Different year, different offensive coordinator, yet still, it feels like déjà vu all over again. The Eagles had little margin for error Sunday vs. the Rams because of injuries. They played hard despite being shorthanded, but in the end, couldn’t put the Rams away, mainly because of poor execution on offense.
Why hasn’t Sean Mannion’s scheme clicked? How culpable are head coach Nick Sirianni and quarterback Jalen Hurts in the offensive rut the Eagles find themselves in? The Inquirer’s Jeff McLane and David Murphy analyze the fallout from the 24-20 loss to L.A.
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Jeff McLane: This is a game they could have won. It would have been kind of remarkable if they did, considering all the injuries they came into the game with. And then all of a sudden they lost like what, three other, four other starters over the course of the game? It would have been a real gutty win and kind of told you a lot about at least, Nick Sirianni and the players still playing for him and the defense still kind of being, I don’t know, not quite elite, but still very good.
But ultimately I think we gotta start with the offense because that’s why they lost this game. That’s why there’s been struggles through these first four weeks and why you gotta really question where this team is and where it’s going for the rest of the season. Sean Mannion, four games in — what’s your impression?
David Murphy: It has not been ideal. We’re gonna have to chicken-and-egg at some point how much of the fault is the talent and and how much of the fault is the guy kind of scheming and play calling?
Clearly one thing that we’ve seen is that the execution is not where it needs to be. And I think you can put that on Mannion and and I guess Sirianni to a lesser extent. I mean, we always talk about play calling, but play coaching is probably more important. It’s one thing to tell guys what you want to do and have the play work in theory, but part of a job as a coach obviously is during the week, teach them up to a point where they’re actually able to execute what you’re calling. And particularly in the run game and some of the more exotic [aspects of the] short passing game, we’ve just seen breakdown after breakdown after breakdown.
And then you get into the question of how much talent is there really on this team? I wrote yesterday, Matthew Stafford played as bad a game of quarterback as you’ll see him play. He did not look good. He looked old, looked indecisive. [Vic] Fangio was clearly in his head. But at the end of the game, he had Puka Nakua at his disposal. And he could drop back and just throw the ball to Puka Nakua and have a pretty good chance, or pretty good sense that it will work at some point. And it did over those last couple of drives. I think they did it six or seven times for like 90 of the 180 yards that they needed to score.
So who’s that guy on the on the Eagles’ team right now? It was always the biggest question when they said goodbye to A.J. Brown, how much of the Eagles’ success over the last three or four years would not have been there if [Jalen] Hurts did not have A.J. Brown to throw the ball up to or force the ball into and know that nothing bad was gonna happen, at the very least.
So that’s the question, what’s the talent of this team? And especially with Landon Dickerson out and Lane Johnson out and [Cam] Jurgens playing out of position, it’s at some point you look at it and you know, what is the talent on this team? You could argue that they had a ton of replacement- level players on the field by the end of yesterday’s game and that was the difference.
McLane: The whole Sean Mannion thing, to me, it’s like you don’t hire someone for the scheme as much as you hire them because “I think this guy is going to be a brilliant offensive mind and he can do anything.” And certainly Nick Sirianni said that when he hired Sean Mannion, but this is a 34-year-old, first-time play caller, offensive coordinator. Like, you know, what did you expect? He’s only really worked in one scheme and he’s the guy who learned it from a guy who learned it from the guy who learned it from his father. Like it is a — at least in terms of the offensive coordinator — watered-down scheme.
And then you factor in Jalen Hurts and what he has done previously, what he’s been successful in, and whether he can do the under-center stuff, and it’s just created this disjointed offense to me that they just don’t have any idea what they want to be or what they can do. And I think that is at the crux of the problem. And then you factor in, as you mentioned, all the other personnel issues.
Murphy: I guess the question is, this is the third guy now that we’re saying this about after Brian Johnson and Kevin Patullo, and it’s all the same stuff, right? It looks dysfunctional in in a little bit of a different way this year, but at the end of the day, this is three out of the last four guys that we’re saying this about. Now either they’ve got a really poor track record of picking guys or there’s other things fundamentally that are underpinning the successes. What’s that?
McLane: Yeah, there’s two things. It’s the coach who can’t design an offense that is elite, and can call the offense. And it’s the quarterback who is good, but limited in some ways. And this has been it. You know, this is always what it is going to be.
And look, I don’t want to take anything away from what those guys have accomplished. They found a way to win a Super Bowl. Nick is a good coach. He does a lot of the other stuff that you want in terms of culture-building, getting the team to play, focusing on the details, “tough, detailed, together.” I get all that. I’m sick of hearing it myself, but it’s true — Nick does that stuff well. But we’re talking about the highest level of the sport. And when you can’t have innovation on the offensive side of the ball, it’s gonna catch up to you.
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