The 8-4 Philadelphia Eagles come off their second mini-bye of the season and face the 8-4 Los Angeles Chargers on Monday Night Football at SoFi Stadium.
It’s not a pretty game. Jalen Hurts, who has protected the ball at all costs all season, committed three turnovers in the first half…two of which came on the same odd play. Then he also scored a goal in the second half. But the Chargers committed three turnovers of their own, and the Eagles defense settled down after giving up a kickoff touchdown. The game entered overtime at 19-19.
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Then, with the Eagles scrambling to win from three points down in overtime, Hurts threw his fourth interception of the game…a horrific power work on what should have been an obvious throwaway interception on the first down. The Eagles lost to Los Angeles 22-19.
Here are the observations from the PHLY Eagles staff.
E. J. Smith
INGLEWOOD, Calif. — Watching the Eagles offense falter for much of Monday night’s 22-19 overtime loss to the Los Angeles Chargers with Jalen Hurts’ past comments about “different chefs” being the reason for the veteran Eagles offense’s lack of cohesion and all the same ingredients lingering in my brain long enough to formulate a different cooking analogy.
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The team currently only has one method that works.
While the Eagles’ defense looked solid for much of Monday and the team was more than capable of carrying the team through most of this game, the offense looked even more disjointed. The long break before this game was Nick Sirianni and Kevin Patullo’s best chance to turn things around offensively, but Hurts and company were even better against the Chargers.
Hurts finished the game with a career-high five fumbles and four interceptions, the last of which came on a Jahan Dotson hit pass that cost the Eagles the game. Turnovers aside, it’s hard to imagine where the Eagles’ offense will go.
Eagles players have spent the week insisting the sky is not falling, but their performance confirmed that dark clouds are descending on them.
Beau Wolfe
Jalen has committed more turnovers in his last two games than in his previous 16 games combined, and that’s probably all we’ll talk about this week, even though there were a lot of other crazy things that happened tonight, from AJ Brown’s costly fall to a surprise non-push touchdown from coach Saquon Barkley to a dominant performance from the Eagles’ defensive line. No, they can never be normal.
Jamie Lynch
I don’t want to spend too much time talking about the offense in the first half of football because it was incredibly rotten. It’s terrible. Maybe don’t run hitch routes on every route concept since the Chargers know the timing and skip them.
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I shouldn’t be so negative because history was made in the first half. Jalen Hurts became the first player in NFL history to commit 2 turnovers in the same game! Thankfully, it was so atrocious that I didn’t even get angry and actually laughed a lot.
Saquon Barkley rushes for a touchdown and we’re back! What a great effort tonight by the defense and Mr. Jordan Davis. Come up with big plays when they need to.
Sirianni’s late game management still confuses me from time to time, like when you call a screen pass after a 2 minute timeout? At least hold on and force the Lightning to burn a timeout to save the 2-minute warning. Instead, you gave them two timeouts for free?
This game was destined to go into overtime. Punishment, punishment, punishment. And that’s it. QB got 4 INTs. 5 turnovers. It’s just too cruel. The Hawks’ chance of making the playoffs is still 94%, but no one is happy with their chances.
Rich Hoffman
I thought the Eagles tried to play an aggressive offense, which was good. The quarterback turned the ball over five times (actually four) and finally played a modern offense. That can’t happen. It’s going to be a long week for Jalen Hurts. That’s not good enough for him.
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It’s going to be a long week for AJ Brown as well.
Fran Duffy
I thought I would ask my six year old son to write a post for this this week. His notes from the first half (he fell asleep before Saquon’s long touchdown run) f:
“Boom. Saquon was awesome.” (After running for over 10 yards for the second time in a row, I’m pretty sure that happened tonight for the first time all season)
“Oh my God, I’m going to collapse.” (Jalen Hurts after scrambling for no yards)
“Shave your head! Shave your head! Shave your head!” (Nick Sirianni yelled frantically at the referee from the sidelines)
He covers the essentials!
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But honestly, yeah, it was another tough game offensively. Vic Fangio had a solid performance in the opening rush drill and was a solid performer. The team’s response has been fantastic after last Friday afternoon’s disappointing game. This team looked lost on offense for much of the game, but after an elaborate fake tush push pushed Saquon from 52 yards out into the end zone, they were able to rely on Jake Elliot’s feet the rest of the way to send themselves into overtime…but the turnovers came back. Five total, four of which came from Jalen Hurts, as the Eagles lost three straight.
