Don’t let the God-awful officiating distract you from the real reasons why the Eagles lost this game:

  1. the offense was appalling for the better part of three quarters
  2. the play calling again disappointed
  3. the kicker missed a crucial extra point
  4. the defense eventually ran out of steam after a Herculean early effort

It’s not to say that the officiating was amazing, because it wasn’t. It was utter shit. But for whatever reason, we as Philadelphia sports fans generally default to the most rudimentary and emotional reactions, and last night the reaction was to blame the referees and casually ignore everything else this team did wrong.

Of course the Dallas Goedert “pass interference” and non-fumble on the opening play really hurt, but the Eagles also:

  • went 1-9 on third down
  • didn’t do enough with a +2 turnover margin
  • got crushed in time of possession
  • did not/could not run the ball
  • fumbled in the Dallas half of the field

All of those things contributed more to the loss than two bad calls by the officials. These issues comprised multiple plays over multiple series over multiple quarters. The referees made two obvious screw ups on two plays. The former is a larger sample size than the latter.

The most reasonable take, therefore, is this:

The Eagles got screwed yesterday but did nothing to help themselves.

Story of the season, yeah? They did nothing to help themselves.

With that, the charade is over. This team was likely going to get hammered in Los Angeles next week anyway, especially with the Rams coming off a bad road loss. They might have had a chance at home against the Texans before likely going down to Washington to beat up on Mark Sanchez again.

This is a patchwork defense featuring some guys who weren’t even on the team four weeks ago, so that does that continue to hold up? And even if they did get into the playoffs at 9-7, then what? They maybe scrape by Minnesota or Seattle and then get smoked in New Orleans or LA?

This was supposed to be the “new norm.” The new norm is not 9-7 and a playoff win. The new norm was returning to the Super Bowl. It was taking your franchise quarterback and building a dynasty. The bar was raised this year and they failed to clear it. The injuries piled up. They didn’t make the big plays when necessary and they lost a lot of close games.

Shrug.

It happens to a lot of defending champions. 9-7 was never good enough in the first place, so now we move on and look forward to next season.

1) Passing and/or running

I believe this ended 35 to 11 in called passes vs. called runs because of the short-side option that Carson Wentz ran for a loss in the first half.

Therefore, the Eagles finished with a 76/24 split in terms of passing and running.

You just can’t win a football game that way, not with this personnel. And it’s not like the Eagles fell behind early and had to abandon the run game. It was a 3-0 at the end of the first quarter and 6-0 at the end of the first half, so there’s no reason they couldn’t have tried to establish the running a game a bit more, especially after an opening series in which Josh Adams ran the ball for 30+ yards on three carries. Losing Corey Clement probably dashed whatever they were going to do in the screen game, though they could have tried to use Darren Sproles a bit more. He only had four touches on the day while Adams finished with a whopping seven carries.

Last week the Eagles pulled off a really nice 60-40 pass/run split while showing various shotgun and under center looks. It was a nice blend, and it wasn’t like they were playing with the lead the entire time. Washington went up on the 90-yard Adrian Peterson run, right? You have to commit to running the ball in a one-score game, otherwise you end up with what we got last night.

2) He can’t put together a complete game

If you’re Carson Wentz, a strong finish can’t make up for a poor start. If he actually did something in the first two quarters, maybe this game wouldn’t have turned into a mad scramble for overtime.

Carson just does not look as… I don’t know what the word is… aware? He doesn’t seem to have the same pocket awareness and sense of urgency that he did last season. He is not “feeling” backside pressure and he’s very flat on his feet when setting to throw. He’ll often take a snap, turn, and go completely flat-footed when going through his progressions.

There was one play specifically where he saw a blitz coming and missed Nelson Agholor on a flat pass that would have gashed the Cowboys for 10+ yards. He missed Goedert wide open on a short flag route in the first quarter and then almost killed Alshon Jeffery in the third quarter when throwing a slant about a yard behind him.

The storyline coming into this one is that Carson had to go out and prove that he was a big game quarterback by giving us a great performance, and we didn’t get a great performance. We got three touchdowns and a 69 completion percentage, but we also got a bad fumble and just one third down conversion on nine tries. Dak Prescott, who threw two horrible interceptions, made up for it by completing 42 of 54 passes (77.7%) and hit two receivers in stride for critical scores. Dak had two touchdown throws that were better than anything Carson did on Sunday, including the pass that found Agholor on the one-yard line and saved the Eagles’ bacon.

Carson just hasn’t been situational Carson this year, and that’s the key here. He’s putting up good numbers and you’ve seen flashes of brilliance here and there, but he’s not the third down guru he was last year and he’s not the same quarterback in the pocket. You can’t go out and play 1.5 quarters of decent football.

3) The defense

They played an incredible game, all of them except for Sidney Jones, who looked like the hamstring was bothering him a lot more than I originally thought. I have no doubt that it played a role in his second half struggles.

This is a depleted defense that forced three turnovers after creating just nine in the prior 12 games. The tackling was excellent on Sunday, spearheaded by future safety Rasul Douglas, who made a couple of key stops in the first half that gave the Eagles’ loser offense a chance to stay in the game. The defensive line made some plays in the fourth quarter as well and put the Cowboys into a 4th and 1 in overtime. They did everything they did while spending a ridiculous 45 minutes on the field, which includes back-to-back drives to end the fourth quarter and begin the extra period.

I don’t blame them one bit for not getting the stop in overtime. If the Eagles offense actually did fuck-all in the first half and moved the chains, the defense wouldn’t have been cooked by the time we got to the fourth.

If you want to criticize Jim Schwartz for anything, criticize him for putting De’Vante Bausby 1v1 with Amari Cooper on that killer play in the second half. I know he doesn’t have a ton of options with all of the injuries piling up, and Corey Graham needs to take a better angle on that play, but there’s very little margin for error when deploying guys who weren’t even on the team four weeks ago.

4) Things that make white people comfortable

I have not given enough props to Michael Bennett this season. He’s been a monster on the defensive line.

In this game alone, he had two massive tackles for loss and a forced fumble to go along with five quarterback hits and seven tackles.

I also loved the patience he showed on that Prescott keeper, where he held his ground and didn’t bite. This is such a savvy play:

For everything Howie Roseman got wrong this offseason, he definitely got this one right.

5) the NFL overtime rules are a joke

There’s no justifiable reason for allowing a game to end in overtime without both teams getting an offensive possession.

You can say, “well the defense has to get off the field,” and of course that’s true, but we’re gonna sit here and rely on a coin toss to determine who starts with the ball? After four quarters? That’s what we’re gonna do? Just tweak the rule to make it like college. If a team scores any points on their opening possession, then the other team gets the ball with a chance to at least match it.

If you want to understand how ridiculous the rules are, try applying them to another sport, like basketball.

Say the Sixers are playing the Nets. You flip a coin and the Nets win the coin toss. If they score a three-pointer, they win. But if they hit a two-pointer, the Sixers get a chance to match it. Spencer Dinwiddie comes down the floor and hits a contested three-pointer. Game over.

How is that fair?

Baseball:

The Phillies get to bat first. If they hit a home run, they win. If they score on a sac fly, the Mets gets to bat. Hitting and fielding teams are decided by a coin flip.

How about that? Does that make any sense?

It’s just a head-scratching way of deciding a football game. At least the college rules allow for matching scores in a fair way, and that’s how I’d approach the professional game. I would just move the starting points back to the 50 yard line or something like that.

6) Two of the dumbest calls ever

Alright, here they are, in all of their glory:

First, it was the non-fumble on the opening kickoff:

The explanation was that the officials didn’t have clear evidence that there was a recovery on the play, which is ridiculous to me, because there literally are only green Eagle jerseys on top of the football.

Here’s an explanation on that decision, confirming the fumble:

Who did you think was controlling it? Surely not the Cowboys. The officials basically could not determine which of three Eagles were controlling the football, so they gave it back to Dallas. It might be the worst call I have ever seen in 25+ years of watching the NFL.

Malcolm Jenkins on the play:

“Whoever is watching that in New York should stay off the bottle. …Again, common sense. You saw Kamu come out with the ball. …That was, in hindsight, a big play in the game.”

It was a big play, yes, but it’s not why they lost. Even if the Eagles score there to go up 3-0 or 7-0, you’ve got 58 minutes left in the game, 58 minutes in which anything could have happened. All we’re doing from there is playing the “what if?” game and relying on conjecture to flesh out bogus arguments.

Here’s the Dallas Goedert “offensive pass interference” play that wiped out a touchdown:

That’s not offensive pass interference; he’s just cutting back to the inside on his route and there’s some contact with the defender, who bumps slightly inside of five yards. The Eagles were denied a touchdown on the play and went on to score on the drive anyway with the help of one makeup call and one justifiable illegal contact flag against Dallas.

Here are some national perspectives on the Goedert play:

I also found the Zeke Elliott lowering helmet penalty to be kind of lame also. Every running back lowers their helmet to brace for contact. You could literally call that on half of the plays in the NATIONAL FOOTBALL LEAGUE.

Dallas ended up with 11 penalties for 111 yards, which was double what the Eagles were flagged for. The refs tried to correct their mistakes with some makeup calls, but nothing they whistled was as damaging as the opening kickoff or the Goedert OPI.

7) Auxiliary stuff

I actually want to start with how the Eagles did in the first Cowboys game:

  • lost time of possession battle, 33 to 27 minutes
  • -1 turnover margin (interception)
  • 4-10 on third down (40%)
  • 0-2 on fourth down
  • allowed Dallas to go 8-16 on third down (50%) and 1-1 on fourth down (fake punt)
  • lost 10 yards on two sacks
  • 2-3 success rate in red zone
  • zero penalties

And here’s how they did this time around:

  • lost time of possession battle, 45 to 22 minutes*
  • +2 turnover margin
  • 1-9 on third down (11%)
  • 1-1 on fourth down
  • allowed Dallas to go 10-19 on third down (52.6%) and 1-1 on fourth down
  • lost 6 yards on two sacks
  • 3-4 success rate in red zone
  • five penalties for 49 yards

They got hammered in time of possession both times out. The Eagles are generally phenomenal in TOP, but Dallas had early success running the ball again while the offense could not move the sticks, therefore the defense was pretty much gassed by the time overtime hit. That 45 minute number for Dallas is bloated because of OT, but in regulation the Eagles still got absolutely obliterated. 22 minutes worth of offensive possession and a 93-48 total play margin is a recipe for losing.

You can’t go out and turn a +2 turnover margin into 250 yards of total offense while going 1-9 on third down. You can’t win football games that way.

8) Doug’s best call?

4th and 3, I really liked the combination pick play and wheel route out of the backfield for Darren Sproles:

Well executed, though they honestly could have flagged Alshon for that. It’s just a judgment call for the officials, i.e., is the receiver making a genuine effort to run his route, or does he move his body to set a screen? This time they decided not to throw a flag.

9) Doug’s worst call?

2nd quarter, 3rd and 1 – you run a short side option with a quarterback who tore his ACL one year ago?

4th quarter, 3rd and goal – you throw a five-yard slant that lands five yards short of the goal line?

I don’t get it. Multiple calls just didn’t do it for me yesterday.

Also, and this one is more on Duce Staley, but when Wentz audibled out of a pass play at the goal line, Wendell Smallwood ended up running the ball. I don’t have a problem with Smallwood at all, but Josh Adams and Darren Sproles are your #1 and #2 guys right now. Smallwood is out of the rotation entirely, so I’m not sure why he was even in the game at that point. He hasn’t touched the ball since week 11.

You can put Doug’s overtime timeout usage, or lack thereof, in this entry as well.

10) The broadcast

I admittedly was not paying too much attention. I feel like the Eagles have had Troy Aikman and Joe Buck for something like five games this season. Seriously. Has it been that many? It feels like it has.

One thing that jumped out to me was the discussion at the beginning of the fourth quarter when Randy Gregory was flagged for roughing Carson Wentz. Aikman didn’t think it was a penalty, which Eagles fans probably interpreted as some kind of pro-Dallas bias, but I didn’t see it that way. The guy is a quarterback, so is he now anti-quarterback for disagreeing with the call? He played in an era when defenses were allowed to do a little bit more and weren’t whistled for every single minor transgression, so I think that’s where he was coming from with that.

That said, Mike Perreira came on and explained the two-step rule, saying “That’s what was called and that’s what it is.” So whether or not Aikman felt it was a penalty is ultimately irrelevant. Perreira also disagreed with the OPI on Goedert while Aikman didn’t seem passionate about the call one way or another.

The one thing I thought Aikman did that was kind of corny was when he complained about the Eagles’ touchdown celebration, which was admittedly lame. You played like shit for most of the game, so just spike the football and get off the field. The celebration seemed tone deaf to me.

But, ironically:

FOX also didn’t give us an explanation for why that mystery flag was picked up late in the game.

Shrug.

That’s all I’ve got.