TAMPA, Fla. — Losing to the Tampa Bay Buccaneers doesn’t in itself subject Nick Sirianni to scrutiny.
The way the Philadelphia Eagles lost on Sunday does.
Forget any narrative from 2023. Forget Raymond James Stadium, host of last year’s wild-card round loss. Forget even the Buccaneers, the franchise that has twice embarrassed the Eagles during lowly points.
These Eagles can’t help but get in their own way. Their blunders made it impossible for them to truly compete in a 33-16 loss that unraveled from the very beginning. They’re a 2-2 squad whose players say they’re still searching for an identity entering a much-needed bye week, although that’s only because they don’t like the identity they’re already inhabiting.
The Eagles are the only NFL team that hasn’t yet scored in the first quarter. Injuries only partly explain away what’s becoming a systemic issue of starting slow. No, the Eagles didn’t have their top two receivers (A.J. Brown, hamstring; and DeVonta Smith, concussion) nor their starting right tackle (Lane Johnson, concussion). But only Brown has missed more than one game. And if points were too much to ask of the Eagles without that trio, yardage shouldn’t have been. The Eagles went three-and-out three straight times against the Bucs, gaining only a goose egg on nine total plays.
Each player held themselves responsible for their part in the misery. Tight end Dallas Goedert owned his drop on the first play of the second drive. Right guard Mekhi Becton allowed defensive tackle Vita Vea to swat him aside for a punt-forcing sack. Jalen Hurts was 1-of-6 passing for seven yards through three drives, and he failed to find Saquon Barkley downfield on a long throw that Hurts wound up hurling out of bounds.
VITA IS BAAACK 😤
📺: #PHIvsTB on FOX pic.twitter.com/XIpGbZPAg7
— Tampa Bay Buccaneers (@Buccaneers) September 29, 2024
“I have to play better,” said Hurts, who finished 18-of-30 passing for 158 yards and a touchdown. “We had a ton of opportunities to lead the offense and really play complimentary ball, and it starts with me on that side of the ball.”
Hurts has so far failed to protect the football. As of Sunday afternoon, the Eagles had the NFL’s second-worst turnover margin (-6). Hurts has thrown four interceptions and lost three fumbles, more turnovers by any quarterback other than Tennessee’s Will Levis (8). The Eagles trailed by two scores late in the third quarter when Hurts side-stepped blitzing linebacker Lavonte David, who pivoted, reached and swiped the football loose from Hurts’ hand. The Bucs kicked a field goal on the subsequent drive to secure the final score.
No one beyond Hurts has publicly held the quarterback accountable. Offensive coordinator Kellen Moore called Hurts’ first two interceptions of the season “anomalies.” Sirianni, who blamed himself for not showing Hurts enough defensive looks for a red-zone interception last week against the Saints, said Hurts wasn’t at fault for Sunday’s fumble. “Jalen’s getting ready to throw,” Sirianni shrugged. “… That’s not Jalen.” Meanwhile, Tom Brady, the seven-time Super Bowl champion turned broadcaster, said on-air that Hurts needed better pocket awareness.
GO DEEPER
Baker Mayfield cooks as Bucs topple Eagles 33-16: Takeaways
It’s not altogether important that Sirianni publicly critiques his quarterback, although the head coach’s reluctance to even suggest Hurts holds any fault is curious. If Sirianni’s public statements reflect a private resistance to personally address what’s clearly become a troubling trend of turnovers, he’s at the very least leaving it up to Hurts to rectify problems that are continuing to persist.
“You look at how and why,” Hurts said, when asked about his process to fix turnovers. “There are a ton of different things that go into it. Ultimately, the goal is to protect the ball. … There have been a ton of different situations where different things have come up and they’ve all kind of been different. But you just have to learn from them all.”
There’s something to be said for Sirianni giving grown professionals some independence. But players have been making far too many mistakes when left to their own discipline. The Eagles trailed 14-0 when Isaiah Rodgers intentionally shoved a defender into punt returner Cooper DeJean, who fumbled. That turned into a third Bucs touchdown. Rodgers, who’d played gunner on punt coverage before, knew that if you hit the punt returner early, you’d get penalized.
Saquon Barkley had a 59-run at the beginning of the second half but mistakes prevented it from sparking a comeback. (Mike Ehrmann / Getty Images)
“So, I kind of thought to myself in that situation, ‘Hey, I’m gonna push him into Coop and get the flag,’” Rodgers said.
The officials initially threw the flag. But when they saw upon review that Rodgers shoved the defender into DeJean, they correctly withdrew the penalty and awarded Tampa Bay the ball at Philadelphia’s 22-yard line. Four plays later, Baker Mayfield rushed for a 1-yard touchdown, which gave the Buccaneers a 21-0 lead.
“I don’t feel like it should have been waived off,” Rodgers said. “But they called what they called.”
“You’ve still got to play by the rules of what you do,” Sirianni said. “Again, we made a mistake there. Any time you have a contact into them, they’re going to pick that flag up every single time.”
The Eagles are tied as the NFL’s eighth-most penalized team. Two critical penalties produced more points for Tampa Bay. Immediately after Hurts fumbled, nickel safety Avonte Maddox was flagged for defensive holding on third-and-14. The penalty wiped out the damage done by Josh Sweat’s first sack of the season, and the Buccaneers eventually kicked a field goal on the drive. Tampa Bay also faced a third-and-7 situation early in the second quarter, when safety Reed Blankenship was flagged for defensive pass interference for hitting Mike Evans early along the sideline. Chase McClaughlin later kicked a 21-yard field goal to go up 24-0.
Such blunders made Sunday’s result inevitable. The Eagles are 0-8 under Sirianni when they’ve trailed by 17 or more in a game. They’re 0-3 under Sirianni when they’ve trailed by 24 or more. Such mistakes prevented Barkley’s 59-yard run on the first play of the second half to spark any sort of comeback. They cripple the effort that’s unquestionably still there.
The Eagles trudged through sweltering humidity that forced starting center Cam Jurgens and defensive tackle Jalen Carter into the locker room to treat cramps with fluids. Jurgens was the fulcrum on four conversions that proved the Brotherly Shove is still well within use. The Eagles used it on back-to-back plays, leading to a 1-yard score by Hurts that pulled them within 24-14 with 12:40 left in the third quarter.
Sirianni approached Jurgens afterward. The center was gasping on the bench. Sirianni placed his hand encouragingly on Jurgens’ head. Jurgens, who’d laid a crucial block on Barkley’s 59-yard run, said he was “just trying to breathe.” Jurgens said Barkley and Hurts both marched up and down the sideline, telling their teammates, “We ain’t giving up. We ain’t giving up. Keep going.”
But by then, there was no undoing the damage they’d inflicted upon themselves.
An Eagles defense that had vastly improved against the Saints regressed under duress. Mayfield finished 30-of-47 passing for 347 yards and two touchdowns, mostly by exploiting the defensive perimeter with swing passes and short outs toward the sideline. On the second drive, Mayfield swung a pass to Chris Godwin in the flats, and Maddox whiffed on a tackle attempt. Godwin scampered for 28 yards. On the next play, Blankenship lost his footing while in coverage with Evans, who caught a 17-yard pass. Two plays later, Mayfield hit Trey Palmer on a slant for a 15-yard touchdown with cornerback Darius Slay in tight coverage to go up 14-0.
“I feel like we let ourselves down,” Maddox said. “We’re just beating ourselves (in) the quick game. We just got to get a little bit more stickier to our guy.”
The Eagles will be healthier after their only week off in 2024. The return of Brown, Smith and Johnson should improve the efficiency of an offense that’s feckless in the first quarter. A struggling secondary may gain reinforcements. DeJean will have two more weeks of development before they resume play at home against the Cleveland Browns, and safety Sydney Brown has been quietly making progress in his recovery from a torn ACL last season.
But it’s more important for the Eagles to be more disciplined upon their return. Accountability is one of Sirianni’s core values. It was the message veteran edge rusher Brandon Graham leaned on when he spoke in front of the team after Sunday’s loss.
“I think I said some good stuff to them, you know, that’s going to get them motivated,” Graham said. “I mean, people knew what this was. We was even on the sideline talking. I mean, I like where our head is as far as, ‘Hey man, that’s me.’ Everybody owning what they do. And so it ain’t no pointing fingers. We just out there just trying to get right so we can win these games, man. We know it’s a journey.”
(Top photo of Jalen Hurts and Vita Vea: Kevin Sabitus / Getty Images)
