PHILADELPHIA — Over the last seven days, the Philadelphia Eagles have proven two things to be true to the nation: their defense is elite, and their offense is a disjointed mess.
If the NFL community wasn’t already paying attention to the defending Super Bowl champs, a pair of primetime games — “Monday Night Football” against the Green Bay Packers followed by “Sunday Night Football” against the Detroit Lions — have exposed this Eagles offense.
The Eagles aren’t winning because of their offense. They’re winning in spite of it.
Their 10-7 victory against Green Bay a week ago at Lambeau Field was a brutal watch. And it was rough again on Sunday when the Eagles beat the Lions, 16-9, at the Linc.
“Nothing takes over the precedent of winning. That’s what it’s all about,” Jalen Hurts said. “And with winning in mind and with winning being the No. 1 thing, that doesn’t dismiss that we’ve got some work to do, and we need to improve.”
The Eagles’ offense, which has the reigning Super Bowl MVP, the reigning NFL Offensive Player of the Year and multiple All-Pro and Pro Bowl performers, can’t seem to do anything right. Just when it looked like the Birds turned a corner with a 38-point performance against the Giants on Oct. 26, they came out of the bye week looking more lost than ever.
After back-to-back frustrating performances, the Eagles have scored 20 points or fewer in five of 10 games. The Eagles did that only five times in 21 total games all of last season.
The Eagles scored two touchdowns on 23 drives against the Lions and Packers. Kevin Patullo’s unit punted or turned the ball over on 16 of those drives.
On Sunday, the Eagles averaged 3.9 yards per play. For reference, the Cleveland Browns’ season-long 4.1 yards per play ranked dead last in the NFL entering Week 11.
Hurts completed 14 of 28 passes for 135 yards and a season-low 34.2 QBR; his previous low was at Green Bay (40.6). Saquon Barkley rushed for 83 yards on 26 carries, bringing his season-long yards per carry clip to 3.8, a career-low in a healthy season. A.J. Brown was force-fed the ball and had only 49 yards on seven catches and 11 targets. DeVonta Smith had two drops. Dallas Goedert had two drops. And the unit overall had six penalties for 50 yards.
Not even the tush push was automatic. That’s when you know things have gone sideways.
It didn’t help that All-Pro offensive tackle Lane Johnson left with a foot injury, and All-Pro center Cam Jurgens, who couldn’t finish the game, is playing hurt. But that’s still no excuse.
Patullo, Hurts and Co. were lucky to win, lucky that the defense was lights out yet again. The Eagles are 8-2 and riding a four-game winning streak. They have the best odds to secure the No. 1 seed in the NFC — and the first-round bye and home-field advantage that come with it.
But Sunday showed just how far off the offense is from being where it wants to be — and in order to win a Super Bowl, how far off it likely needs to be.
After the game, the Eagles’ offensive stars — Hurts, Brown, Barkley, Smith and offensive tackle Jordan Mailata — were asked to assess the offense and where it stands.
The common theme? Everyone knows it’s not good enough.
RB Saquon Barkley: “You’ve got to look yourself in the mirror. ... It’s easy to point the finger. But we didn’t play good enough. You can go by each group, each position. We all had plays we could have made. We all made mistakes. We had a lot of penalties. You’ve got to give credit to the defenses. They’re doing a good job. But at the same time, we’ve got to do a better job.”
WR A.J. Brown: “We’ve still just got to do a better job on offense and get our stuff going. There’s a lot of room for improvement. Lot of self-inflicted wounds. ... As soon as we got going, we shot ourselves in the foot. That’s something we can clean up. If someone just beats us, then hat’s off to them. But there are some things we’re doing.”
WR DeVonta Smith: “The majority of the time, when we made a big play, we just shot ourselves in the foot and got back to where we were.”
OT Jordan Mailata: “It is great knowing that the defense can bail us out. ... But we just want to contribute a little more. For us to do that, we just have to clean it up. What we have to do is police ourselves. We have to go in there and watch that film. If it’s drops, work on the drops. If it’s executing blocks in the run game, it’s that for the offensive line. If it’s a miscommunication on a call, then we really have to look ourselves in the mirror and really go to work.”
QB Jalen Hurts: “We have to do a bit of identifying who we are so we can find consistency in something and execute at a high level. I think there was a lot of encouragement coming into the bye week on where we were, still with a ton of room to improve. But you know how I feel about momentum. It can begin and end at any moment.”
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