Sport

The Eagles in disbelief at the end of a once-promising season: ‘It’s just not our turn’

James Brown

TAMPA, Fla. — Jason Kelce walked off the field alone, head down and clutching a helmet he may never wear again.

It was too melancholy a sight for an image bearer who identifies so closely with his team’s city, a 13-year-old center who best represented his franchise’s success while earning his sixth All-Pro selection, a 36-year-old years that it once seemed like he would experience one more run in another Super Bowl.

Instead, Kelce stood on the sidelines, emotionally absorbing the final seconds of the final loss of what could be his final season. Tampa Bay Buccaneers 32, Philadelphia Eagles 9.

How did it end up like this? How did a season that began with such a seismic rise end with such a catastrophic collapse? How did the Eagles, who roared out of Kansas City after beating the Chiefs during a 10-1 start, endure the embarrassment of a wild-card elimination after which fans shouted expletives and He threw a bucket at them as they left the field?

Kelce turned the corner of the hallway. There was general manager Howie Roseman at the locker room door. They shook hands. Hugged Kelce dressed at her locker, turned to the mass of waiting reporters and shook his head politely.

“No, guys,” Kelce said calmly. “Not today. I’m sorry.”

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The locker room was devoid of any complete explanation for the conglomerate of problems that confused them. Some players were too despondent to speak. Some, stunned, offered small considerations. Some seemed relieved that the season’s miseries were finally over. But they all expressed a similar sentiment, a disbelief at the sudden direction in which a once-promising season turned.

“Things didn’t end the way we wanted them to,” Jalen Hurts said. “It’s just not our turn.”

The latter sounded fatalistic from the quarterback, as if Hurts felt such failure was inevitable. At the end of the regular season, it certainly seemed that way. A once-potent offense that combined cutting runs by Hurts and D’Andre Swift with explosive passes to AJ Brown and DeVonta Smith withered into a steady series of dysfunctions.

First-year offensive coordinator Brian Johnson attempted to give Hurts control over a system that would allow him to work through a list of pre-snap checks at the line, and while there were several moments in 2023 where Hurts thrived, the former MVP candidate regressed late in the season as miscommunications and frequent struggles to handle the blitz persisted.

An offense that seemed to have no real identity in Nick Sirianni’s third year as the team’s head coach often looked disjointed. The Eagles opened the game against the Buccaneers with two Swift runs that gained a total of 11 yards. He only carried the ball twice more in the first half, and the Buccaneers built a seven-point lead on the Eagles instead of successfully (and unsuccessfully) forcing the ball to Smith.

The strategy began with two curious third-and-short scenarios in which Hurts threw incomplete passes downfield. On first, third and 2, it appeared that Smith and tight end Dallas Goedert were in each other’s way while running the same route. Smith later said that Hurts made two pre-snap checks before the play, and Smith and Goedert “saw something completely different” than Hurts intended.

“It was two different signs,” Smith said. “(We saw) one and we didn’t see the other.”

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The fact that such communication errors continued even into the playoffs offered insight into how often setbacks turned into heart attacks for the Eagles. There was at least a constant dissonance between the system the coaching staff and players had in mind and what happened on the field. On a pre-snap check against the Chiefs, Hurts launched a game-changing deep shot to Smith. Against the Seattle Seahawks, Brown admitted that a game-ending interception was due to his independent work on the play.

“It’s very frustrating,” Smith said. “Especially when you have the talent, the right mindset and the right things. As I say, what you are missing are just small details.”

Back-to-back punts early in the game against the Bucs once again put the Eagles in a situation where they had to play from behind. The Buccaneers took a 16-9 halftime lead, which increased after the Eagles’ offense failed to score in the second half. Sirianni and Johnson, who had to construct a game plan without the injured Brown, forcefully funneled the ball to Smith, whose 55-yard second-quarter reception preceded the team’s only touchdown.

The Eagles seemed overly reliant on Smith winning his coverage matchups. They started the second half with three possessions in which they lost 10 yards in 11 plays, with Hurts being penalized in the end zone for intentionally touching the ground, a damning safety while trying to evade defenders while only under a four-man rush. Two plays later, Baker Mayfield scored the game-winner, an open completion to Trey Palmer, who ripped through cornerback James Bradberry for a 56-yard touchdown that virtually ended the game, 25-9, with 1:19 left in the game. the end. third quarter.

An Eagles defense that was too often disastrous under de facto defensive coordinator Matt Patricia again proved unable to adequately contain its opponent. The Buccaneers outscored the Eagles 426-276 in total offensive yards and recorded six plays of 20 yards or more. Mayfield completed 22 of 36 passes for 337 yards and three touchdowns while often targeting linebackers in coverage, finding pass catchers in open zones in the middle of the field or connecting with receivers breaking tackles for long gains after catches.

Patricia started the game again with different defensive schemes. The Bucs converted first downs on both passes and runs against the Philadelphia 3-4 base, running back Rachaad White came through a tackle on third-and-3 on a spin pass against an Eagles pass-oriented nickel and, on the second series of Tampa Bay, Mayfield hit David Moore in stride for a 44-yard touchdown against Philadelphia’s defensive six-pack and three defenders missed Moore on poor tackle attempts.

Sirianni’s midseason decision to demote coordinator Sean Desai exacerbated the team’s defensive woes. The Eagles gave up more yards and points in five games under Patricia (375.8, 24.7 per game) than they did in the first 13 under Desai (353.9, 22.8). Sirianni acknowledged that his decision did not produce the results he intended, but declined to answer when asked if he would make personnel changes at any of the coordinator positions during the offseason.

“I think there were several things that we recorded and the offenses copied them and sometimes we rinsed and repeated them,” linebacker Nicholas Morrow said. “I think that’s one thing. It’s just difficult to change defensive philosophy mid-season. Totally different defense from a playmaking perspective. And it wasn’t for lack of effort. I think everyone tried to make it work. “It just wasn’t like that.”

Neither did Philadelphia’s efforts at a late comeback. On a fateful fourth-and-5 in the fourth quarter, Smith failed to catch a Hurts pass in the end zone while facing tight coverage from cornerback Carlton Davis III. Smith said he went to Sirianni before the play and “told him to give me the ball.”

“We had the answer to everything,” Smith insisted. “We just didn’t act consistently.”

“It was almost like we couldn’t get out of the rut we were in,” Sirianni said. “And that’s all of us. We all have to look in the mirror and accept it and just find answers, find solutions. But obviously, when we started 10-1 and we got into what happened to us, obviously expectations were high. Expectations were even higher when we started 10-1. We fell into a skid. Obviously he plays call. I’ll look at the schematic. I’ll look at the practices. “I’ll look at everything we’re doing because I think the last two years we got a little hot at the end, and this year that wasn’t the case.”

The future of the franchise’s leadership is now uncertain. Owner Jeffrey Lurie and Roseman must now decide whether the problems that persisted during the final part of Philadelphia’s season can be rectified in a fourth year under Sirianni.

Firing Sirianni would be a surprising decision. His teams have made the playoffs in each of his three seasons with a record of 34-17. But such a sudden departure would not be without precedent. Only two other coaches in the Super Bowl era have been fired in the season after losing the big game. The late Al Davis fired Bill Callahan after a drama-filled 2003 Raiders team finished 4-12. Then in 2015, John Elway fired John Fox after a 12-4 Denver Broncos team lost to the Indianapolis Colts in the divisional round.

Both cases contained the polarity of the possible consequences that would befall the Eagles. The Raiders have made the playoffs just twice under 10 other head coaches in the 20 seasons since Callahan’s ouster, and the Broncos won Super Bowl 50 in their first year under Gary Kubiak. Sirianni failed to at least delay that decision with an Eagles victory Monday night. When asked if he was worried about his job security after the game, Sirianni said, “I’m not thinking about that,” and instead spoke of his feelings for the players whose season ended.

“We didn’t end up where we wanted to end up,” Sirianni said.

“We don’t know what next year will bring,” Bradberry said. “We don’t know who will be here. Who won’t be here? Because, of course, we did not meet expectations. We had high expectations for this year. “When you’re not up to par, of course people want to make changes.”

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(Photo: Kevin Sabitus/Getty Images)

By James Brown

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