Eagles offense stalls after ‘shooting ourselves in the foot’ following initial spark

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PHILADELPHIA — Inconsistency gave way to collapse in a way previous games forewarned.

The Philadelphia Eagles dodged the damage of playing fickle football for four weeks. No more. The Eagles squandered a two-score lead when their offense stagnated in the second half of Sunday’s 21-17 loss to the Denver Broncos. This dysfunction was different. The causes were clear. They drove a lethal and efficient game plan until a blowout of the Broncos felt imminent. Then, mired in the mud of self-inflicted mistakes, the Eagles dug deeper into their plan and spun their wheels until the Broncos overtook them.

In a final image of chaos crushing hope, A.J. Brown and DeVonta Smith both leaped for a last-second Hail Mary that glanced off their hands in heavy coverage. They collapsed onto each other and lay still as the home crowd booed. They were the center of attention all week. First-time offensive coordinator Kevin Patullo’s passing game had yet to maximize its potential. Brown expressed frustrations publicly that both receivers felt privately. That changed for just over two quarters. Jalen Hurts briefly dealt in explosives within what was initially an up-tempo attack. Brown in one-on-one matchups. Smith and Jahan Dotson on deep shots. Saquon Barkley on a 47-yard touchdown strike to open the second half.

The Eagles were leading 17-3. They were averaging 7.6 yards per play. Their defense had forced their sixth straight punt. Their offense started their third drive of the second half at their 44. They saw a Broncos defense that carried cornerback Patrick Surtain II, the reigning NFL Defensive Player of the Year, yet again deploy the coverage the Eagles wideouts hoped they would.

“They was playing man-to-man,” Brown said later. “It was simple. It was what we wanted and they gave it to us.”

Hurts unfurled a deep throw on first-and-15. Had Brown hauled that pass in, this would be a different story. Had Brown jogged into the end zone untouched, this would be a story about a historically dynamic duo’s first dual 100-yard game under a first-time play-caller who’d at last connected them. This is not that story. This is a story about an offense that, through five weeks, in Smith’s words, is still not “on the same page.” Brown said he “didn’t think the ball was coming.” He looked up and didn’t see it. He looked back and didn’t see it. Then, at last, there it was — five yards beyond his left shoulder.

“We just missed,” Brown said.

Hurts pumped before the throw, but Brown said that didn’t slow his route. Brown couldn’t see Hurts. Smith said there were times when the Eagles receivers didn’t catch Hurts’ pre-snap signals. But Brown said that wasn’t a factor he experienced. The ball, as in previous weeks, simply wasn’t there — until it was.

The ramifications were brutal for an offense that had been scrounging for explosive plays this season.

“At that moment in the game, it’s about finding a way to put the dagger in them,” said Hurts, who finished 23-of-38 passing for 280 yards and two touchdowns. “And that definitely could have been a dagger.”

Saquon Barkley had just one carry in the second half. (Bill Streicher / Imagn Images)

Had the Eagles subsequently altered their approach, this still might have been a different story. Had they turned to Barkley, who averaged six yards per carry in the first half, to grind out the second-half clock in a similar style to the approach that helped spur last year’s Super Bowl title run, Patullo’s system might appear more complete. Had left guard Landon Dickerson not been ruled out at halftime with an ankle injury, Barkley may have had more than one second-half carry that gained no yardage.

This is not that story. This is the story of an Eagles offense that, in Smith’s words, turned to “shooting ourselves in the foot.” This is the story of how the Broncos pulled within 17-10 with 13:16 left in the game, and how the Eagles immediately handed the ball off to Barkley for a 7-yard gain that was erased when Dickerson’s backup, Brett Toth, was flagged for holding. This is the story of how Hurts threw half of his 38 passes in a second half in which the Eagles were initially leading. Two plays after Toth’s hold, on second-and-13, Hurts searched within a clean pocket but fired incomplete after finding no one open. Then he was sacked. Then the Eagles punted.

And they punted. And punted. And punted.

In a four-drive sequence before their Hail Mary drive, the Eagles totaled 14 plays, two yards and four punts. An Eagles defense that could no longer hold the Broncos at bay surrendered two straight touchdowns and a critical two-point conversion that supplied a go-ahead 18-17 lead with 7:36 left in the game. But when Will Shipley’s 37-yard kickoff return gave the Eagles favorable field position at their own 44, they failed to restore the rhythm that fueled their first-half firepower.

The up-tempo game is a weapon within Patullo’s system. Against the Los Angeles Rams, the Eagles established how they can leverage their talent by going no-huddle in a sequence of plays. They can prevent a favorable defensive personnel from substituting. They can exploit matchups with their talent-laden roster. They can supply their offensive line a leg up against a tiring defensive front.

Against the Rams, the Eagles scored touchdowns in two up-tempo drives that totaled at least eight no-huddle plays. In their second drive against the Broncos, the Eagles went no-huddle on a season-high seven straight plays. It might have been more had Dickerson not injured his left ankle on a three-yard A.J. Dillon run to Denver’s 12. The drive stalled. Hurts subsequently was sacked, failed to connect with Smith on an end-zone route, and Jake Elliott kicked a 31-yard field goal to go up 3-0. The Eagles had previously converted 11 of their 11 red-zone appearances into touchdowns.

Consider that drive the first bullet in an Eagles’ shoe that would soon be riddled with them. Once the Eagles trailed 18-17, they tried to go up-tempo after Hurts connected with Smith for a nine-yard gain. Then right guard Tyler Steen was flagged for being illegally downfield on what would’ve been an eight-yard throw to Smith. Three plays later, on fourth-and-4, Hurts struck Smith in one-on-one coverage along the left sideline for what would have been a 30-yard gain had Barkley not been flagged for illegally shifting in the backfield. The Eagles punted for the final time.

“Just shooting ourselves in the foot,” said Smith, who finished with eight catches for a season-high 114 yards. “We don’t do that, we win that game.”

The Eagles still nearly salvaged their undefeated record. With 1:11 left in the game, with no timeouts remaining, with Denver’s two-point conversion eliminating the possibility of a game-tying field goal, Hurts eventually struck Dotson for a 24-yard gain to the Broncos’ 29 with nine seconds left. Hurts fired another deep pass to tight end Dallas Goedert along the right sideline, but the pass fell incomplete with no flags. Eagles coach Nick Sirianni appeared livid on the sideline that there wasn’t one. The home crowd was ignited by a replay that showed safety JL Skinner’s hand on Goedert’s shoulder, but didn’t show Goedert use both hands to separate himself. A pass interference penalty would have placed the Eagles within the Broncos’ 10.

Referee Adrian Hill said in a pool report that the officials “saw mutual hand fighting and hand-to-hand combat and did not see action that rose to the level of a foul on that play.”

“I felt like there was a little bit of contact there,” Goedert said. “Nothing was called. The game really shouldn’t even have came down to that.”

Hurts heaved his Hail Mary attempt a play later. Within minutes, the Eagles were reflecting on the factors of their first loss of the season.

That penalties and route miscues knee-capped a team with a detail-obsessed head coach was in itself troubling.

“Those are some self-inflicted things that we did,” Sirianni said. “When those happen, I’m always putting that on myself. When we don’t master the things that require no talent, that’s something that’s always going to be on me, because that’s something that we talk about an awful lot. And we have to drive that home, and I have to drive that home. So that’s on me.”

That the Eagles abandoned Barkley in the pursuits of their passing attack at the very least originated from a plan that was initially fruitful, but the lack of an adaptation that was available supplies a lesson learned for a first-time play-caller in his fifth game. Coordinators are not made available after games. But Sirianni, asked if he believes the Eagles can still close out games with their run game, answered, “Yeah, I do.”

“Obviously, we want to run the ball more than we were able to today, or what we did today,” Sirianni said. “You always want to have come out of that game with Saquon getting enough touches because of the type of player he is. So again, we’ll look for solutions.”

The Eagles have a short week to search for solutions. But their opponent may allow them to find them. The Eagles will play at the New York Giants (1-4) on Thursday night. They will play the Giants immediately after a Week 7 game at the Minnesota Vikings (3-2).

“This loss sucks,” Brown said. “Last week I said we learn from winning or we learn from losing. So, now we’re on the other side of it. And so now we have another opportunity in a short week to turn it around and get this thing going.”

(Top photo: Mitchell Leff / Getty Images)

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