Struggling over the weekend with flu-like symptoms, Jalen Hurts decided to travel separately from his Philadelphia Eagles teammates to Seattle for Monday night’s game against the Seahawks.
Too bad it didn’t work. Regardless of what was ailing their quarterback physically, the Philadelphia Eagles are a sick football team. And they are running out of time to find a cure.
The Eagles, who owned the NFL’s best record only two weeks ago, suffered their third consecutive loss, a stunning 20-17 defeat that continued their precipitous fall in the NFC playoff picture.
The loss dropped Philadelphia out of the NFC East lead and into the No. 5 seed in the NFC, and it exposed the Eagles’ ongoing maladies, which might end up costing them a return trip to the NFC championship game, let alone the Super Bowl.
Hurts, whose status had been downgraded to questionable on Sunday, looked well on the Eagles’ first drive, when he scrambled for the first of his two touchdowns on the ground.
He later led the Eagles on another drive that resulted in a field goal and a 10-0 lead. But the Eagles couldn’t put the away the Seahawks, who were starting Drew Lock at quarterback instead of Geno Smith for the second straight week.
Perhaps part of the Eagles’ problem was that Monday’s game was the first since Week 7 against Miami – eight weeks ago – that the Eagles went into the locker room with a halftime lead.
The Eagles have gotten so used to playing from behind that they don’t know how to play when they are ahead.
They certainly didn’t know how against the Seahawks. Instead of putting them away, the Eagles allowed the Seahawks to hang around too long.
After scoring on their first possession of the second half for a 17-10 lead, the Eagles’ offense went completely dormant, gaining only 77 yards over the rest of the game.
Philadelphia Eagles get little from the passing game
Hurts, an NFL MVP favorite for a large portion of the season, played his way out of the award conversation Monday. While he ran the ball effectively, gaining 82 yards on 13 carries, he’s somehow not getting it done in the passing game.
Hurts completed only two of his final seven passes for 25 yards and threw two interceptions. He now has a total of 16 turnovers, second only to Buffalo Bills quarterback Josh Allen (17).
With arguably the best offensive line in the NFL and a slew of playmakers around Hurts, there’s no reason the Eagles’ offense should sputter, but it has, scoring an average of 16.3 points per game over the past three weeks.
On the other side of the ball, the Eagles’ defense had Matt Patricia calling the plays for the first time all season, but that did little to change the outcome. After being torched by Brock Purdy and Dak Prescott in consecutive weeks, they fell victim this time to some late-game heroics from Drew Lock.
The Seahawks’ backup engineered a 10-play, 92-yard drive that included a tremendous 34-yard grab by DK Metcalf and then the dagger, a falling 29-yard catch by rookie Jaxon Smith-Njigba in the end zone to put the Eagles away.
Philadelphia Eagles aren’t done yet
The Eagles once prided themselves on their ability to finish games. But now they are the ones getting finished.
Still, a three-game skid might not be the death of the Eagles. Great teams are able to adapt and recover. Look at the San Francisco 49ers, who lost all three of their games in succession, but then rebounded nicely to win their next six games.
The Eagles are fortunate to have three “get well” games remaining – two games with the New York Giants and one against Arizona. They couldn’t have asked for a better schedule to finish the regular season.
But if their issues persist against weaker opponents, with the playoffs coming into view on the horizon, then we’ll just know how sick the Eagles really are.