ARLINGTON, TEXAS — A.J. Brown was right.
Watching the Philadelphia Eagles collapse in a 24-21 loss to the Dallas Cowboys, that’s all I could think about. One of Brown’s many quotes from a couple weeks ago ran through my head in the AT&T Stadium press box.
“If we’re really focused on winning and doing our job, we can’t just keep slapping a Band-Aid over the defense doing their job and getting us out of trouble,” Brown said. “At what point are we going to pick up our slack as an offense? ... It’s been week after week sometimes we’re not doing our job on offense. You can’t keep slapping a Band-Aid over that and expect to win.”
That was on Nov. 12. And on Sunday, Brown’s comments came true.
The defense played its tail off for most of the night but couldn’t carry the offense to another win. And what happened? The Eagles’ offensive struggles doomed them.
The Eagles scored touchdowns on their first three drives of the game. After that, this was their drive chart: punt, end of half, punt, punt, punt, missed field goal, fumble, punt.
“Overarching, we’ve got to find a way to finish the game, and we’ve got to find some consistency in what we do. Definitely a tale of two halves. But we didn’t play a complete game as a team, and today it got us,” quarterback Jalen Hurts said postgame. “... Today wasn’t enough.”
And it certainly wasn’t enough given what the defense was doing on the other side of the ball.
Vic Fangio’s unit held Dallas scoreless on its first four possessions. The defense had a red-zone interception in the first half. It forced a punt after Saquon Barkley’s fourth-quarter fumble. And it had a fourth-and-goal stop minutes later after Xavier Gipson’s punt return fumble.
Sure, the defense struggled to stop Dak Prescott and the Cowboys down the stretch. George Pickens and Ceedee Lamb had a combined 221 receiving yards. That can’t happen.
But more pertinently, the offense can’t expect 21 points to be enough. They can’t bank on the defense playing lights out every single drive. They can’t enter a risk-averse mindset that Kevin Patullo, Nick Sirianni and Co. had as soon as they had a seemingly insurmountable lead.
They have to keep their foot on the gas. They have to adjust. And they have to, as Brown said weeks ago, pick up the slack.
Playing conservative and avoiding turnovers worked against the Cowboys in Week 1. It worked against the Chiefs in Week 2. It worked against the Packers and Lions the last two weeks. But that style of play was bound to catch up to the defending Super Bowl champions.
And on Sunday, just as Brown predicted, it finally did catch up to the Eagles — and it happened in embarrassing fashion.
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