The Eagles choked away a golden opportunity to start 2-0 with a late collapse on Monday night. There were numerous talking points after the game, but the one that floated to the top was the decision to throw on 3rd and 3 late in the game, a play that resulted in Saquon Barkley dropping a pass that would have likely secured the W. Nick Sirianni was asked about it afterward:

Q. What was your thought process on the third and three call on the pass? Is there a mechanism where QB Jalen Hurts just sits down and takes a sack?

NICK SIRIANNI: Yeah, definitely. You know, they were running a certain defense and junking it up in the middle, so we were trying to go around the outside and it didn’t work.

It’s a little bit jumbled since there are so many bodies in the middle of the field.

If you watch it again, you see the Eagles are in 12 personnel with two tight ends. They have Johnny Wilson motion inside and he seals Jessie Bates as Bates tries to knife his way into the backfield:

It worked. If not situationally, it was at least a good call schematically. Nobody is talking about the decision to pass instead of run if Saquon reels in a totally catchable ball and moves the sticks.

Now, if they ran on 3rd and 3 and didn’t get it, they could have killed some clock before kicking the field goal, so that’s another facet of the discussion. Give Atlanta less time to work with, down 6. Regardless of whether or not it was a good play call, a lot of people think it was the wrong decision considering the time left in the game and the Falcons having no timeouts left.


Sirianni was asked in a follow up if he considered going for the touchdown instead of kicking the field goal to go up 6:

“You know, again, in that scenario I was thinking they might not have any timeouts there, but obviously they did with the incomplete pass. But that would’ve come down to maybe a minute, so we wanted to go up six points; it didn’t work. So, the decision to pass it there, again, like I said, they were junking it up inside, with it being fourth and three to go for it, I thought with them not having any timeouts I wanted them to be down a touchdown and see if they could drive the field and they did. Hats off to them.”

You can go a number of ways when analyzing Sirianni after this game, but it seemed inconsistent throughout. To me, you have to ask why he decided to go for it on 4th and 4 on the opening drive, but then kick a field goal from 4th and 3 at the end of the game. If they had taken the points early, they wouldn’t have been in that position in the first place. There has to be a rhyme and reason to these things, and Monday night, there was not.