What is the Eagles’ offensive identity? Not ‘good enough,’ says Nick Sirianni after loss to Rams | The Early Bird
· Yahoo Sports
Eagles fans flocked to the exits as Jalen Hurts commanded the huddle on the Eagles’ final drive.
The offense faced third-and-17 with the game on the line, but the result felt like a foregone conclusion.
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The Eagles lost, 24-20, to the Los Angeles Rams and fell to 2-2. The offense turned in a listless second half, the defense capitulated two back-breaking drives late, and somehow this team erased a 10-point lead built up mostly off turnovers and some opportune moments from reserve wide receiver Darius Cooper in the end zone.
Afterward, Hurts summed the afternoon up with two words, over and over.
“Poor execution.”
The Eagles finishing 0-for-12 on third down in the game, the worst ratio from any Eagles game since 1991?
“Poor execution.”
What about the Eagles once-again stagnant offense in third quarter? The offense has managed just three first downs in the third quarter across all four of the games they’ve played this season, the worst tally in the NFL by a wide margin. The group has just 12 second-half first downs, which is also the worst total in the league.
“Poor execution.”
Hurts finished the game 12-for-27 for just 93 passing yards and two touchdowns set up by takeaways on defense. Beside two games that he left due to injury, Sunday was the lowest yardage tally Hurts has recorded since becoming the Eagles starting quarterback in 2021.
This is as good a time as any to contextualize the offensive performance. The group came into the game without DeVonta Smith, Dallas Goedert, or Lane Johnson. Johnson was a late addition to the inactives list for personal reasons. Saquon Barkley left in the first quarter with a hamstring injury and did not return as well.
Players did not know Johnson would be unavailable until they reported to the stadium the morning of the game, Eagles left tackle Jordan Mailata said. Eagles coach Nick Sirianni did not offer any details about Johnson’s absence, either. Missing the 36-year-old gave way to the Eagles starting third-round rookie Markel Bell at right tackle without another healthy tackle on the active roster. It also left them with just seven offensive linemen available to dress, meaning the team was one player short of the permitted 48 on the active roster because that number requires at least eight offensive linemen to be included.
“I’ve got to figure it out,” Hurts said when asked about the injuries. “However it looks, whatever it means. Find a way to win the game.”
Most importantly, the late switch left the Eagles offense seemingly even less prepared for the pressure wrinkles from the Rams. According to Next Gen Stats, Rams defensive coordinator Chris Shula sent extra rushers at Hurts on 18 of his dropbacks (60.6%), with Hurts going 5-for-16 on those plays. And on the Eagles’ 12 third downs, the Rams blitzed on all but one.
When asked about those issues, Hurts defaulted back to the line of the day.
“Poor execution,” Hurts said. “I don’t think there’s any other way to put it.”
The optimist’s view of the Eagles’ second-half collapse will likely point to the absence of quite possibly the four most important offensive contributors not named Jalen Hurts for most of the game. The team entered Sunday as underdogs and perhaps wouldn’t have been viewed as harshly if not for a somewhat overachieving first-half performance relative to what most expected the game to look like because of the injury report.
Still, facing third-and-goal from the two-yard line with a 10-point lead and 8 minutes remaining, the Eagles somehow managed to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory largely due to an offense devoid of an identity.
“Right now, it hasn’t been good enough,” Sirianni said. “I think that’s still. You’re trying to make sure as you find out who you are that you’re playing with detail and you’re playing with together and you’re playing with toughness. We’ve still got ways to go there. It’s obvious that we’re still trying to figure that out.”
The detail, in particular, has been lacking. A botched play came on the pivotal third-and-goal, courtesy of Cam Jurgens pulling across the formation and interfering with Hurts trying to secure the snap and hand the bal off to Tank Bigsby. And facing fourth-and-goal from the 2, Sirianni elected to keep the offense on the field for an incomplete pass to Cooper.
Sirianni was (understandably) aggressive trying to make it a three-possession game, but the decision backfired. The Rams drove 98 yards for a touchdown and got the ball back quickly after the Eagles offense turned in its 19th three-and-out of the season (second highest in the NFL.)
“I’m trying to make it a three-score game,” Sirianni said. “We would have went up 13, but I wanted to make it a three-score game right there. Fourth-and-2 from the 2, you leave them in a true backed-up scenario. I’m very well aware of how fourth-down decisions go as the head coach. You go for it and you get it, great. You go for it and you don’t get it, that’s on the head coach. And we didn’t get it, so that’s on me.”
An optimist’s view would also point to the fact that the Eagles have been here before with Hurts under center and Sirianni at the helm. You might remember the team also got off to a 2-2 start in 2024. The offensive line implored Sirianni to pivot toward more of a run-first approach, Sirianni shaved his head, and the Eagles went on a magical run to Super Bowl LIX and left Caesars Superdome with the organization’s second Lombardi Trophy.
That page doesn’t seem to be in Sean Mannion’s 2026 playbook, though. The Eagles ranked fifth in EPA/rush through the first four games of 2024. This season, they’re 24th. They’ve had moving pieces along the offensive line in three of the first four games and Barkley has now suffered a stinger and a hamstring injury already this season. Backup running back Tank Bigsby also suffered an apparent injury late in the fourth quarter.
What is apparent is that the Eagles now have an urgency to figure out what this year’s about face is going to look like. A training camp spent harping on under-center formations and play-action passing concepts hasn’t kept them from ranking in the bottom five in the NFL in terms of usage in both categories.
Less than a week removed from challenging his teammates to ask themselves “who are we?” in the wake of the loss to the Bears, Hurts didn’t have much of an answer himself to explain the second defeat in a six-day span.
“You’re finding your flow,” Hurts said. “I think collectively as a unit, it comes down to finding your flow and finding your rhythm as a unit and going out there and executing at a high level. We didn’t do that.”