Expectations were justifiably low going into a road game without A.J. Brown, DeVonta Smith, and Lane Johnson, but the Eagles were hardly competitive in Tampa on Sunday afternoon, on both sides of the ball.

Yeah, sure, they cut the deficit to 10 at one point, but they were throttled in the first quarter and playing from behind throughout. They were short-handed and played mostly like butt on top of that, which isn’t a formula that’s going to win you many games.

They’re 2-2 going into the bye, and it’s going to be a long couple of weeks. Thank God we have Red October on the horizon. To the takeaways!

1) Texted a friend in Asheville before the game:

Silver lining: no power and no television means he didn’t have to witness what we witnessed.


2) The first Tampa drive was painful. 10 plays and 79 yards in a little more than five minutes. Nothing but dinking and dunking all the way down the field, plus a bit of luck on the 3rd and 2 batted ball that would have forced a field goal, but was caught anyway. Then they hit Mike Evans on a bread-and-butter corner end zone toss and the Eagles were down 7-0 before you could even blink.

3) Missed offensive opportunities: Jalen Hurts unable to hit Saquon Barkley on the broken play to start the first drive, Dallas Goedert dropping a catchable pass on the opening play of the second drive, whatever that overthrow for Grant Calcaterra was, whatever that pass attempt for Jahan Dotson was, throwing behind Johnny Wilson, throwing 10 yards over Kenny Gainwell’s head, the fumble, etc.

4) The Avonte Maddox missed tackle on Chris Godwin was Asante Samuel-esque. Went low and missed the guy completely. You just saw a body go flying across the screen.

5) If the first Tampa drive was painful, the second drive was what? Agonizing? Torturous? They went more yards on half the plays requiring half the time. The Eagles put up the resistance of a wet paper bag, and it wasn’t the defense missing a bunch of starters.

6) What was up with the plaid hats the Eagles coaches were wearing? Unless they were for charity or something, they deserved to lose for putting those on.

7) Probably not a good idea for Tampa to scheme up a play where Brandon Graham is completely unblocked coming off the edge, but then again, the pass rush needs as much help as possible.

8) What’s Isaiah Rodgers doing pushing a Tampa player into Cooper DeJean? You finally get a stop, someone on special teams makes a boneheaded play, and now you’re facing a 21-0 deficit in the first quarter. Undisciplined and dumb!

9) Nolan Smith getting handled by tight ends doesn’t bode well for his NFL future. Hate to say it, but he might be a bust.

10) That 1v1 corner fade win for Quinyon Mitchell was great. The Reed Blankenship tackle on Baker Mayfield’s touchdown run? Not so much. I’m not sure he was keeping him out of the end zone, but he could even get him on the ground and was more or less run over by a 6’1″, 209 pound quarterback. He later came out of the game with “illness,” which begs the question of whether or not he should have been out there.

11) The pass interference call on Blankenship was a bang-bang play. Can’t throw the flag there.

12) Darius Slay with the audacity to do the “incomplete” motion after Kameron Johnson dropped a gimme in the end zone. Straight out of the Jalen Mills playbook, wagging the finger after doing nothing.

13) This made me laugh:

14) Hardest hits of the first half: Goedert on the chain gang and Kelee Ringo on DeJean.

15) You see Saquon talking and laughing while down 24-0? My uncles would have HATED that. Donovan McNabb-esque.

16) Parris Campbell – nice job to get open in the end one. For real. That 4th down sequence could have been a total disaster. Good job by Hurts as well to not panic and get his feet set.

17) The two-minute drill before halftime… not inspiring. The 2nd down pass that Hurts sailed over Gainwell’s head was particularly excruciating.

18) We had a bunch of little kids running around during the game and therefore could not hear much of Tom Brady’s color commentary, but it was annoying to hear him call these dudes by their first names. Sure, he played with them, whatever, but having to keep hearing “Mike” (Mike Evans) over and over was annoying. There was also a little bit of a “I’m back in Tampa” circle jerk going on, which we could have done without. I imagine Atlanta fans felt the same way with Jason Kelce on Monday Night Football two weeks ago.

19) Cam Jurgens – GREAT block on the huge Saquon run. Looked like Jason Kelce out there.

20) I still think the Eagles should try an offensive drive where they only call the tush push. You get the ball at your 20 yard line, tush push it 24 times in a row, and you’re in the red zone. Who says no?

21) Pass rush from the EDGE group is still the biggest concern for this team. Hasn’t improved in four weeks. It was especially aggravating on the drive after the Eagles scored to make it 24-14. They just let the Bucs drive right down the field with little resistance and couldn’t get close to Baker Mayfield, who looked like the second coming of Dan Marino.

22) The blocked extra point and return for two points.. when’s the last time you’ve seen that? It was a huge situational play because it cut the lead to 14 and made it a two-touchdown, two-extra point game (of course they did nothing to capitalize on it).

23) Saquon laying the shoulder on that fool and getting 10 more yards got the biggest reaction out of our group. Those are the momentum plays that get you going and inject some juice into the team.

24) Zone read game: slightly better this time. They had a couple of decent gains from Hurts pulls.

25) Nothing profound to add on the Hurts fumble. He did a nice job avoiding the initial rush, and didn’t vacate the pocket early, but just didn’t have the feel and awareness to know Lavonte David was still there. He’s got 27 turnovers since the start of last season.

26) You should be able to opt out of the political commercials. It’s not even October yet.

27) Meantime:

28) Can’t imagine it’s easy to play in that kind of heat, but two important players, Jurgens and Jalen Carter, leaving  with cramps at the end of the third was a bit disconcerting.

29) Not sure what the final missed tackle count was, but it reached 15 about halfway through the fourth quarter.

30) Jahan Dotson, mostly invisible. Two catches for 11 yards on three targets. But he’s steadily improving!