Lots of people raised their hands to take the blame after the Eagles watched a giddy 21-0 lead morph into a repulsive 24-21 loss Sunday night against the Dallas Cowboys inside AT&T Stadium.
Lots of people had reason to.
“I’m not going to make any sweeping judgments right at this particular time,” coach Nick Sirianni said. “I think it was a wide variety of things. At the end of the day, we didn’t coach well enough, we didn’t play well enough. When there’s the amount of mistakes that we had — some of the self-inflicted wounds that we had today — I’m always going to put that on me as a head coach."
Duly noted and absolutely accurate.
The Eagles were penalized 14 times for 96 yards and lost two fumbles. They compiled 192 yards and scored touchdowns on their first three drives, then managed just 107 yards without scoring another point on their final eight possessions.
You can analyze how the Cowboys adjusted at halftime or the way they shut down the Eagles’ running game by using five down defensive linemen, a scheme being used against them by more and more teams this season.
“They gave us a defense that they rarely run and we didn’t execute the game plan we had,” guard Landon Dickerson told reporters. “Just five-down fronts. It’s not something they were running a whole lot and it turns out that was their flavor of the day.”
Saquon Barkley had a season-worst 22 rushing yards on 10 carries and the Eagles finished with 63 total rushing yards, leaving the running back disgusted with himself.
All of the above are among the things that need to be fixed before the postseason, but offensive tackle Jordan Mailata had the most accurate autopsy of this game that should have been won.
“I would honestly say self-inflicted wounds,” he said. “You can’t have those amount of penalties and expect to win the game, especially when your defense is playing lights out and turning the ball over and we’re just shooting ourselves in the foot. You can’t expect to move the ball when you have things like facemask penalties, false starts and illegal formations. That stuff takes no talent.”
The Eagles overcame three penalties on their first three offensive drives, but eventually things started to catch up to them. We won’t bore you with all 14 penalties (actually there were 15 and one was declined), but it is worth looking at all the things that cost the Eagles a chance to pad the 21-7 lead they took into halftime.
The first unsuccessful offensive drive of the game came after a Cam Jurgens false start turned a third-and-two situation into a third-and-seven that led to the first punt of the day.
On their first possession of the second half, the Eagles were in field goal range after Jalen Hurts completed a 20-yard pass to Dallas Goedert, but that was wiped out by an illegal formation penalty when A.J. Brown covered up Matt Pryor, who had reported as an eligible receiver. Instead of a first down at the Dallas 40, the Eagles had a second-and-seven at their own 35 and two incompletions later they punted.
Midway through the third quarter, Nakobe Dean came up with an interception and returned it to the Dallas 45-yard line, but that was erased because the Eagles had too many men on the field. Dallas was also flagged on the play, leading to offsetting fouls and no official play.
Quinyon Mitchell, Cooper DeJean and Kelee Ringo were all charged with pass interference on Dallas’ second touchdown of the game late in the third quarter.
The Eagles had a first-and-10 at the Dallas 43-yard line to start the fourth quarter, but that quickly became a first-and-25 from their own 42 after DeVonta Smith was flagged for offensive pass interference and Brown was guilty of a false start.
This time the mistakes were followed by a 56-yard field goal attempt that Jake Elliott missed wide right. A little closer and maybe he connects. The Cowboys took advantage of the short field afterward to score the game-tying touchdown.
To their credit, the Eagles responded with a good drive that got to the Dallas 28-yard line, but again things imploded. First a Fred Johnson illegal use of hands penalty negated a 16-yard completion to Smith at the 12-yard line and then Barkley was stripped from behind by Sam Williams and the Cowboys recovered the football.
The second lost fumble by punt returner Xavier Gipson, who made the inexplicable decision to field the ball at the 2-yard line, didn’t lead to the game-winning touchdown because the defense came up with a huge goal-line stand, but it had a lasting impact on field position and that eventually led to Brandon Aubrey’s 42-yard field goal as time expired.
Somewhere among all those mistakes were the points the Eagles needed to win the game.
“I just think it’s a lack of focus,” Mailata said. “When you put yourself behind the sticks you put yourself in hot water and we did. Now you got to flush that game. On a short week, you got to flush it. You got to learn from it, grow from it and have those hard conversations with yourself.”
The Eagles will get a chance to rinse the awful taste of this one on Black Friday when the surprising 8-3 Chicago Bears come to Philadelphia. But their hideous fall-from-ahead loss dropped them behind the Los Angeles Rams in the NFC playoff seedings and created more questions about the offense with six games remaining.
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