How many times this season has the Philadelphia Eagles fan base had to endure this team having a double-digit lead in a game and either nearly blow it or collapse altogether?
This time, in Week 12 against the Dallas Cowboys, it was as bad as it gets. The Eagles scored touchdowns on the first three possessions to lead 21-0, but they did what they do best: fumbled the game away, as Dallas scored the final 24 points and won.
After the game, Eagles head coach Nick Sirianni was asked by the media about the offensive performance and whether the team had become too conservative, taking their foot off the pedal. Sirianni was not having any of that.
"I didn't think so. ...We're always trying to be a balanced attack. So I just think, we have to look at ourselves and look at the schemes, look at the execution and see what the issues were. We just weren't very efficient as an offense in the second half. I didn't feel we took our foot off the gas."
Sirianni is just plain wrong, and Eagles fans know it
The Eagles' offense had 192 yards on the first three drives of the game. After that, they racked up 147 yards on the final eight drives of the game.
Even the pass calls made by offensive coordinator Kevin Patullo showed that the Eagles were playing it safe. Outside of a couple of deep balls, Eagles quarterback Jalen Hurts dropped it off to running back Saquon Barkley multiple times on halfback swing routes, and A.J. Brown once again ran multiple hitch routes and out routes over and over again.
Sirianni, himself, was conservative in his decisions. The Eagles trotted Jake Elliott onto the field in the fourth quarter to try a 56-yard field goal when it was fourth-and-five, and Elliott has recently struggled from 50+ yards out. Elliott, of course, missed it, and the Cowboys needed three plays after that on a short field to score a touchdown.
Read more:Lane Johnson's absence from Cowboys game exposes Eagles' glaring flaw
There was nothing aggressive about what the Eagles did in this game. Just because they call more pass plays than run plays doesn't 100% mean they are being aggressive. Sirianni and his team had multiple chances to hit the Cowboys where it hurts with big plays, and they simply didn't get the job done.