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It’s Normal to Overreact and Also Not Panic about the Eagles
By Nick Piccone
Published:
The thing with a 17-game NFL season is that teams can look so good in September and finish in January with four or five wins. Fans go through every emotion not only during the course of a season, but also during the course of one game. The advent of social media gives us a glimpse into how supporters of other teams are reacting to their own trials and tribulations. Unfortunately as well, that means we have to see Eagles fans who were panicking in the second half of Week 1 against the Cowboys puff their chests out after the Week 12 disaster in Dallas and Week 13 Bears beatdown at The Linc.
My reactive tweet:
I understand that fans don’t want to be fed “a win is a win.” But it’s not because they don’t want the team to win, it’s because they just want to be proven right about how they feel. I understand an offense that looks bad isn’t conducive to winning week after week unless something changes. But there is still something to be said for winning ugly, even in this era of advanced analytics that might tell you a team shouldn’t have won a game. That’s because there’s still a human element in professional sports that the numbers-savvy folks have started to completely ignore. We can watch as much film as we want, but unless we can see what a quarterback sees through his eyes and his thinking progressions, we really have no idea what they should have or shouldn’t have done.
Another reactive tweet:
But the last two weeks, the voices have only gotten louder. An 8-2 Eagles team that many thought could easily move to 10-2 is now 8-4 and it feels eerily similar to how the 2023 team collapsed… and they were 10-1! So I can’t fault some fans for feeling like this team is on the same trajectory. It looks bad. It sounds bad. It doesn’t resemble a remarkably-different product on the field, so it’s hard to think it suddenly will when December rolls around.
But there’s still room for improvement. The Eagles have the ability to score 30 points a game the next month. We’ve seen these same guys do it. Is it coaching? Is it execution? It’s both, because there’s not one singular moment or person that causes a football team to win or lose. There are an abundance of plays throughout the course of the game that help ultimately decide the outcome. I’m tired of some fans trying to blame one facet or the other instead of all of it. Yeah, one facet may be more to blame than the other depending on the situation, but it’s never just Hurts’ fault. It’s never just Patullo’s fault. And it’s never just Sirianni’s fault.
I think coaching has been the biggest obstacle this season. If player execution isn’t there, what are they doing to correct that? Because nothing has changed. I don’t think the players are blameless, but we’ve seen a clearly inferior and not healthy offensive line struggle all season, and that seems to be affecting the offense more than Hurts’ decision making.
As for the run game, there’s this:
For multiple reasons Saquon Barkley doesn’t have the lanes to run through in 2025. A year ago, most of us wouldn’t have minded seeing Hurts scale back the runs a little given how he’s gotten injured on those types of plays, but if it’s going to give the team a better chance to win, why wouldn’t they do it? Just because it’s the regular season? Do we see Hurts run more when the playoffs hit? If the playoffs hit? We still have five weeks of regular season football left, and yes, anything can happen. Which is why I understand the panic, even though I don’t share in the panic.
I think when we get into sports debates in 2025, we have to take into account the age of the person or persons we’re arguing against. There is a generation of fans who aren’t even letting the last two games bother them because, yes, they’ve seen worse. For decades. There’s a generation of fans who know nothing but regular season success and four Super Bowl appearances with two championships, starting with the Andy Reid era. Sure, Reid’s first season wasn’t good, but it laid the foundation to what’s been built through 2025. There are also people who aren’t even really sports fans, they just like to crunch the numbers. And that’s fine. I think there’s always a place for that. But when you start advocating benching Jalen Hurts in favor of Tanner McKee because of a couple bad games, you lose credibility. “I saw this team do it and it worked,” isn’t exactly a reason to be making rash changes to a roster that brought you to two Super Bowls and came so close to winning both of them. Instead of worrying about monetizing bad takes on a platform that used to be fun to talk about sports on, look at the effect a move like that would have on the human element. Takes like that are being boosted and somewhat drowning out some of the best voices that deliver sports arguments in a nuanced context. You know that the offensive line just hasn’t been good, which directly affects the play of Hurts, Barkley, and the offense in general. The success of this team hinges a lot on the respective lines, but it’s not solely responsible for a running back slipping or a missed hot route, either. Team game.
The offense is the glaring issue right now, but the defense is also starting to wilt a little. They let the Cowboys score 24 unanswered points in Dallas, but the muffed punt is what eventually did the Birds in. They let the Bears rush for 281 yards and score 24 points at home. While I wouldn’t say the defense is responsible for either loss, they still deserve blame. Just because a unit has been mostly good all season isn’t a reason to absolve them of responsibility. Team game. Make the plays when they matter. And the last two weeks, this Eagles team simply hasn’t. That doesn’t mean they won’t next week or the week after. It just means that there is no one reason this team has lost the last two weeks and make it feel like 2023 all over again to some people.
Maybe the key was CJGJ all along.
Nick Piccone has covered Philly sports and events for over 14 years with various outlets, including PhillyVoice and Philly Influencer. In 2015, he co-launched the Straight Shooters Wrestling Podcast. He's also a producer for Fox Sports Radio Philadelphia and the Villanova Sports Radio Network. He grew up in South Philadelphia and South Jersey, and is a graduate of Neumann University. Contact: picconenick@gmail.com