Remember in the NFC Championship Game during the 2017-2018 season when the Philadelphia Eagles hit on a few chunk plays and kicked a field goal at the end of the first half to go up three scores against the Minnesota Vikings? That was fun, right? A quick trip down memory lane:
Following a Vikings punt, the Eagles got the ball at their own 20 yard line with 29 seconds left in the first half, and all three timeouts in their pocket. They ran a swing pass to Jay Ajayi for 11 yards, followed by an aggressive out and up route by Zach Ertz for 36 yards, and then a screen to Ajayi for 13 insurance yards to give Jake Elliott an easier kick.
The Eagles took a 21-7 score and made it 24-7 just before the end of the half. And while they were "just" three points, they were uplifting for the Eagles heading into the locker room, and no doubt demoralizing to the Vikings.
In their matchup against the Cowboys on Sunday evening, the Eagles had the ball at their own 28 yard line with 17 seconds left, with, OH HEY (!) a 21-7 lead. Unlike Doug Pederson in that NFC Championship Game, Nick Sirianni opted not to make a serious effort to score points at the end of the half, calling a Saquon Barkley run behind Grant Calcaterra and then letting the rest of the clock run out.
At that point in the game, Jalen Hurts was 13 of 19 passing for 163 yards, 1 TD, and 0 INTs. A.J. Brown had caught 5 passes for 67 yards and a TD. DeVonta Smith had 3 catches for 57 yards. Barkley had been wide open in the flats a few times, as he had 3 catches for 32 yards.
It's not as if the passing game wasn't working. It was! Receivers were getting open, and making plays down the field. Brown had a 22-yard reception, Smith had a 41-yard reception, and Barkley had a 16-yard reception. All three of those guys had also broken tackles and gotten yards after the catch. And obviously, Dallas Goedert has often made plays in these types of situations.
The Eagles had a realistic opportunity to try to gain around 30 or so yards and give Jake Elliott a chance at a long kick, basically with no fear of the Cowboys getting the ball back unless they turned it over. But they didn't bother giving their passing game weapons a chance to make a play.
So why didn't they?
"17 seconds, I won't get into where our cutoff is, the ball was on the 28 yard line," Sirianni explained. "If you look through a lot of that stuff, I've looked at all of those throughout the last 15 years, and that was the decision I made to go with that particular one.
"A lot of things happen when you're in those scenarios when you're against the clock. We tried to run it to see if we could bounce one out of there, and see what happened after that, and we didn't get anything there, so we let the clock run out there.
"And they had their timeouts as well, and their kicker can make it from long range. We had a 21-7 lead, and that's what I decided to do at that particular time."
Wait, the Cowboys had their timeouts and they have a good kicker? WHAT?!? That's the explanation???
There was no scenario in which the Eagles could have possibly run four plays designed to gain yards in under 17 seconds and gave the Cowboys a chance to kick a field goal. That logic is mind-blowing. But also, it's sheer cowardice. OH NO, THE COWBOYS MIGHT GET THE BALL BACK AND SCORE! 😱😨
This was nothing new, by the way. Sirianni has routinely turtled up at the end of the first half all season. There have been five occasions this season in which they have gotten the ball back with under a minute left in the first half. They have zero points in those situations.
Opponent
Yard line
Time left
Timeouts
Result
Rams
35
0:10
3
Kneeldown, 0 points
Broncos
5
0:08
1
Kneeldown, 0 points
Vikings
16
0:59
3
4 plays, 19 yds, 0 points
Packers
35
0:23
3
4 plays, 6 yds, 0 points
Cowboys
28
0:17
2
1 play, 1 yd, 0 points
Let's look at each of them individually.
### **Rams at Eagles, 35 yard line, 10 second left, 3 timeouts**
The Eagles were down at this point in the game, 7-19. They were met with boos after Jalen Hurts took a knee and the Eagles jogged into the locker room. They would have needed roughly 25 yards for a realistic chance to try for a long field goal, which wasn't likely, of course, but also certainly not impossible, especially against a secondary full of sub-6-foot corners. Sirianni and Kevin Patullo could have tried a deep ball to one of their contested catch stars.
If you don't connect, so what? And even if the ball is intercepted, it's probably the end of the half anyway, or you're giving the Rams little more than a chance at a Hail Mary, which they probably might not even try so they don't get their star quarterback hit.
Instead, the Eagles were content to go into the half down 12.
Coward meter: 6/10 😱😱😱😱😱😱
### **Broncos at Eagles, 5 yard line, 8 seconds left, 1 timeout**
A kneeldown was the obvious play here.
Coward meter: 0/10
### **Eagles at Vikings, 16 yard line, 59 seconds left, 3 timeouts**
The Eagles began this drive looking for points, as Hurts hit Smith for two quick gains of 6 and 16 yards, and a first down out to their own 38 yard line. Cool!
Then Hurts threw incomplete to Brown, 28 seconds left. Then he took a sack for a loss of 3 on 2nd down. That made it 3rd and 13 from their own 35, with 22 seconds left. What did the Eagles do? They let the clock run out after the sack.
Again, Hurts had been finding open receivers throughout the first half, completing 9 of 11 passes for 86 yards and a TD.
Let's say for the sake of argument that you try to convert the 3rd and 13, throw incomplete, stop the clock, and you're punting it away. That brings the clock down to, saaayyy, 16 seconds. After the punt, the Vikings are likely starting their ensuing drive somewhere around their own 20, with like 8 seconds left. They're going to kneel it, and if they were to try to air it out with a mistake-prone Carson Wentz at quarterback, by all means, the Eagles should have been happy to let them try.
But ultimately, the Eagles have been running give-up plays all season in 3rd and long situations, without the clock even being a factor. They weren't going to stop being cowards with the clock element added to the equation.
Coward meter: 6/10 😱😱😱😱😱😱
### **Eagles at Packers, 35 yard line, 23 seconds left, 3 timeouts**
On first down, Hurts scrambled for 4 yards, and got out of bounds. The clock stopped with 16 seconds to go, ball at the PHI 39.
On 2nd and 6, Hurts missed an open Smith for what should have been a completion into Packers territory. 11 seconds left.
On 3rd and 6, the Eagles called an extremely conservative Will Shipley run for 2 yards. Weak. The Packers called timeout with 5 seconds left. You know who was thrilled to see a Shipley run? Literally everyone rooting for the Packers.
On 4th down, Hurts killed some time in the backfield before purposely throwing a pass out of bounds to run out the rest of the clock.
Again, what's going to happen if you call a real play designed to get yards on 3rd down, and it's incomplete? You can still just have Hurts run out the clock with a throwaway out of bounds.
Coward meter: 8/10 😱😱😱😱😱😱😱😱
### **Eagles at Cowboys, 28 yard line, 17 seconds, 2 timeouts**
We already explained above what happened here.
Coward meter: 6/10 😱😱😱😱😱😱
The Eagles used to be aggressive hunters of points. They are not that anymore. Sirianni would rather give up on unlikely-but-realistic scoring opportunities, in fear that extremely unlikely worst case scenarios will happen instead.