There lies a dead bird. He shall no longer fly.

Symbolically, during the mid-day hours yesterday, the Phillies passed the torch of disappointment and ineptitude on to our beloved Eagles. Whilst the Phils were clinching a non-100 loss season (congratulations, team), the Eagles were removing their wings and crashing to the ground in epic fashion. The deceased avian you see here – which fell to the field at Citizens Bank Park – carried with him the expectations and excitement associated with the football team, and what better place to bury yet another Philadelphia sports season than the warning track at Citizens Bank Park, where the ground was already soft and the shovels aplenty. The Phillies sucked and now so do the Eagles. Dearly beloved, we are gathered here today to mourn the passing of local sports.

…

There are two distinct ways to approach the Droppings this week: 1) Mild optimism given the fact that the Eagles play in a hideous division and were merely two field goals and an extra point away from being 3-1 and in the division lead, or 2) sheer panic considering the, at times, woefully inept offense overseen by a mad scientist whose experiment appears to be going hideously awry as his creation becomes self-aware and is requesting more touches.

I’ll try to do both.

1. Even for someone who loves blaming kickers, it’s hard for me to say with a straight-face that the Eagles were two missed kicks away from being 3-1. It was fair to do that sort of thing after the loss to the Falcons, because the Eagles looked so good in the second half of that game against what is turning out to be a really good team. Cody Parkey’s missed field goal cost them. But now that we’ve had four weeks to watch a mostly horrid offense (including during their win against the Jets), no one in their right mind could put this one on former-Eagle [has he been cut yet?] Caleb Sturgis. And yet… the Eagles are a few makeable kicks away from leading the division despite their bad play.
2. It’s easier to convince yourself of number one if the two losses were well-played, hard-fought battles. Sometimes you just lose football games. And had the Eagles been consistently even decent against the Falcons and Redskins, you could more realistically make the kicker argument. The problem is, that hasn’t been the case at all. They were putrid in the first half against both teams (not to mention the Cowboys game). Nearly historically bad. At times not looking like a professional football team bad. Flag football offensive line bad. Philadelphia is an overreactive place, and there’s nothing more overreactive than Philly Twitter during an Eagles game. But when scores of people called for Chip Kelly to be fired yesterday, I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t thinking it could soon become a distinct possibility if this keeps up. There’s losing, and then there’s embarrassment. The Eagles have perhaps been embarrassed more in the last four games than during the final years of the Andy Reid era. That’s reason for panic.

Chip Kelly

I didn’t think it would come to this so soon, but today I do not like Chip Kelly.

It takes a serious amount of gall to stand up in front of the assembled media and assert that execution is the problem for a team you assembled. That would be like me having a bad blogging day and blaming it on my equipment after I had enough hubris to ditch my super-speedy iMac in favor of a Microsoft Surface because I didn’t need all the bells and whistles of OS X and preferred the no-frills professionalism of the sub par Windows 8. Right now, Chip Kelly is running Windows 8, and it appears to have a virus.

The offensive line – which saw two veteran lineman leave in offseason – is not executing.

The quarterback – who was traded for – is not executing.

The running back – who was signed as a free agent – is not executing.

If you want to take it a step further, the wide receivers are not executing on a consistent basis as they are dropping passes, running poor routes, and making boneheaded mistakes.

All of these players were put in position to fail by Kelly. So doubling down on the execution thing and speaking to the press as a coach, and not as a GM, is a bold, bold tactic from Chip. Because every time Sam Bradford overthrows a receiver, or Miles Austin sets his skill level to “rookie,” or the offensive line does this…

… it’s a direct result of Chip’s GM-ing, and perhaps his coaching, too.

That said, I’m not ready to shovel dirt on the season or these players just yet. It is a new group, with many, many new faces (and injuries). Sometimes, building a team, a program, for the long-term requires patience and the ability to withstand growing pains. We would’ve expected these stumbles if not for the amazing preseason. Chip is just now putting his plan into place, and judging it on four games is, still, reactive. The early returns are not good – at all – and it doesn’t feel right that Chip is placing the blame squarely on execution. But there is a version of this story that ends with the team winning seven of its last eight and winning the (bad) division. Of course… there’s also a version that ends in Chip getting fired because he completely wrecked an NFL franchise.

Draw play

It feels like just yesterday I was embedding almost this exact same diagram from Andrew Porter of the Eagles being owned by a goddamn draw play on third and long:

Blame the defense, blame whomever. But Jay Gruden clearly watched game tape and saw this worked against the Eagles once already this season, why not try it again? Jay Gruden. JAY GRUDEN. Jay Gruden knew it. How did the Eagles get caught in this?

Darren Sproles

Bad game for Mr. Sproles yesterday. Two dropped passes and a curious decision to let a punt go and roll for 15-20 yards. I like Sproles a lot, and he’s the only Eagle that comes to play on a consistent basis, but you can’t count on him for the workload he’s getting. He’s too small, too old, and in danger of becoming overexposed. He’s a weapon, not a feature.

Plays

This was an actual stat line toward the end of the first quarter:

Just brutal. But as Chip will remind everyone from time to time, it’s not time of possession that matters– it’s total plays. OK, Chip. At this point that number was 23-3. By the end of the game it was 79-51 (!!!). On the season, the Eagles are 29th in the league with only 60 plays per game, compared to a league-leading 70 last year, and 65 the year before. In fact, the defense probably isn’t getting as much credit as they should. They deserve an ice cream cone for all the hard work they’ve put in, keeping the Birds in games. Really, these play counts are disgusting. 23-3 against the Redskins? F outta here, Chip.

Nelson Agholor

His tremendous one-handed catch followed up by a botched double-reverse end-around (WHO RUNS THAT WHEN THE OFFENSE IS STRUGGLING?) is maybe the most dichotomous sequence in Eagles history. He capped it off with a delicious illegal formation on Sam Bradford’s best throw – a pass to Zach Ertz – that should’ve been a touchdown. Derp face.

Sam Bradford

No idea how to grade the deer this week. I’ll give him 1.2 headlights.

A couple of well-thrown deep balls and another touchdown pass (who had Riley Cooper, Miles Austin and Brent Celek as scoring receivers?!) helped him to an impressive fantasy day. But, he still overthrows open receivers, puts balls in too-tight spots that nearly lead to receivers getting killed (we almost mourned the passing of Jordan Matthews yesterday), and his continual inability to show poise in the pocket under (admittedly tough) pressure are all huge reasons for concern… especially when you consider that Nick Foles played outstanding yet against yesterday. Don’t be fooled by Bradford’s final numbers here even though he played well in the second half– there are still alarmingly troubling signs. He inspires absolutely no confidence.

Dick Stockton

He was brutal yesterday. “Chip Kelly, in his fourth year as head coach of the Eagles.” Ah, no. Besides that he was slow, missed plays, and overall just bad. David Diehl was taking it on Twitter yesterday – I think because he looks like an outrageous meathead – but I actually liked his commentary. A few times he corrected Stockton – who lamented time of possession, when it’s really plays that matter to Chip – and he seemed genuinely well-prepared and knew the sort of hot-button Eagles issues that non-locals would only know through preparation. He didn’t deserve this, I don’t think:

This email

Hurts

I can almost hear DeSean saying “eyyyyyy how u like dem birds now cuh !! knot so ez w da racist as a cowch is it ya herr meh !!”

Worthy Tweets

Call this guy

Howard Eskin Beats headphones color of the game

Green.
My apologies for this being somewhat late and abbreviated. NFL Game Pass plays are out of sync and made getting screen grabs, GIFs and other assorted nonsensory virtually impossible.