PHILADELPHIA — The talent is there, and they know it. That’s what’s really worrying the Philadelphia Eagles. They brought back almost the same entire group that rolled to a Super Bowl championship last season — 10 of 11 starters from the No. 8 offense in the league.
And yet it’s just not working. They know that, too. They are scoring five fewer points per game. Their offense has sunk to 24th in the league, averaging about 60 fewer yards. Jalen Hurts’ passing numbers are slightly up, but he’s on pace to run for nearly 200 fewer yards. And that’s nothing compared to Saquon Barkley, who might rush for 1,000 fewer yards than he did last season, even if he ends up playing in one more game.
The Eagles spent more money on the offensive side of the ball than any team in the league, too. They just don’t have the results to show for it.
“The sky is falling outside of the locker room,” Barkley said, after Philadelphia’s 24-15 loss to the Chicago Bears last Friday. “We understand that.”
Make no mistake: The sky is falling a little bit inside the Eagles’ locker room, too.
The Eagles’ offense has been off all year. Can they get it back on track before it’s too late? (Photo by Mitchell Leff/Getty Images)
They’re not in a panic — at least not yet, and not when they’re 8-4, still leading the NFC East, and still very much in the race for the top seed in the conference. But there is a sense of both foreboding and déjà vu throughout the Eagles franchise. The foreboding is a fear that if they can’t figure out what’s wrong with their offense, this promising season and the defense of their title will end in disaster.
And the déjà vu is because it’s starting to feel a little bit like 2023 when they were 10-1 at one point, but could feel that something was off, then suddenly they lost six of their last seven games. That year the Eagles’ biggest issues were on defense, which caused head coach Nick Sirianni to bench his defensive coordinator late in the season.
So far, Sirianni is standing firmly behind his first-year offensive coordinator Kevin Patullo, even as angry Eagles fans literally egged his house the morning after their latest loss. Patullo’s players are standing by him, too, though at times their endorsements seem very lukewarm.Â
On Sunday, for example, when tight end Dallas Goedert was asked how often he thinks the Eagles have a strategic advantage over an opponent, he answered, “Tough question. I don’t know if I really have an answer for that one.” Barkley lamented the “weird” flow of the Eagles’ rushing attack in a game where he had just 13 carries. And when asked point-blank if the Eagles abandoned their running game too soon, especially with the Bears missing three of their linebackers, Eagles center Cam Jurgens said simply, “I agree.”
“I think we executed well enough to keep running it,” Jurgens said. “It just seems like the yards weren’t there for us today. We’ve got to figure out how to make those plays work. We’ve got to take advantage of it a little bit better.”
“We know when we get the running game going how effective this team can be,” Barkley added. “That’s what felt weird to me. We couldn’t establish the run game, but it wasn’t like I was missing reads or the line wasn’t blocking up front. It was just kind of how the game flows. It was a weird game in that case.”
The running game, and Patullo’s occasional aversion to it, isn’t Philly’s only offensive issue, but it does seem to be at the center of its problems. A year ago, behind Barkley’s 2,005-yard season, the Eagles were second in the NFL with 179.3 rushing yards per game, and understandably ran the ball on 55.8% of their offensive plays.
But this season they’re gaining only 108.5 yards per game on the ground — an enormous drop of more than 70 yards per game — and they’re running the ball only 47% of the time. Clearly, Barkley isn’t as effective as he was last season — he’s averaging 2.1 fewer yards per carry this season. And the offensive line is having issues, too, which is why Barkley is averaging just 2.3 yards before contact this season compared to 3.8 last year.
The Eagles’ players, though, seem to be arguing they need more dedication to running plays in order to get their run game into a rhythm. They want to make it the strength of their offense just like it was last year, but they can’t do that when it feels like they abandon it too early. Barkley had just 26 total carries during their two straight losses to the Bears and the Cowboys. During a two-game losing streak in October to the Broncos and the Giants, he carried the ball just 18 times.
“I can’t get into how many carries I should have,” Barkley said. “I do know I think the O-line came out and did a really good job (against the Bears). We took what they gave us. Sometimes the game dictates that.
“We’ve just got to do a better job of controlling the game.”
The Eagles have made it a point to involve star wideout A.J. Brown more the past two weeks. But they also dropped both games. (Photo by Terence Lewis/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images)
Leaning on the run game would seem to be a start, especially since their passing attack has at times seemed dysfunctional. Hurts is on pace to throw for 3,561 yards and what would be a career-high 27 touchdown passes. He’s also thrown only two interceptions through 12 games.
But there are often odd lapses. The chemistry between Hurts and his top receiver A.J. Brown seemed so far off most of the season that many around the NFL thought the Eagles might deal the unhappy Brown at the trading deadline. Owner Jeffrey Lurie even met with Brown in mid-November to discuss the receiver’s frustration, which had become painfully and publicly obvious.
Brown’s numbers have soared in the two weeks since his chat with his boss — 18 catches, 242 yards, three touchdowns — but it hasn’t helped the overall production of the Eagles’ offense. That’s because the passing game often breaks down in key spots, like when Hurts and DeVonta Smith couldn’t connect on a third-and-8 play early against the Bears that should have resulted in a touchdown, but failed because Hurts misinterpreted the route Smith was planning to run.
The Eagles also have a penchant for hurting themselves with key penalties. They have committed 91 through 12 games — the fifth-highest total in the league. That includes 49 called on their offense, or four offensive penalties per game.
“It’s not one person,” Goedert said. “It’s a collective of all 11 of us at different times doing one thing — missing a block, not running the right route, not picking up the right protection. It’s not the same person ever, but that’s what’s killing us. It’s one person on one play, another person on a different play. It’s starting to bite us.”
Barkley added: “We can’t be pointing fingers because everybody is contributing to the way we’re playing right now. Literally every single body.”
And that’s what makes their current predicament so perplexing. The Eagles plug one hole on offense and another one appears. They find a way to make one star player happy and another one starts to look miserable. They are still winning games, thanks mostly to their defense, though even that has fallen apart lately, giving up 898 yards over the past two weeks, including a ridiculous 281 yards on the ground against the Bears.
“I wish I could tell you, ’This is exactly what it is,’” Sirianni said. “This is hard. It’s not easy to be successful (and) stay successful. Obviously, if I knew exactly what it was, then we’d have fixed it. But right now, we’re still searching and we’re still looking.”
The Eagles are convinced they still have plenty of time to figure out their problems, but at the same time, they are well aware that time is running out. There are still plenty of Eagles who experienced that collapse at the end of the 2023 season, who remember that when things fall apart, they fall apart fast.
Two years ago, Philly opened the season 10-1 before completely coming undone. Can Nick Sirianni prevent history from repeating itself? (Photo by Mitchell Leff/Getty Images)
The question is, are things really falling apart, or can the Eagles’ talent overcome their dysfunction and what at times looks like complacency? Will Sirianni have to make the kind of drastic move that he seems to be resisting — like demoting Patullo or taking away his playcalling duties — or will the veteran players on offense eventually figure everything out?
“It’s not ideal,” Hurts said of the offensive struggles. “It’s not something that you desire. It’s just a matter of picking ourselves up, and continuing to press forward, and staying together in it, and being committed to it.”
“We know we have the guys, and we know we have the coaches,” Barkley added. “We just have to go back to work. We know what we want to accomplish and everything we want to accomplish is still there.”
Or, to put it another way, as Jurgens did: “We’re 8-4. The sky is still above us.”
It only feels like it’s already on its way down.
Ralph Vacchiano is an NFL Reporter for FOX Sports. He spent six years covering the Giants and Jets for SNY TV in New York, and before that, 16 years covering the Giants and the NFL for the New York Daily News. Follow him on Twitter at @RalphVacchiano.
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