The swing looks a little off. You know the feeling. Your golf buddy has a new hitch in his backswing, but he’s still scoring. Then he shanks three straight into the woods. The Philadelphia Eagles’ 4-0 start had that same vibe. Wins were piling up, but the mechanics were undeniably out of sync. Everyone saw it. Now, after two straight losses, the wheels have completely come off.
The diagnosis, however, depends on which pro you ask. Veteran right tackle Lane Johnson pointed directly at the game plan, calling the offense “predictable.” But his fellow lineman, Jordan Mailata, grabbed the club himself and pointed it right back at the mirror. He offered a brutally honest assessment that cuts deeper than any play-call. This isn’t a design flaw, he argues. This is a fundamental breakdown in focus.
Jordan Mailata Holds the Mirror Rights at the Team's Face
Mailata completely rejected the predictability notion. Instead, he presented a simple, damning chain of events. “I just think we're not executing,” Mailata stated. “We're just putting ourselves in predictable situations, meaning we're getting behind the sticks and we have to throw.” He illustrated the problem with the clarity of a seasoned pro.
“There aren't many runs we can do on second-and-15. There just aren't. And if you do, you probably gain 5 or 6 or 7 yards," Mailata added. "They're passing down. So you get a defense that'll pin their ears back and shoot upfield. And that kind of sucks.”So, why aren’t they executing?
The answer, according to Mailata, is startlingly basic. “The film... You turn the film on, we weren't focused here,” he revealed. “Our focus hasn't been there, quite frankly, to be really blunt. So it's something we have to make a choice to every play and every down.”This admission from a team leader is a five-alarm fire in the locker room. It suggests a mental softness unbecoming of a defending champion.
His solution was not about complex new schemes. It was a raw, primal command. “Do your fu--ing job. I gotta do my job. They gotta do their job. Everyone's got to do their job.” This is the harsh truth Sirianni’s lieutenant exposed. The Eagles are in a crisis of their own making, a self-inflicted wound born from a lack of discipline and attention to detail. The question now is whether this blunt wake-up call can jolt the team back to life.
A Call to Arms in the Trenches of Eagles
Mailata’s message is a throwback to football’s core ethos. “Which is why after... the mini bye week, just do your job. Don't look at anything else. Just dominate your box, and everything will take care of itself,” Jordan further added. This back-to-basics approach is a direct response to an offense that has plummeted from eighth in the league last season to 30th this year. The stats don’t lie, and neither did Mailata’s film session.
The path forward, as he sees it, requires a shift in mentality. “We've got to be the aggressor. We've got to punch first... It always comes down to execution because execution fuels emotion. We just haven't been executing,” Mailata says. Would his OC agree with him? Kevin Patullo's comments don't quite hint in that direction.
The Eagles' 25th-ranked rushing attack is the most unmistakable evidence of that failure for a team built on a powerful running game. The muscle memory of their Super Bowl run seems to have faded. And all this introspection leads to a crucial road test against the Minnesota Vikings.
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The Eagles can either circle the wagons around Jordan Mailata’s call for personal accountability, or they can continue to splinter. The focus, the execution, and the raw desire to “do your job” are now the only currencies that matter. It’s a simple, unglamorous truth for a team that has lost its way. So, the bottom line is... either the Eagles remember how to finish drives, or the 2023 collapse gets a sequel.