PENALTIES, OFFENSIVE WOES LEAD TO EAGLES FIRST LOSS OF THE SEASON
- Al Thompson
- 2 hours ago
- 7 min read
Hey Eagles fans, when y'all saw the schedule when it came out and saw Dallas, Kansas City on the road, Los Angeles Rams, at Tampa Bay then the up-and-coming Denver Broncos were the teams the Birds would face to start the season 4-1...how many of you would jump to say, “I'll take it.”
Of course you would.
Yes, the Eagles dropped a frustrating 21-17 loss to the Broncos at Lincoln Financial field.
Yes, they could have, should won the game.
But even with all the mistakes and dumb penalties in the second half, Jalen Hurts was still throwing a pass to the end zone to try to win the game on the last play.
The Eagles led 17-3 going into the fourth quarter. The Birds points came from a 31-yard field goal from Jake Elliott with 29 seconds left in the first quarter.
The Eagles (4-1) made it 10-3 on a two-yard pass from Hurts to Dallas Goedert with 7:20 left in the second.
The lead grew to 17-3 when Hurts hit Saquon Barkley with a 47-yard bomb with 13:23 left in the third.
It was downhill from there.
Certainly feeling the effects of losing three-time Pro Bowl guard Landon Dickerson, who left the game with a sprained ankle late in the first quarter, the Eagles offense just seemed to run out of steam in the third quarter.
Mistakes and penalties really hurt. After Denver quarterback Bo Nix led the Broncos on a 10-play, 64-yard drive that ended with a two-yard run by J.K. Dobbins, the Birds looked to answer on the next drive.
On first and ten from their own 28-yard line, Hurts hit Barkley with a nice seven-yard gain.
The play was nullified on a holding call on Brett Toth, who was in for Dickerson. That's a 17-yard swing in the wrong direction.
On third and 13 from their own 25, Hurts was sacked for a three-yard loss.
After a Braden Man 49-yard punt, Nix leads Denver on a brilliant six-play, 72-yard drive that was capped by an eleven-yard touchdown pass from Nix to tight end Evan Engram.
Denver head coach Sean Payton went for two and got it...the Broncos took an 18-17 lead with 7:36 left in the fourth quarter.
The Eagles must answer, right? On the next drive, Hurts moved the ball from the Eagles 43
(thanks to a great kick return by Will Shipley) and drove nine yards before an ineligible man downfield penalty by right guard Tyler Steen sent the Birds five yards backwards.
All the Eagles needed was a field goal to take back the lead.
On fourth and four from their own 49, Hurts hits DeVonta Smith with a 30-yard dime...another big comeback win?
No. Barkley was called for an illegal shift. The Birds had to punt with 5:13 left in the fourth.
Nix was terrific again, leading his team 50-yards on 11 plays so Wil Lutz could boot a game-sealing 36-yard field goal.
Hurts took over on the Eagles 26-yard line and miraculously drove the Birds to the Broncos 29 on passes to Barkley (7 yards), and 18-yard pass interference call, and a nifty 24-yard completion to Jahan Dotson.
A pass to Goedert at the two that should have been a PI but wasn't called and heave to the corner of the end zone ended the game.
Barkley talked about the mistakes his team made to lose their first game of the season.
“That's how you lose football games,” Barkley said at his locker. “Not being detailed. On that play (fourth quarter penalty), I definitely wasn't enough, someone else was moving too. We weren't detailed about a lot of things in that game.
“But I've got to own it, I have to to do better especially after Smitty coming up and making a big play there. They called it on me, I own it. I've go to be better.”
Barkley only carried the ball six times for 30 yards...a respectable 5.0 yards per carry. He also caught three passes for 58 yards and the touchdown.
He was asked of he should have had more touches.
“I'm not going to get too caught up in that,” Barkley said. “At the end of the day, whether we ran the ball enough or not, we had an opportunity to win the football game, and we didn't. We didn't do enough.
“I don't really get caught up in 'are we throwing the ball enough, are we running the ball enough'...just trying to win a football game. It's going to look different every single game.”
Broncos All Pro left tackle Garett Bolles was asked about going for two with over seven minutes left in the game and just one-point behind.
“You've got to take your chances when you can get 'em,” Bolles said at his locker after the game. “This is the defending Super Bowl champions. They have a lot of guys over there that know how to win. “They've won a lot of close games, the first four games of the year. We knew that we needed to take chances, and we took our chances..it was a heavyweight fight.
“Sometimes when you have two juggernauts duking it out, you've got to take your swings. That's what we did and that was the momentum that we needed.”
Bolles was asked if the fact that the Eagles had blocked a few kicks in recent games played a factor in the decision to go for it?
“No, I just think that's who we are,” Bolles said. “Coach Payton dials things up. That's just who he is. He wants to put the gas on them, you know what I mean? It's all gas, no brakes.”
Bolles said the Broncos had a game plan to wear down the Eagles defense.
“We took it upon each other that when we hit the fourth quarter, we knew we could tire them out,” Bolles said. “And that's what we did, we sent some of them out and we ended up winning the game.”
Smiling now, Bolles, who apparently was in his hotel room Saturday night watching baseball, took a playful jab at the Philadelphia sports fans.
“The Phillies lost, the Eagles lost so this town in not happy with us,”
MORE STATS AND QUOTES
Hurts was 23 of 38 for 280 yards, two touchdown passes and no interceptions or fumbles. He was sacked six times. The Broncos got their hands on nine of his passes.
On the Wednesday before the Denver game, center Cam Jurgens openly talked about the difficulty in getting to the line of scrimmage in a timely manner. After the game, Hurts was asked the issue of not getting to the line of scrimmage quickly enough.
“I can't tell you what the issue is," Hurts said. "Ultimately, I can take accountability for everything and take responsibility for it all. The lack of execution and maybe lack of sense of urgency in how our operation is.
"And so I take the responsibility for all of it because I'm just trying to find solutions for it. Just trying to grow and learn from it and I look at this as an opportunity in itself. You play the game to win and when you don't, you learn from it.”
Nix was 24 of 39 for 242 yards, one touchdown pass and no interceptions or fumbles. He was sacked twice.
Eagles defenders only got their hands on two of his passes.
Nix was asked what started clicking in the fourth quarter...after defending 12 of Baker Mayfield's passes the week before.
“Honestly, I'm not sure,” the 6-foot-2, 217-pounder said. “We just got in some tempo. We found successful plays first down after first down, got some rhythm offensively and started making plays work. Then scored a touchdown, and once we scored the first touchdown, we kind of felt good for our rhythm and momentum and we did it again.”
On how the win feels after coming back in the fourth quarter.
“It's awesome,” Nix said. “It's a great win. It proves that we can go on the road and beat these tough teams and we can be a tough team to play. So that's good for our confidence. It's good for going on this trip. A lot of teams struggle before they go to London, but we focused on this trip, we focused on this game and we went out and got it done. It was good for us.”
IN CLOSING
Details include play-calling and getting those plays you want to run to the offense in a timely manner. Eagles head coach Nick Sirianni was asked about having his details all in a row by game-time.
“Details are kind of a wide range of things,” Sirianni said after the game. “When we talk about details, we talk about our fundamentals and obviously there's so many different fundamentals that go into it. “Taking care like we took care of the football today. We didn't create a turnover though, right?
“I will have to look at how the blocks were. The block destruction, I'll have to look at. Then, it goes down to being on the same page.
“I think your guys are talking about the same page because they know that's a big part of the details. I didn't feel like there were major busts today, and then at situational football.
“So again, we'll have to look at all those things. Same page too as some of those pre-snap penalties, that goes into that as well in detail.
“There's a collection of different things, but again, it always comes down to the team making the fewer mistakes usually is the team that's the victor.
A.J. Brown -who caught five passes for 43-yards and missed an opportunity on a long ball from Hurts- was asked whether he is anxious to get back on the field this Thursday against the Giants.
“Of course we want to get back out there,” Brown said at his locker. “But this (loss) is something to think about. We have a lot to win and a lot to lose. There's lot to learn from today. Just like other weeks.”
They have just four days to learn. *
Email Al Thompson at al.thompson@footballstories.com
Comments