to and we’ll learn from that. But at that moment in the game, it’s about finding a way to put the dagger in them and that definitely could have been a dagger.”
Smith, despite surpassing the 100-yard mark in a game for the first time this season in the loss said that the passing game still needs to get in sync.
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“We made improvements in certain areas. We still can get a lot better. Shot ourselves in the foot a lot. Left a couple of plays out there, we weren’t on the same page. Ultimately, we gotta get on the same page," Smith said.
Smith alluded to times where the offense is looking at Hurts and they may have missed a signal the QB relayed to help communicate at the line.
Brown, who finished with five catches for 43 yards, said he did not experience what Smith was referring to. Hurts said he would have to talk with Smith to hash out any inconsistencies
“I’d have to ask him what he’s referring to because I don’t remember any of those things happening," Hurts said. "But again, if I watch the film and something comes up, that’d be something that we can talk about and grow from.”
Conversations need to take place this week as the team gets ready to take on the Giants on the road Thursday night.
Those conversations should be focused on figuring out why the offense was unable to play a complete 60 minutes of football once again. Or why, for the second straight week when leading by double digits, they were unable to close out the game with their bread and butter in the run game like they did last season breaking the spirit of opposing teams with their ability to chew up clock when the whole stadium knew what was coming.
The offensive line certainly is not playing up to its high standard with Lane Johnson and Landon Dickerson dealing with injuries while Cam Jurgens is still working his way back from his back surgery which is causing a disruption and inconsistency.
The running lanes have not been there for Barkley who is averaging just 3.2 yards per carry and ranks 22nd in the NFL with 267 yards on the season. Yet, the Eagles abandoning the run while leading for the majority of the game is a head scratcher. Barkley finished with just six carries for 30 yards in the loss. Hurts dropped back 44 times and made 38 pass attempts, the most in any game this season and the most since Week 3 of last season at New Orleans. The pass-run ratio based on the calls were 46 passes to just nine runs.
"I don't really know what you want. If I touch the ball too much sometimes, we're not throwing enough," Barkley said. "We throw it too much and I only have nine touches."
"I'm not in the business of, 'What are we doing enough?' I'm in the business of winning football games. We didn't win the football game. With nine touches, we had the opportunity to win the football game still. We weren't detailed enough. Too many mistakes, too many penalties."
"We just have to really stay focused on the task at hand, stay focused on the main thing, and be bought into the collective of doing that by any means necessary," Hurts said.
"This is a great one to learn from and we will learn from it.”
