TAMPA, Fla. — Moro Ojomo sat with his face buried in both palms. The defensive tackle was still in full pads. Several teammates were. The Philadelphia Eagles moved slower than usual after Sunday’s 33-16 loss to the Tampa Bay Buccaneers — some stirring, some staring — as a fidgeting mass of reporters waited at the center of the visiting locker room, searching for signals that someone was ready to give their say.
Much had already been said. Brandon Graham, the team’s most tenured player, preached a familiar sermon on togetherness and self-accountability. Other voices from various lockers chimed in. But this was a different scene inside Raymond James Stadium. This wasn’t the 2023 wild-card elimination. There was no sense of finality, no doom from damning dysfunctions. There was only the reminder of their expectations, of their potential, of the only way to fulfill both.
“Everybody understands that we’re going to do this together,” Jalen Hurts later said at the lectern. “We went out there and we didn’t do good enough as a team.”
This is a team that hasn’t yet surrendered to its flaws. It’s too early for such resignation. The Eagles are 2-2 entering their Week 5 bye. They’re inarguably one catch away from being 3-1. But they’re endangering their entire season, and possibly their coaching regime, with undisciplined play by a talent-laden roster, insufficient game plans by a tenured staff and a series of developmental duds unbefitting of a widely respected front office.
Each part contains its own complications. None, if prolonged, bode well for Nick Sirianni, the fourth-year coach who cannot afford another season to go this way. Owner Jeffrey Lurie retained Sirianni despite suffering the indignity of the NFL’s largest late-season collapse of this century partly because he believed Sirianni had his finger on the pulse of the team’s needs and would make aggressive attempts to make changes when needed.
Sirianni must swiftly secure answers for new problems. He takes pride in a culture that doesn’t point fingers. “Accountability” is one of his core values. It’s a tenet that manifests publicly with words — Sirianni, Hurts and several players took ownership of their mistakes Sunday — and that becomes tiresome in a city that demands action. But Sirianni insisted such public admissions are only “a piece of what’s going on,” that he’s at times a disciplinarian within the NovaCare Complex, and that “there’s a lot that you don’t see, obviously, behind closed doors of how we get things fixed.”
“Yes, as a coach, I’m going to go up there in front of the team, first and foremost, and say what I screwed up,” Sirianni said Monday. “But then, I’m going to tell them what I feel like they screwed up. That’s my job as the head coach. And I’m going to tell the coaches what I think they — the coaches before the players even get there — what I think they screwed up. And it’s not an indictment on anybody. It’s all in the attempts to get better. And so, again, accountability is key if you’re going to fix mistakes. And you’ve got to look at yourself first. But then, as leaders on the football team, you’ve got to point out what the mistakes are.”
It should be a minimum expectation that the Eagles not cripple themselves.
They’ve been penalized four times for ineligible downfield passes, three times for illegal formations and once for breaking a huddle with 12 men on the field — the very antithesis of the “clean operation” offensive coordinator Kellen Moore desires. They’ve committed defensive pass interference twice on third downs (tied for the league lead), and, combined with a third-down defensive holding and third-down roughing the passer, the three drives in which those occurred produced 13 points. They surrendered a blocked punt to the Saints, and, on Sunday, Isaiah Rodgers intentionally shoved a gunner into punt returner Cooper DeJean thinking it’d draw a flag. Instead, DeJean fumbled, feeding the Bucs a quick touchdown.
“You’ve still got to play by the rules of what you do,” Sirianni said, referring to the Rodgers play. Sirianni might as soon have said the same for all the other gaffes. “We’ve got to make sure that we’re coaching it better,” he added. No team will be completely devoid of penalties or blunders. But the current rate at which the Eagles are committing them is a major concern — especially considering how much time Sirianni spends speaking about fundamentals.
It’s alarming how Hurts has so far failed to protect the football in a system he wanted to command. He’s thrown four interceptions and lost three fumbles — more giveaways than any quarterback other than Tennessee’s Will Levis (8). The turnovers are untimely. Two picks were in the end zone. Another prohibited a possible game-winning field goal against the Atlanta Falcons. In a two-score game against the Buccaneers, Hurts failed to get rid of the ball on a sack-fumble in the red zone.
Hurts must transcend such situations. He and Moore have otherwise shown promise together. The Eagles offense revealed in Sao Paulo it can be a force at full strength. Efficiency has waned in three games without leading receiver A.J. Brown (hamstring). But Moore hasn’t been without answers. Hurts and Barkley combined for 180 yards rushing against the Falcons. Hurts threw for 311 yards against the Saints within a passing attack committed to the short game. The Eagles failed to gain a yard in their first three drives against the Bucs — an indictment for any team that features Barkley in its backfield — but, without wideout DeVonta Smith (concussion), they nearly doubled their usage of two-tight end packages, broke open a 59-yard run by Barkley and nearly made it a one-score game before Hurts’ fatal fumble.
The Eagles are usually among the best at scoring touchdowns on their red-zone opportunities. They owned a top-8 ranking in the category during each of their first three seasons under Sirianni. But the untimely turnovers, paired with the failures of questionable fourth-down calls by Sirianni and Moore, have saddled the Eagles with a 47.1 red-zone percentage that ranks 21st in the NFL. A fuller evaluation will be afforded once Brown and Smith return after the bye.
Most foreboding of all: the state of the Eagles defense. The franchise finally got the founder of their favored system, but a defense that ranks 26th in EPA per play (-0.07) has been outmatched within three of Vic Fangio’s first four game plans. The seven-time defensive coordinator hasn’t found solutions in a secondary that’s surrendering the fifth-most passing yards (948) nor masked the deficiencies along the perimeter. Fangio fielded a 6-1 defensive front against the Saints to stop outside zone runs, but the Buccaneers further stretched the field with a series of swing passes (195 of Baker Mayfield’s 347 yards came after the catch).
General manager Howie Roseman holds his share of the blame. Two of his most prominent offseason free agent signings have become liabilities. No NFL safety has surrendered more touchdowns than C.J. Gardner-Johnson (3), and edge rusher Bryce Huff, signed to replace Haason Reddick, has yet to record a quarterback hit, sack or tackle for loss through four games. The tools the Eagles front office liked about Huff — a pass-rush specialist in a four-man front with the New York Jets — haven’t yet flourished within Fangio’s base 3-4 scheme.
Roseman’s reinforcements in the secondary have yet to be fully applied. DeJean’s offseason hamstring injury complicated the unit’s available configurations. Fangio’s reluctance to deploy No. 22 pick Quinyon Mitchell at both outside cornerback and nickel — which would’ve indeed been complicated — has meant the Eagles are leaning on veteran Avonte Maddox (who was initially cut before re-signing on a team-friendly deal) to fulfill their nickel safety slot until DeJean fully develops. Maddox was targeted a game-high eight times against the Buccaneers and surrendered a 28-yard gain on a missed tackle.
Sirianni said he and Fangio spent Monday together reviewing Sunday’s game film. Sirianni, who last year demoted a member of Fangio’s coaching tree, Sean Desai, midseason, has often spoken confidently of Fangio’s track record. But if even Fangio and a tenured staff that includes defensive line coach Clint Hurtt — the defensive coordinator of the Seattle Seahawks in 2022 and 2023 — is unable to maximize a rotation that features eight top-83 picks once made by the organization, Lurie must question whether the defense’s problem most lies within the scheme or the scouting.
Sirianni’s culture of self-accountability has helped identify the ownership of every issue. How much can the Eagles fix in just over a week?
(Top photo: Julio Aguilar / Getty Images)
