The Eagles Played with Fire All Season and Finally Got Burned
(Photo by Tim Nwachukwu/Getty Images) Pictured: Jalen Hurts.
The Eagles have played with fire all season long. And Sunday, Philadelphia finally got burned.
The Eagles blew another late lead as the Cardinals won the battle of the birds, 35-31, and suddenly Philadelphia's season is spiraling.
It's hard to remember now, but the Eagles entered December with the best record in the NFL at 10-1. Philadelphia ranked first in every Power Rankings and had gone 24-2 with Jalen Hurts in its past two regular seasons. The Eagles were flying high and looked liked a team destined for their second straight trip to the Super Bowl.
But the underlying metrics and game scripts told a different story — a worrying one. Philadelphia was 10-1, sure, but the Eagles were a perfect 7-0 in one-score games.
History says one-score results are largely luck-based, but Eagles believers used phrases like "winning DNA" and "team culture" to describe a team that looked a lot like last year's Vikings: an average team with an average profile and point differential that won a flurry of close games before, suddenly, they didn't.
eagles are this years vikings
— Brandon Anderson (@wheatonbrando) November 27, 2023
The Eagles barely beat the Patriots in their season opener. New England drove to the 20 in the final minute down five but fell short en route to a 2-10 start. In Week 4, Philadelphia led by a touchdown twice in the fourth quarter against Washington and blew both leads, but won in overtime. A month later, the Eagles trailed those Commanders in the final period before coming back to beat the team currently picking second in next year's draft.
The Eagles beat the Cowboys because the field was two inches too narrow. They trailed the Chiefs by double digits at the half but won when Marquez Valdes-Scantling dropped a wide-open potential game-winning touchdown. They were dominated statistically by every measure against Buffalo by lucked into a close game late and won by three.
Those three wins sent the Eagles to 10-1 and the top of the NFL. Hurts was the MVP favorite, not because he had any numbers or advanced metrics to back it up but because he was the quarterback for the team with the best record and apparently that's all we're capable of doing in 2023.
And that's exactly when reality finally started to set in for this team.
The 49ers went to Philadelphia and demolished the Eagles' winning DNA 42-19, and the Cowboys crushed their winning culture by 20 the week after.
Philadelphia led late against Seattle the following Monday but finally failed to close out one of those one-score games. Drew Lock led the game-winning touchdown drive and blew the Eagles' get-right spot.
No worries! The Eagles still had the Giants, Cardinals and Giants again to close out the season and coast to an easy division title and 2- or possible 1-seed.
The Giants did nothing for the better part of three quarters on Christmas weekend but still trailed by only five late as the Eagles hung on for dear life.
And that brought us to Sunday in Philadelphia.
Yet another chance for the Eagles to save their season — and instead, it may finally have been Philadelphia's funeral.
The Cardinals drove 64 yards on 14 plays on their opening drive but settled for a field goal. Arizona drove 43 more yards on eight plays after an Eagles touchdown, before a route miscommunication led to a 98-yard pick-six as Philadelphia took a 14-3 lead. Arizona's next drive went 16 plays but it settled for another field goal, and an Eagles touchdown made it 21-6 at the half.
Philadelphia wasn't playing particularly well but looked like it would win again, up big at home as 12-point favorites with a division title in sight.
The Cardinals got the ball to start the second half and marched down the field again, 75 yards in 10 plays, for a touchdown. After a quick three-and-out, Arizona went 77 yards in nine plays, another touchdown, and suddenly it was tied up at 21.
Down 31-28 late in the fourth quarter, Arizona did what it had done all game, marching right down the field on Philadelphia's corpse of a defense, going 70 yards in seven plays and scoring the game-winning TD with 32 seconds on the clock.
Arizona had the ball four times in the second half. It scored four touchdowns, outscoring the vaunted Eagles 29-10 in a half Philly had mostly dominated this season.
The Cardinals had eight drives in all, not counting a halftime kneel down. Every single drive lasted at least seven plays and advanced at least 43 yards, and Arizona never punted once.
The scoreboard says the Cardinals barely beat the Eagles, but the numbers show Arizona's dominance.
The Cardinals outgained the Eagles 449 to 275 yards. Arizona nearly doubled Philadelphia in first downs and time of possession and ran 25 more plays.
Arizona started 36 new set of downs against the Eagles. The Cardinals converted 32 of those 36 series into either a first down or touchdown, an 88.9% Success Rate, ranked 99th percentile per RBSDM.
Translation: the team that entered the day with the No. 2 draft pick was stopped four times all game by the Eagles defense … or lack thereof.
Arizona put up a dominant 0.36 EPA per play on 63 early-down plays, effectively adding another point to its score every three plays. Kyler Murray threw three touchdowns. James Conner dominated on the ground with 26 carries for 128 yards and a score. Philadelphia's secondary was torched by first- and second-year pass-catchers Greg Dortch, Trey McBride and Michael Wilson.
Perhaps you remember who led the Eagles' defense last season. It was the much-maligned Jonathan Gannon of course, now head coach of these Arizona Cardinals. You think he enjoyed this one? Turns out Gannon knew what he was doing in Philadelphia — and exactly how to exploit this shambolic defense.
The Eagles defense was an abject disaster. The offense was better, but not good enough.
Arizona is one of the worst two or three defenses in the NFL by any objective measure. The Cardinals entered the day last by DVOA against deep passes, last against middle runs, terrible against outside passes.
Last year's Eagles would've run the ball 45 times and led by 24 at the half. This year's offense could barely stay on the field. Philadelphia ran 23 times for a pedestrian 91 yards. Hurts threw for three scores but added an interception and was ineffective on the ground as he has been all season. A.J. Brown and DeVonta Smith were not impactful with 83 yards combined against a defense you can't name a single player on.
And sure, the Eagles got a bit unlucky Sunday. Up 21-6 at the half at home as huge favorites, up a field goal late against a tanking team, you're going to win most of those games.
But luck has a funny way of coming around, and teams that can't create their own luck by dominating and winning comfortably leave themselves open to getting caught by teams like Seattle and Arizona.
And make no mistake about it — this is likely the end of the Eagles season.
Unless the Cowboys lose next week to the Commanders, who have given up 27-plus points in seven straight and who clinch the No. 2 pick and a franchise reset with a loss, the Eagles are locked into the NFC 5-seed.
No more shot at a first-round bye. No division title. No more first-round home game. No second-round home-field advantage, if they even get there.
Instead, the Eagles will hit the road, where they're only 5-3. It starts with a winnable trip to some mediocre NFC South foe — the exact sort of team Philadelphia has played one-score games against all season — then likely a road trip to San Francisco, then Dallas or Detroit, just to get back to the Super Bowl.
The Eagles will be serious underdogs in those latter two games if they get there, and they've earned that status.
Philadelphia has been telling us what it is all season.
Through Week 7, the Eagles ranked a respectable 6th in DVOA, including 11th on defense.
From Week 8 forward, Philadelphia is a middling 15th, with the defense cratering to 29th — and that was before Sunday's performance.
There's an NFL team with a nearly identical profile to that recent Philadelphia stretch, but over the full season. They rank 14th on offense just like Philly, 28th on defense and 19th overall.
That team is the Los Angeles Chargers, and that's the sort of football the Eagles have played since the calendar turned to December.
At 10-1, many argued the Eagles were an elite team with winning DNA and a team culture that just knew how to win.
It turns out Philadelphia was never elite, or even great.
The Eagles are an above-average team in a down NFL year, fourth at best in the NFC, probably worse.
On Sunday against the Cardinals, it finally caught up to them — and likely ended Philadelphia's season in the process.
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