The Eagles offense scored 31 points in regulation on Sunday afternoon, so it’s hard to be disappointed with that number in a vacuum.  There were, however, some funky moments throughout, like when Brian Johnson decided to call whatever the hell this was on 3rd and 11 in the red zone:

Very odd!

Nick Sirianni was asked about it after the game:

“It’s always a call that we think about. And like I said, last week, the run worked. This week, it didn’t. The field shrinks sometimes in there. It’s a little bit tougher to throw in there with the field shrinking, you don’t have your whole playbook at your disposal. We trust our offensive line, we trust Kenny.

That doesn’t mean there wasn’t an option to pass the ball there, if the defense showed that we could. We’ve run that play in the past against that same coverage and scored on that play. Hey, but you know what, it didn’t work this time.

But everything we do, like, there’s an aggression in everything we do. Aggressiveness doesn’t look the same at all times, right? Aggressiveness can look many different ways. In that particular case, we thought we were being aggressive there with the play that we had on. And you know what, it didn’t work. Credit to the defense for stopping that play.

I know Brian doesn’t regret that call because we talked a lot about it. I don’t regret that call. But it didn’t work this time.”

Uhhh… yeah <Lumberg from Office Space voice> For some context, the Eagles entered the red zone with an 11-yard pass for DeVonta Smith, then Hurts lost a yard after throwing incomplete on 1st down. It backed them up on 3rd and 11 from the Washington 15 yard line, up 21-17 with 15:00 remaining in the fourth quarter.

It would be one thing if you had a 3rd and 6, or maybe a 3rd and 5 and knew you were in four-down territory. Run Gainwell (or, God forbid, your RB1), pick up a couple of yards, then tush push to move the chains or throw something short on a 4th and 2. But this call didn’t fit those parameters at all. They just handed the ball to RB2. There’s no passing element here (the receivers aren’t running routes). It looked like a straight outside zone run on 3rd and 11, like they were conceding the possession and just wanted to make sure they got the 3 points instead.


My reaction to Sirianni’s reaction: