Barring a massive turnaround, the Philadelphia Eagles are going to have to make massive changes before next season.
4th and Goal at the two-yard line; Eagles leading 20-10 with 7:31 left. Kick a field goal to take a 13-point lead, or go for it and officially bury the Rams. If they don’t convert, the risk is a momentum shift if LA goes 98 yards. After an incompletion, the Eagles ran seven more plays that only ate up two minutes, and lost 24-20.
Sunday wasn’t just another ugly loss, it was a microcosm of what Philadelphia has been since hoisting the Lombardi Trophy: inconsistent, underperforming, and frustrating. The Eagles have been a revolving door of coordinators, and, at the very least, it looks like they are going to run through another one. But, is that the issue, or is there more?
What Happened To Jalen Hurts?
To start breaking down the Eagles’ issues, you have to start with Jalen Hurts. He’s the highest paid guy, the face of the franchise, and, in his case, has been in the news a lot over the last year. His production, however, has been solely dependent on who his offensive coordinator is.
When paired with coordinators who have gone on to head coaching jobs, Hurts has been fantastic. Outside of that, he has struggled, and it’s been a steady decline since the start of 2024. He has played in 40 games (regular season and playoffs) since then, nearly half of his career starts, and they are painting a telling picture about the quarterback.
Some of the numbers look good: 95 passer rating, 64% completions, and 56 touchdowns to 15 picks are objectively good. However, he’s only giving you 184.5 yards per game, only has three games of 300+ yards and only ten of 250+. He is showing over this time that he cannot be the engine that drives the offense.
His yards per game in that stretch have him outside of the top 25, behind others like Geno Smith, Daniel Jones and Tua Tagovailoa who have all been cut in that time. The Hurts-led Eagles have the highest three-and-out percentage dating back to the start of last season, and the most games with finishing with negative passing yards for a half.
To be a legitimate top-tier guy in this league, you can’t be that coordinator dependent. He is by no means a bad quarterback, but his return on investment after getting the contract simply hasn’t been there on the field.
Then there’s the off-field issues. Back in April, Tim McManus and Jeremy Fowler put out an article highlighting the behind the scenes conflicts in Philadelphia.
“He diverts from the game plan and changes playcalls to what some feel is an excessive degree,” McManus wrote citing his sources.
The mid-game changes have irked teammates as he wants to play to his comfort and strengths regardless of what the game calls for. It’s developed a predictability and a lack of creativity in the offense, making it stagnant and building frustration in the locker room.
He also seems to be disconnected from the locker room stemming from the way he carries himself. Mike Sielski of The Philadelphia Inquirer described this over the summer.
“Jalen admires Michael Jordan, and wants to emulate him, and that sounds great in theory but it’s harder to come off that way when you’re not the best player at your position,” Sielski said. “He grew up a Texas high school star quarterback, [and] those kinds of guys are kings from the moment they’re 15 or 16.”
It’s one thing for a coach to lose a locker room. It’s much more rare for a quarterback to, but we do have a precedent for this type of situation. For years we heard rumblings about a tense locker room in Seattle during the Legion of Boom Era. Once Russell Wilson left the organization and the others retired, many of those first-hand stories started to come out. The situation in Philadelphia seems to be following the same timeline.
Coaching Woes
The coaching staff doesn’t get to escape blame by any means. Nick Sirianni has been a rollercoaster himself. The coordinator situation is as much his fault as it is Hurts’ for not making it work. Sirianni took the job in 2021 and is now on his sixth offensive coordinator.
In most cases, an offensive head coach would normally take over play calling duties if things weren’t going well. But, Sirianni has never called plays. He was a coordinator for three years in Indianapolis, and Frank Reich never gave up that job to him. Even control-freak Sean Payton has delegated play calling to Davis Webb this year.
His coaching history and perpetual hot seat eliminates any alternatives for this offense. He doesn’t have the option to go back to something he’s comfortable with because it doesn’t exist. He has to keep playing CEO and hope something clicks, or he can shave his head and yell at fans again to see if that gets the ball rolling.
It made sound odd to be this critical of a coach that has the fourth-highest winning percentage in the NFL, but there also hasn’t been a coach that wins like him with little to hang his hat on. He’s not a playcaller. He’s not escaped criticism for antics. His staff is a revolving door. He’s much closer to a kid who got the keys to his dad’s Porsche and has gotten more speeding tickets than phone numbers behind the wheel.
Howie Roseman’s Choices
Roseman is the one person in the organization that can seemingly escape the majority of criticism. His ability to find and acquire talent and manipulate the salary cap is second to none. Part of what makes him great is his willingness to pivot in different directions as needed. That’s why Sirianni and Hurts should be nervous.
The Eagles won a Super Bowl in 2018 with Doug Pederson and Carson Wentz. Both were gone two years later. Pederson had the offense humming, Wentz was the MVP favorite, and then the whole operation started to stall. They still made the playoffs the two seasons after winning the Super Bowl, but then they went 4-11-1 and Roseman cleared house.
There is a lot of football yet to be played this year, but it looks like a mirror image of that stretch from the last decade. That could land Sirianni and Hurts on the chopping block at the end of this season.
Offseason Choices
The writing is already on the wall for the Eagles. Lane Johnson just retired, and they just traded pro-bowl center Cam Jurgens to Baltimore for future draft capital. As good as Roseman is at manipulating the salary cap, the bill eventually comes due. He’s just been able to bounce back much faster than nearly every other general manager.
Paying fired coaches is a rounding error for owners at this point. There is no financial fear for those billionaires, the Brown Family in Cincinnati notwithstanding. The dead cap number on Hurts’ contract would have seemed insurmountable before, but the Broncos reset the standard when they cut Russell Wilson.
Granted, cutting Hurts would still be a worst-case scenario. They would more likely be able to trade him and avoid navigating the dead cap money. For comparison though, Wilson’s $84 million cut cost was 32% of the cap, Hurts’ $107 million would be 35% of this year’s, but the total cap will grow again next year.
It’s only Week 5, so there is plenty of time to right the ship. They were 2-2 two years ago and lost once more on their way to a Super Bowl. With the injuries and others who are no longer on the roster though, it looks like a much taller hill to climb.
Leave a comment