The reigning NFC champions were the talk of the football world two months ago, and they had a good chance of making it back to the Super Bowl. Then the most outrageous in-season collapse in NFL history occurred.
Bryan Armen Graham
Bryan Armen Graham
Wed, Jan 17, 2024, at 13:39 GMT
Partially 113
The NFL is known for standing for Not For Long. In a league full of copycats, where effective tactics are studied, dissected, and copied, change happens swiftly and sustained success depends on ongoing innovation. Even yet, it’s hard to remember a more precipitous collapse from grace than what has happened to the Philadelphia Eagles in the last two months.Just seven weeks ago, the Eagles were the talk of the league, a winning machine led by a youthful, dynamic coach, a rising franchise quarterback, and one of the best rosters in football from top to bottom. They had stormed to the NFL’s best record at Thanksgiving and looked headed for a return trip to the grandest stage of the game after capturing the NFC title and missing the Super Bowl by three points the previous year.However, after a 10-1 start, the Eagles collapsed and hobbled into Monday night’s NFC wildcard playoff after losing five straight games, a downward spiral broken up by lopsided defeats to the 5-11 Giants and the 3-12 Cardinals. On a steamy Monday night at Raymond James Stadium, all of it came to a merciful, predictable end as they were dog-walked 32-9 by a mediocre Tampa Bay team that they had dominated in October. The horrifying scoreline could have been much worse had the turnover-prone Buccaneers not dropped roughly six passes. The Eagles were unable to block. They were unable to catch. They could not, in any case, tackle. They lacked enthusiasm, motivation, and preparation. A crucial scene full with blatant metaphors features their signature short-yardage play, the Tush Push, which was previously heralded as unstoppable.
In a nine-year history marked by far more tragedy than success, the Eagles have had their fair share of home-stretch faceplants: under Chip Kelly in 2014, under Rich Kotite in 1994, under Dick Vermeil in 1981, and under Nick Skorich in 1961. However, none of those collapses can compare to the warp-speed regression of the previous seven weeks. This year’s squad joined the 1986 New York Jets as the only teams in NFL history to lose 12 games following a 10-1 start. However, even those Jets managed to muster enough dignity in their collapse to pull off a playoff victory. Not these Eagles, who lost to a bottom-10 team led by a journeyman quarterback and suffered their second-biggest postseason defeat ever.
Two months ago, it would have been unfathomable to imagine the Eagles parting ways with Nick Sirianni, the 42-year-old wunderkind who in two and a half seasons had amassed the best win-loss percentage of any current NFL head coach and appeared on deck for a fat contract extension. After the most spectacular in-season unraveling in NFL history, it’s almost harder to imagine the alternative.
So what happened? Let’s start with the obvious. After last year’s Super Bowl run, Philadelphia saw both of their coordinators poached for head coaching jobs: OC Shane Steichen to the Indianapolis Colts, DC Jonathan Gannon to the Arizona Cardinals. Those vacancies were filled by Brian Johnson and Sean Desai, respectively, and it was clear that the replacements were in over their heads from early on.
The once-formidable pass rush that flirted with the NFL all-time sacks record last year – and which lost key players Javon Hargave, CJ Gardner-Johnson and TJ Edwards to free agency – regressed badly despite general manager Howie Roseman’s investment of more capital space and draft resources on the defensive line than anywhere else. That spending was intended to conceal deficiencies at linebacker, cornerback and safety, holes that proved too big to patch schematically, especially when the secondary was hit by injury early in the season.
