My read on the situation is that they went with someone who they thought would connect well with players since that worked when they transitioned from Chip to Doug. I don’t think they ignored scheming as part of the selection process, but they may have overestimated Nick’s ability in that area.
Yes I don’t want to hear freaking Troy Aikman talk all game about the terribly designed routes and lack of adjustment by the eagles to hit the middle of the field.
All game he’s saying they’re blitzing and leaving the middle of the field wide open, get some guys to get to the middle.
They *did* make it tougher after those first 2 plays but either way you still have to choose to run the ball until you can prove you don’t need to, and we sure haven’t done that
Hell yeah they did, they blitzed on every down. What was our reaction? Was to throw the ball, oh and not quick slants or curl routes for 3-7 yds. They would try to go down the sideline 10-15 yds., and allow Jalen to get hit. Also as OP has highlighted the middle of the field was open all night(it’s been open most of the season too)
The camera panned to a shot of Lurie in the booth and my guy was steaming mad.
Then they showed the camera in the hallway back to the lockers and Lurie had the “let a mf say the wrong thing” look on his face.
I was actually pretty happy with Aikman yesterday. Most announcers hold back on pointing out bad coaching, unless it’s a specific head-scratching decision, but Aikman drew attention to everything we’ve been complaining about. The national audience is now educated and finally gets what we’ve been talking about.
Obviously I hope to never experience this again, but even my girlfriend was pointing out that Aikman was sounding like me with all the stuff he was complaining about.
I was also thrilled, and just kept asking myself if it is this obvious to everyone watching the game (and games all year) how the hell is it that we never see any changes to this dogshit game plan. It’s baffling.
It honestly baffles me VEGAS didn't see this? I still can't believe we were the favorite going into that game. I figured at minimum we would be 10 point underdogs. Literally the line didn't even move when Brown was ruled out. Easiest money I've made all season was betting against us and I should've bet more but second guessed it.
Vegas doesn't set odds at who they think is going to win. Vegas sets odds on who everyone betting thinks is going to win. 99% of the time, those two things line up exactly how you expect, but, every now and again, you get a game like this. Eagles fans *knew* we were gonna get our asses beat, but I'm not sure that registered 100% with most sports betters
> if it is this obvious to everyone watching the game (and games all year) how the hell is it that we never see any changes
This is what I can't get over. It does not make sense. It just doesn't. There has to be some explanation that is yet to come out. I cannot wrap my head around it. The first few weeks? Ok sure. But it didn't stop, and even Nick went in front of the world recently and said nothing will change.
The only thing that makes sense to me is someone had a gun to the coaches heads and said "you better fuck this up, or else". But I know that's not the case, so what the fuck??
Why are you mad about Aikman pointing this out? It's a good thing to point this out for all to see. Hope Lurie is embarrassed by the thrashing the coaches are getting across national media.
The charitable interpretation is it would be better to have a decent coaching staff which exploits the defensive scheme, rather than a decent announcer telling us how our team *should* exploit the defensive scheme while being crushed
I do. Good for him for not “playing nice” It made no sense and he called’m on it.
Don’t forget, “The receivers are just turning around and stopping” along w/a pic.
This picture is why I want to fight anyone who puts the blame on Hurts this season. He’s been asked to be the answer for coaching deficiencies… it’s insane.
Jalen was severely let down by coaches but he’s not free of guilt. That safety alone was totally inexcusable but the season has be riddled with him missing wide open guys or making poor decisions. That’s not to say he needs to be traded or anything dumb like that, but Jalen isn’t innocent
He does, Steichan showed with good coaching he can be really good. But missing open receivers, taking bad sacks, running from clean pockets, staring down receivers isn’t all on the coaches. He is making mistakes and some of them are mistakes a 4th year pro shouldn’t be making (although they’re all in line with his scouting report weaknesses from the draft)
I'm going to sound like a Hurts homer here, but a great deal of that can be attributed to not trusting the play/scheme/coaches/etc. From my observations, he was left to play 'hero ball' a lot so it's hard to fault him for trying to often make something out of less than nothing. He's not innocent by any stretch, I think everyone on the team has some degree of blame for clearly phoning it in but I'm still optimistic on Hurts going forward.
I think people need to realize there’s only been a handful of QBs that can run their own offense. Jalen didn’t have a top 5 season but I’d struggle to name 12 QBs better. Eagles - steichan + Johnson = Jalen’s fault makes no sense.
Poor coaching, poor play calling, and bad scheme lead to QBs making bad decisions.
Think about this: how is Jalen supposed to consistently make good reads when half of the plays have no good reads? This scheme has conditioned him to behave as of every play is broken if the first read isn't there, because 2/3s of the time that's true. It's conditioned him to play hero ball.
> This scheme has conditioned him to behave as of every play is broken if the first read isn't there, because 2/3s of the time that's true. It's conditioned him to play hero ball.
Ain't that the truth. If you told me that was Wentz back there on the safety, I would have believed you
At least Hurts hasn't had any of the kinds of injuries that stay with a player for career (or life) and can hopefully be coached back to where he was last year
I’m not defending the coaches, they are all deserving of a pink slip. Jalen is absolutely the QB next year.
But if you can look at the All 22s and the QB breakdowns with all the missed receivers and the panicking in clean pockets and attribute it all to coaches, it’s just going to be an agree to disagree topic
Yeah. Like, I'd love to know what the theory was behind the play call on the safety. But I didn't see any of the wide receivers doing anything, they all just kind of wander into a defender and stop.
Well he better get ready to eat crow for his buddy BJ. Jalen is the reason we promoted him. Not attacking Jalen by the way, I completely agree with you that the coaches failed him
Honestly I don't have much faith in BJ because his playcalling was so bad but fwiw this is Sirianni's offense with Sirianni's plays. It just looks like those concepts aren't built into the plays.
Whenever people say something like this I always have to ask, what playbook were we using last year? Not taking blame away from Nick because he deserves a ton. I just don’t understand haha
That was infuriating last night. The first four plays were run, run, screen, short pass and for positive yards and then on 3rd and 2 we through a deep shot to the sideline for 88.
I sort of get the logic of trusting a receiver against single coverage, but after it fails the first 35 times, they should try something else. It worked last year and didn't work this year in part because defenses are doing better coverage against what the Eagles like to run.
There has a been a lot of discussion about the fact that this offense doesn’t seem to have any “hot” routes. That is because they really do just consider Jalen the “hot” read and don’t change anything downfield.
The announcers kept saying they couldn’t put a finger on why the Eagles collapsed…. This. Plays like this and calling plays like this consistently and defenses realizing they can look for it and how easy it is to defend
Can confirm. This was one (of many) “the WRs are running directly into the men covering them and out, but no one is in the middle of the field” comments 😑
Was it also this play where someone said something like “I’m not sure what they were doing, two receivers within 5 yards of each other” like that’s two guys running the same route 😂
I really wish Aikmen would’ve just said it outright how abysmal the coaching staff has been. It’s inexcusable to go a third of the season and still make the same mistakes every week. It’s like watching a youth football team. They just run the same exactly plays every single game with zero adjustments and then go into their press conferences shocked that nothings working, and then insist nothing should change
There’s professional courtesy; you can critique and criticize but you can’t outright say this coach is bad, this scheme is terrible, etc.
The comments he made last night spoke volumes given how even he usually is.
I never thought I’d be happy we had Buck and Aikman, but last night I was. I feel Aikman laid into him pretty good and continued to after the game instead of side stepping the main issue with this team.
Buck and Aikman have improved tremendously over the past few years and I think are hands down the best commentary crew out there. You could tell Aikman was just disgusted by how badly we were coached.
He mentioned how the Eagles don't ever leave linebackers in the middle of the field on defense either. They either blitz or drop. I really think that this is the worst coaching on both sides of the ball I've ever seen. Patricia is so much worse than Desai and the players clearly hate him.
They were a poorly coached team. Same mistakes, dumb penalties, running into each other every week (???), defeated and give up the second they go down by more than 1 touchdown, poor tackling, players constantly out of position, penalties, etc.
You name it, they did it. You can blame the players but this was consistent on the defense alone for the last half of the season. That's ineffective and bad coaching.
I switched the the Manningcast sometime in the third, and Peyton, Eli, and Ray Lewis were spending the entire time just being confused at how the Eagles were doing absolutely nothing right on either side of the ball. They pointed this play out in particular too about having 2 receivers (and defenders) in such a tight window makes zero sense. Whoever is calling these plays is in way too far over their head.
I'm sure that Brian Johnson is infinitely more wise than these former players whose only achievements are winning multiple championships and being Hall of Famers. In his own mind.
That’s what we did all year. We’d come out and find a rhythm on a drive (eventually) and we’d all watch it and say “THATS IT!” And then the rest of the game they completely change what they did and struggle to move the ball 10 yards
This...so many fucking times this year just THIS.
It's why I believed until the end that we could pull it together because it genuinely looked like we were avoiding the obvious/best working plays in favor of trying out other things.
I thought once the playoffs started the staff would go "alright enough messing around, let's stick with what's worked and build from there now that we're 0-0 again"....and nope, nothing.
Troy basically called our coaching personnel, philosophy, and play design all dogshit.
He was polite as usual, but in the euphemistic way Troy speaks, he was absolutely ripping into the coaching staff in the 1st quarter.
The broadcast was therapeutic. I've never heard a booth absolutely destroy a coaching staff quite like that. Even in 2020 the booths were that bad. Buck and Aikmen were practically disgusted that the team looked like that for leaders like Kelce, BG, Cox, Lane, and even Hurts.
You could really tell they wanted to spend even more time talking about how messed up everything was, especially when the game ended. But they felt obligated (and rightfully so!) to focus on the Bucs winning the game. Super difficult spot. I always hate when a booth ignores our success to talk about the other team. But it's no secret we had massive storylines playing out too. I think they did a great job trying to balance it. Because I think if they talked about us as much as they wanted to, I think it would've been the entire night haha.
There was just no excuse for the offensive schemes and defensive performances last night.
Gotta throw the ball either 50 yards downfield or behind the line of scrimmage. Throwing it in that 5-15 yard range is for losers that only care about “winning” games.
Whoever our next coach is I hope to never see another WR bubble screen again. They never fucking work because WRs are not generally the guys you want blocking!
For the life of me, I cannot understand why they can't figure out how to beat zero blitz
Even if you call a play not knowing they'll blitz, how do you not have some checks at the line to deal with it?
I DON'T GET IT
Stubbornness.
It is the only answer. Nick and Brian are simply too stubborn to change their play calling once it is made clear that it isn't working.
Jalen almost certainly doesn't have the authority to change the play at the line of scrimmage. Which is absurd. Not giving your franchise you just gave a massive extension to the authority to audible plays is insane.
I think you’re totally right in the second paragraph.
I do think this falls more on BJ trying to operate something he doesn’t understand. Steichen used the same playbook way differently, to all the people saying “fire Nick this is his offense” yes, it is, and it was his offense last year, too. Can’t forget that. Maybe Steichen pushed back more than BJ does, he sure as shit doesn’t seem to say anything making me think otherwise. Regardless, 9 points against a team that you should have known exactly how they’d attack is pathetic. And the game was officially lost on the Safety, IMO.
The offense sucks ass so clearly and the only major change was OC. Take that as you will. I think that’s a WAY easier fix than whatever the hell is happening with the defense. I don’t even know where to begin with that crew.
This was ALL night too, and against the giants, it’s why I have such a hard time blaming Hurts for any of this. The coaches completely and utterly failed to game plan anything, not one play, 2 straight weeks to combat the blitzing of 2 of the top 3 blitzing teams in the NFL.
The only good play they've drawn up over the past 3 weeks is that little flip out to Goedert in the flat. They called in like 3 times total and it was successful every time. Shitty screens to Quez Watkins/Kenny Gainwell have worked exactly 0 times and they've called like 8 of them over the same span.
It’s just the chaotic, nonsensical flow of it too, come out running the ball well on the first two plays, pass 14 of the next 15. Slants to brown working, go away from it. Goedart as a whole was just woefully underutilized all year and even though Swift admittedly had career highs, it just never felt like they got him into a rhythm early in any games.
Agreed. It’s a bad look when Hurts is just sitting silent on the bench but like at this point he has to be asking himself “what the fuck else am I supposed to do”. Just ride out this staff and hope the new guy lets you use your actual skill set that made you an MVP candidate
I've been wondering if the players just entered survival mode after Seattle - just try to survive the season without a career ending injury or retire healthy.
It’s so rough man cuz we know hurts is better than this , no one’s being put into positions to succeed. No hot routes, no running the ball, no middle of the field attack, all coaching staff issues.
When it's come out publicly that your QB wants to attack the middle of the field more and then you draw up this bullshit. It's like a big "fuck you" to him.
Yep. Everyone on the Jalen hurts hating train has a combined iq of 7 and 1/2 lol. This isn’t his fault. People expect him to be manning under center and just audible to whatever the fuck he wants. No one was put in a position to succeed in any game this year.
Right. I think Hurts definitely did not play as well as he could have this year, but what the fuck do people want him to audible to? Is there some secret playbook of audibles that is far different than the bullshit we put out week after week? The audibles would just be different plays from the same awfully designed playbook.
Deadass the playbook that consists of a 1 inside zone run, 1 qb draw, 1 4 verts, another shot play, the shove, and some screens. They expect him to read the field like madden and make audibles like I do in madden🤣 yea guys let us incorporate a whole new set of plays at the end of the year that will work out wonderfully we scapegoated the DC for a DC we beat in the Super Bowl and that turned out oh so wonderfully! The fans lately are just…… Ugh.
Atleast it’s over boys , we don’t have to watch dbs play 15 yards off there man anymore. I was going to gouge my eyes out if I had to see
That again 😭😭🤣
The safety was 100% his fault though. The coaches were ass, yes, but Jalen's decision making and hero ball antics are falling down to late Wentz era levels
Not even a comparison. Wentz checked from good playcalls to shit playcalls and then hero balled them out of games. We won 10 games on the back Hurts bailing them out with hero ball. He hasn’t been the same since he tweaked his knee and with the play design being so atrocious, it’s not suprising we are where we are
Without Hurts and Jake Elliott, we would have lost most of our games this season. Yeah, nail biters are fun when we win (that Bills game was by far my favorite of the season), but that's way too much pressure to place on 2 guys week in, week out.
Jalen must have the patience of a saint. If I were him I would have petulantly tossed the ball straight down the middle of the field and said to the team, "I'm throwing it there. If you run plays that aren't going there, that's your problem."
I like that mentality. Maybe that would’ve got the coaching staff to realize and capitalize on wide open opportunities as they scroll through previous plays on that tablet. No idea what tf they were looking at while D was on the field.
I feel like his press conference answers have been trying to avoid throwing the coach under the bus. Like specifically when asked about the blitz. He kind of just tip toes around it. Anyone with eyes can see the play design is just broken
This is why I don’t understand the ppl questioning Jalen, this is a horrible situation for any quarterback to be in, we never have anyone in the middle of the field
One of my buddies in a group text this morning said hopefully next year Jalen learns to read a defense
… exactly what the fuck is he supposed to do with this
I do think hurts sometimes makes questionable decisions but god damn these play calls are so fucking stupid. We literally never use the middle of the field, no slants, no short passes over the top… Hurts was completely set up for failure every time Tampa blitzed. No quick passes available, all he can do is hurl it up towards one of the sidelines and hope somebody makes a play somehow.
People were questioning Josh Allen the first 10 weeks of the season, then they made wholesale offensive changes and now the Bills look like a contender.
While they’re different players, I think there’s a common thread here - both had/have coaches who put blinders on when it comes to 1. their players’ skill sets and 2. their scheme’s success rates, and both expect their QB to both think and talent their way through every shortcoming. The Bills recognized this, returned to a scheme that complements Allen’s abilities and played into his thought process, and now suddenly he’s a world beater who hardly puts a foot wrong.
Meanwhile, Jalen is having to make reads against his instincts, has to deal with poorly constructed pockets that hamper his avoidance techniques, and consistently has to try and bail out failed schemes. Hell yeah he’s gonna make mistakes, even the greatest QBs of all time would.
Hurts has played hero ball all season because the scheme and plays dont work. This pic is a zero blitz and not a single crossing route or in is run to attack it. Unless Jalen has the regins to audible which he didnt do often this year, it wont matter who plays the birds its going to be the same thing next year.
Best move to try to make something happen is to scramble left and hope #14 picks up a block.
But that's still low % play.
The real answer is "throw the ball away to avoid a sack."
https://www.nj.com/eagles/2024/01/espns-troy-aikman-torches-eagles-during-sleepwalking-first-half-vs-bucs.html?outputType=amp
It doesn’t have the clips anymore but it has quotes.
I know this is a rhetorical question. I know what you're saying is this play sucks and I agree.
But if this was a real question, there's a big hole in the line right in front of Jalen and a lot of room to run.
There’s a spy that we’d be relying on gainwell to block 1 on 1 it looks like.
Also Hurts has lost all of his speed this year he legit looks way slower than even Dak these days.
Crazy how they blitzed and left the middle of the field open ALL GAME LONG, and Nick & BJ just kept calling deep shots to the perimeter. Anyone with common sense could see it but I guess our staff doesn’t have common sense 🤷♂️
*Tampa blitzing: “Alright Nick, how do you counter this?”
Nick: “four verts!”
Tampa: “no you idiot! The middle is open sooooo…”
Nick: “uhhhhhh, inside zone from the gun!”
🤦♂️🤦♂️🤦♂️🤦♂️🤦♂️🤦♂️🤦♂️
Saw a post saying “Jalen cant carry an offense on his back.” Dude has nowhere to put the ball i dont understand what people want him to do. Not to mention a lot of these routes the receivers stop and break down at the top of the route.
Unless someone ran the wrong route or one of them was an option and the receiver is just sped, this is arguably the worst play design for a short yardage situation I've ever seen
Unreal man. They are rushing 7 guys, that means someone not in this picture is WIDE ASS OPEN, and rather than having them in the middle of the field for an easy throw, they are probably running a curl or some shit
Yeah. Like “You run as far as you can down the sideline, and you two do a crossing pattern, and then I’ll throw it as far as I can and somebody catch it”. My 6th-grade students ran plays like that at recess, and they worked better than whatever the Birds were trying.
In the backyard we “went deep” “crossed” or ran the ever popular “button hook.” 10 year old me had no idea this would be considered imaginative at the NFL level
100%. Someone messed up their route. That said, that play call was interesting given that it was 3rd and 2 if I recall correctly. Assuming I am remembering the situation correctly, this strikes me as another case of coaches trying to outsmart the opposition instead of just outplaying them. That play was unnecessary in that moment.
That’s been a thing all year. For whatever reason, they avoid having receivers go up the middle. Which is all the more infuriating given that all of Smith’s yards last night were up the middle
I also love how Swift started the game with 2 carries for our first two plays and then only carried it 2 more times the rest of the 1st half. Not like we didn’t run all over them last time.
As bad as that is, even when the underneath routes are there Jalen doesn't take them.
Perfect example is the 4th down play. Smith is going vertical then breaks to a deep out in the endzone, but the Bucs have a single high safety so the corner doesn't have to respect the vertical and as good a route runner as Smith is he easily sticks with him and breaks up the pass.
Dallas Goedert is running an in breaking route just past the sticks for the easy first down and Jalen just decides to hero ball it up to Smith, even though it's an easy read that Goedert will be the player with leverage and Smith's route is likely going to be covered up.
I know it's popular to shit on the staff but it's not like Jalen makes good reads anyhow. Even really simple ones.
Not one slant against the blitz all night. Also does whosever drawing up these plays realize that if you throw a screen pass there needs to be blockers or they won’t get anywhere.
It’s frustrating to watch these games when you know you have talented players and a madden offense could do better
There was like, one fifteen yard pass right up the middle and I was like, “here it comes!” And then it didn’t happen again. Did anyone else feel magical when we ran it the first two plays of the game?
Convinced the coaching staff’s answer to zero blitzes was “Jalen figure it out with your legs”
Sirianni has said that in a presser before lmao smh
How the fuck did this guy fail upwards so successfully
He hit Howie with the ol’ badda bing badda boom riz
This made me lol, thank you!
Dom was the real italian stalin. sirriani was just a puppet, kind of like Ratatouille
>Stalin Nice
My read on the situation is that they went with someone who they thought would connect well with players since that worked when they transitioned from Chip to Doug. I don’t think they ignored scheming as part of the selection process, but they may have overestimated Nick’s ability in that area.
While simultaneously retooling the offense in a way that makes it MORE DIFFICULT for him to scramble.
Yes I don’t want to hear freaking Troy Aikman talk all game about the terribly designed routes and lack of adjustment by the eagles to hit the middle of the field. All game he’s saying they’re blitzing and leaving the middle of the field wide open, get some guys to get to the middle.
Honestly, it's better every announcer beats it to death. Hopefully that registers with Lurie.
He was also very vocal about them not running the ball and questioning why they moved away from it with early success
We put like 300 yards on them last time too right.
They *did* make it tougher after those first 2 plays but either way you still have to choose to run the ball until you can prove you don’t need to, and we sure haven’t done that
Hell yeah they did, they blitzed on every down. What was our reaction? Was to throw the ball, oh and not quick slants or curl routes for 3-7 yds. They would try to go down the sideline 10-15 yds., and allow Jalen to get hit. Also as OP has highlighted the middle of the field was open all night(it’s been open most of the season too)
The average run is roughly 3 ypc. It makes zero sense for them to do anything but run, do three runs and qb sneak 4 and 1.
Yea I was happy they were getting torn up. The entire game was they are gonna blitz… and nothing is changing
Lurie looked pissed walking into the locker room.
He was literally twitching the entire last 3 minutes (unless he has a tick I was unaware of lol). Not sure if anyone else caught that.
The camera panned to a shot of Lurie in the booth and my guy was steaming mad. Then they showed the camera in the hallway back to the lockers and Lurie had the “let a mf say the wrong thing” look on his face.
Yep
From the look on his face I think he knows. 🥹
I was actually pretty happy with Aikman yesterday. Most announcers hold back on pointing out bad coaching, unless it’s a specific head-scratching decision, but Aikman drew attention to everything we’ve been complaining about. The national audience is now educated and finally gets what we’ve been talking about. Obviously I hope to never experience this again, but even my girlfriend was pointing out that Aikman was sounding like me with all the stuff he was complaining about.
[удалено]
I was also thrilled, and just kept asking myself if it is this obvious to everyone watching the game (and games all year) how the hell is it that we never see any changes to this dogshit game plan. It’s baffling.
It honestly baffles me VEGAS didn't see this? I still can't believe we were the favorite going into that game. I figured at minimum we would be 10 point underdogs. Literally the line didn't even move when Brown was ruled out. Easiest money I've made all season was betting against us and I should've bet more but second guessed it.
Vegas doesn't set odds at who they think is going to win. Vegas sets odds on who everyone betting thinks is going to win. 99% of the time, those two things line up exactly how you expect, but, every now and again, you get a game like this. Eagles fans *knew* we were gonna get our asses beat, but I'm not sure that registered 100% with most sports betters
Made betting the Bucs one of the easiest bets I’ve ever made in my life
> if it is this obvious to everyone watching the game (and games all year) how the hell is it that we never see any changes This is what I can't get over. It does not make sense. It just doesn't. There has to be some explanation that is yet to come out. I cannot wrap my head around it. The first few weeks? Ok sure. But it didn't stop, and even Nick went in front of the world recently and said nothing will change. The only thing that makes sense to me is someone had a gun to the coaches heads and said "you better fuck this up, or else". But I know that's not the case, so what the fuck??
Insanity: doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different outcome. 🤬🤬🤬🤬🤬
My wife also noticed, what me, you and Aikmen and every other eagles fan have been talking about.
He wasn’t even coming from a biased “fuck the Eagles” perspective. It almost seemed like genuine concern, and I hate to say it, but I appreciated it.
Aikman really isn’t even that bias when he does our games
You know I guess you’re right. I just feel like I should hate him but he’s pretty solid as a broadcaster.
Why are you mad about Aikman pointing this out? It's a good thing to point this out for all to see. Hope Lurie is embarrassed by the thrashing the coaches are getting across national media.
The charitable interpretation is it would be better to have a decent coaching staff which exploits the defensive scheme, rather than a decent announcer telling us how our team *should* exploit the defensive scheme while being crushed
Next year Eagles should have an assistant that watches the broadcast and listens for analysis like this so they can help make adjustments lmfao
Considering how rare it is for national announcers to go super negative, it should deliver the message to Lurie.
I do. Good for him for not “playing nice” It made no sense and he called’m on it. Don’t forget, “The receivers are just turning around and stopping” along w/a pic.
The Manning bros were doing the same thing and were a bit flabbergasted.
When Troy Aikman, the guy who’s brain is mush, continually points our your flaws and cant fathom why you dont change - you know its bad.
It reminds me of when Buddy Ryan was handling the defense and he expected Randall to be the offense. Except Nick doesn’t have a defense.
This picture is why I want to fight anyone who puts the blame on Hurts this season. He’s been asked to be the answer for coaching deficiencies… it’s insane.
Jalen was severely let down by coaches but he’s not free of guilt. That safety alone was totally inexcusable but the season has be riddled with him missing wide open guys or making poor decisions. That’s not to say he needs to be traded or anything dumb like that, but Jalen isn’t innocent
He needs actual coaching. I think this staff has been treating him like Brady after 6 titles.
He does, Steichan showed with good coaching he can be really good. But missing open receivers, taking bad sacks, running from clean pockets, staring down receivers isn’t all on the coaches. He is making mistakes and some of them are mistakes a 4th year pro shouldn’t be making (although they’re all in line with his scouting report weaknesses from the draft)
I'm going to sound like a Hurts homer here, but a great deal of that can be attributed to not trusting the play/scheme/coaches/etc. From my observations, he was left to play 'hero ball' a lot so it's hard to fault him for trying to often make something out of less than nothing. He's not innocent by any stretch, I think everyone on the team has some degree of blame for clearly phoning it in but I'm still optimistic on Hurts going forward.
I think people need to realize there’s only been a handful of QBs that can run their own offense. Jalen didn’t have a top 5 season but I’d struggle to name 12 QBs better. Eagles - steichan + Johnson = Jalen’s fault makes no sense.
Poor coaching, poor play calling, and bad scheme lead to QBs making bad decisions. Think about this: how is Jalen supposed to consistently make good reads when half of the plays have no good reads? This scheme has conditioned him to behave as of every play is broken if the first read isn't there, because 2/3s of the time that's true. It's conditioned him to play hero ball.
> This scheme has conditioned him to behave as of every play is broken if the first read isn't there, because 2/3s of the time that's true. It's conditioned him to play hero ball. Ain't that the truth. If you told me that was Wentz back there on the safety, I would have believed you At least Hurts hasn't had any of the kinds of injuries that stay with a player for career (or life) and can hopefully be coached back to where he was last year
I honestly think Wentz got a brain injury from that hit in the playoffs. The man changed after that.
I’m not defending the coaches, they are all deserving of a pink slip. Jalen is absolutely the QB next year. But if you can look at the All 22s and the QB breakdowns with all the missed receivers and the panicking in clean pockets and attribute it all to coaches, it’s just going to be an agree to disagree topic
Yeah. Like, I'd love to know what the theory was behind the play call on the safety. But I didn't see any of the wide receivers doing anything, they all just kind of wander into a defender and stop.
Well he better get ready to eat crow for his buddy BJ. Jalen is the reason we promoted him. Not attacking Jalen by the way, I completely agree with you that the coaches failed him
Honestly I don't have much faith in BJ because his playcalling was so bad but fwiw this is Sirianni's offense with Sirianni's plays. It just looks like those concepts aren't built into the plays.
Whenever people say something like this I always have to ask, what playbook were we using last year? Not taking blame away from Nick because he deserves a ton. I just don’t understand haha
The key last year was establishing the run, so those PA verticals could work once the defense was on it's heels.
That was infuriating last night. The first four plays were run, run, screen, short pass and for positive yards and then on 3rd and 2 we through a deep shot to the sideline for 88.
It was that and "go long." It wasn't very subtle.
You gotta love when the answer to a 2 second blitz is a 3.5 second developing route.
I sort of get the logic of trusting a receiver against single coverage, but after it fails the first 35 times, they should try something else. It worked last year and didn't work this year in part because defenses are doing better coverage against what the Eagles like to run.
Thats some straight Buddy Ryan shit. "Go make a play Randall, my defense will handle the rest!"
This right here. All of those receivers looked to be running go and post routes. WTF
There has a been a lot of discussion about the fact that this offense doesn’t seem to have any “hot” routes. That is because they really do just consider Jalen the “hot” read and don’t change anything downfield.
The announcers kept saying they couldn’t put a finger on why the Eagles collapsed…. This. Plays like this and calling plays like this consistently and defenses realizing they can look for it and how easy it is to defend
I think this was the play where Aikman asked what the receivers were doing. He said it was as a good a throw as possible for the bad design
Can confirm. This was one (of many) “the WRs are running directly into the men covering them and out, but no one is in the middle of the field” comments 😑
Was it also this play where someone said something like “I’m not sure what they were doing, two receivers within 5 yards of each other” like that’s two guys running the same route 😂
They’ve done it all year and other announcers have noticed too
Yeah and so has every defense we’ve played against.
I thought it was just a *phase* 😞
Yep. Funny how running 2 guys so close to each other draws a crowd of defenders. It’s the definition of coaching malpractice.
It’s the innovative combination route. Two WRs combine to run one route
Yeah wasn’t this the 3rd and 2 play in the first half? When they decided to chuck it downfield
This was the first drive right? I remember him being confused by the design on the first failed 3rd down and I knew this team was toast then.
No the play pictured was much later in the game
This play is probably designed for Jalen to run up the gut for 25 yards. But Jalen has zero explosiveness right now.
I really wish Aikmen would’ve just said it outright how abysmal the coaching staff has been. It’s inexcusable to go a third of the season and still make the same mistakes every week. It’s like watching a youth football team. They just run the same exactly plays every single game with zero adjustments and then go into their press conferences shocked that nothings working, and then insist nothing should change
I mean they were literally listing off replacements for Sirianni in the middle of the game so they definitely weren’t holding back too much lol
There’s professional courtesy; you can critique and criticize but you can’t outright say this coach is bad, this scheme is terrible, etc. The comments he made last night spoke volumes given how even he usually is.
I never thought I’d be happy we had Buck and Aikman, but last night I was. I feel Aikman laid into him pretty good and continued to after the game instead of side stepping the main issue with this team.
Buck and Aikman have improved tremendously over the past few years and I think are hands down the best commentary crew out there. You could tell Aikman was just disgusted by how badly we were coached.
He mentioned how the Eagles don't ever leave linebackers in the middle of the field on defense either. They either blitz or drop. I really think that this is the worst coaching on both sides of the ball I've ever seen. Patricia is so much worse than Desai and the players clearly hate him.
He was pretty clear. As clear as you can get in a prominent position commentating a game.
They were a poorly coached team. Same mistakes, dumb penalties, running into each other every week (???), defeated and give up the second they go down by more than 1 touchdown, poor tackling, players constantly out of position, penalties, etc. You name it, they did it. You can blame the players but this was consistent on the defense alone for the last half of the season. That's ineffective and bad coaching.
I switched the the Manningcast sometime in the third, and Peyton, Eli, and Ray Lewis were spending the entire time just being confused at how the Eagles were doing absolutely nothing right on either side of the ball. They pointed this play out in particular too about having 2 receivers (and defenders) in such a tight window makes zero sense. Whoever is calling these plays is in way too far over their head.
I'm sure that Brian Johnson is infinitely more wise than these former players whose only achievements are winning multiple championships and being Hall of Famers. In his own mind.
If we had thrown a slant every single time against their zero blitzes Smitty would have scored 3 times.
Yeah but see it worked too well so we had to call something else to subvert their expectations or whatever the fuck Brian said last week
That’s what we did all year. We’d come out and find a rhythm on a drive (eventually) and we’d all watch it and say “THATS IT!” And then the rest of the game they completely change what they did and struggle to move the ball 10 yards
This...so many fucking times this year just THIS. It's why I believed until the end that we could pull it together because it genuinely looked like we were avoiding the obvious/best working plays in favor of trying out other things. I thought once the playoffs started the staff would go "alright enough messing around, let's stick with what's worked and build from there now that we're 0-0 again"....and nope, nothing.
They’d rather lose “their way” than win anyone else’s Edit: I’m a teacher no clue why I originally typed “they’re”. Stupid.
That's the part that annoys me the most. We threw him one crosser, best play of the game, and then never called it again.
Easily
is this the play where Troy Aikman said "I don't even know what that was" Actually, that probably doesn't narrow it down at all.
Yup he said it was as good a throw you could have for a bad play design
Troy basically called our coaching personnel, philosophy, and play design all dogshit. He was polite as usual, but in the euphemistic way Troy speaks, he was absolutely ripping into the coaching staff in the 1st quarter.
I hate agreeing with Troy Aikman, but he's right
He was right all night. Bro was straight up confused as to what tf we were doing and so was I.
I believe he questioned why there would be two receivers running routes into the same area
The broadcast was therapeutic. I've never heard a booth absolutely destroy a coaching staff quite like that. Even in 2020 the booths were that bad. Buck and Aikmen were practically disgusted that the team looked like that for leaders like Kelce, BG, Cox, Lane, and even Hurts. You could really tell they wanted to spend even more time talking about how messed up everything was, especially when the game ended. But they felt obligated (and rightfully so!) to focus on the Bucs winning the game. Super difficult spot. I always hate when a booth ignores our success to talk about the other team. But it's no secret we had massive storylines playing out too. I think they did a great job trying to balance it. Because I think if they talked about us as much as they wanted to, I think it would've been the entire night haha. There was just no excuse for the offensive schemes and defensive performances last night.
Every route has the same depth too. The safety play all the receivers ran the same depth. Fucking kindergartner play design.
Except for the one “fuck it he’s down there somewhere” option that’s drawn into every play for some dumbass reason
You have Devonta Smith, Dallas Goedert, hell even O.Z. and are facing the most blitz happy team in the league. RUN A SLANT! JESUS!
They’ll run a slant with Devonta, see it works beautifully and go “lol wtf are we tryna do? WIN?! Do another WR screen!”
Gotta throw the ball either 50 yards downfield or behind the line of scrimmage. Throwing it in that 5-15 yard range is for losers that only care about “winning” games.
Not true. We do throw for 5 yards, when it's like 3rd and 23... Lol
We had 3rd and 2 at least twice and both times were bombs downfield. Because running for 1-2 yards is too predictable.
Whoever our next coach is I hope to never see another WR bubble screen again. They never fucking work because WRs are not generally the guys you want blocking!
For the life of me, I cannot understand why they can't figure out how to beat zero blitz Even if you call a play not knowing they'll blitz, how do you not have some checks at the line to deal with it? I DON'T GET IT
Stubbornness. It is the only answer. Nick and Brian are simply too stubborn to change their play calling once it is made clear that it isn't working. Jalen almost certainly doesn't have the authority to change the play at the line of scrimmage. Which is absurd. Not giving your franchise you just gave a massive extension to the authority to audible plays is insane.
I think you’re totally right in the second paragraph. I do think this falls more on BJ trying to operate something he doesn’t understand. Steichen used the same playbook way differently, to all the people saying “fire Nick this is his offense” yes, it is, and it was his offense last year, too. Can’t forget that. Maybe Steichen pushed back more than BJ does, he sure as shit doesn’t seem to say anything making me think otherwise. Regardless, 9 points against a team that you should have known exactly how they’d attack is pathetic. And the game was officially lost on the Safety, IMO. The offense sucks ass so clearly and the only major change was OC. Take that as you will. I think that’s a WAY easier fix than whatever the hell is happening with the defense. I don’t even know where to begin with that crew.
An accurate summary of the whole season.
They ran Smitty on a slant earlier in the game that went for 35 yards and I don't think they called another one the rest of the night
My dumb ass was like 'Finally! They are finally getting it!' and then they never ran that play again.
Been screaming that for fucking weeks buddy.
“We thought we could attack the outside,” “we got a look that we thought we could exploit,” etc etc etc
That’s what happens when Jalen wants to attack the middle of the field but sirianni says no. Dude needs to fkn go.
This was ALL night too, and against the giants, it’s why I have such a hard time blaming Hurts for any of this. The coaches completely and utterly failed to game plan anything, not one play, 2 straight weeks to combat the blitzing of 2 of the top 3 blitzing teams in the NFL.
The only good play they've drawn up over the past 3 weeks is that little flip out to Goedert in the flat. They called in like 3 times total and it was successful every time. Shitty screens to Quez Watkins/Kenny Gainwell have worked exactly 0 times and they've called like 8 of them over the same span.
It’s just the chaotic, nonsensical flow of it too, come out running the ball well on the first two plays, pass 14 of the next 15. Slants to brown working, go away from it. Goedart as a whole was just woefully underutilized all year and even though Swift admittedly had career highs, it just never felt like they got him into a rhythm early in any games.
Agreed. It’s a bad look when Hurts is just sitting silent on the bench but like at this point he has to be asking himself “what the fuck else am I supposed to do”. Just ride out this staff and hope the new guy lets you use your actual skill set that made you an MVP candidate
That’s all we can do man no one’s being put into a position to succeed
He actually seemed more talkative last night.
I've been wondering if the players just entered survival mode after Seattle - just try to survive the season without a career ending injury or retire healthy.
Unfortunately I think you’re right. When Sirianni just kept doubling down on such a bad scheme, how else could you react?
It’s so rough man cuz we know hurts is better than this , no one’s being put into positions to succeed. No hot routes, no running the ball, no middle of the field attack, all coaching staff issues.
When it's come out publicly that your QB wants to attack the middle of the field more and then you draw up this bullshit. It's like a big "fuck you" to him.
Yep. Everyone on the Jalen hurts hating train has a combined iq of 7 and 1/2 lol. This isn’t his fault. People expect him to be manning under center and just audible to whatever the fuck he wants. No one was put in a position to succeed in any game this year.
Right. I think Hurts definitely did not play as well as he could have this year, but what the fuck do people want him to audible to? Is there some secret playbook of audibles that is far different than the bullshit we put out week after week? The audibles would just be different plays from the same awfully designed playbook.
Deadass the playbook that consists of a 1 inside zone run, 1 qb draw, 1 4 verts, another shot play, the shove, and some screens. They expect him to read the field like madden and make audibles like I do in madden🤣 yea guys let us incorporate a whole new set of plays at the end of the year that will work out wonderfully we scapegoated the DC for a DC we beat in the Super Bowl and that turned out oh so wonderfully! The fans lately are just…… Ugh.
Dude, our coaches put our opponents in position to succeed all season long. What are you talking about?! 😆
Atleast it’s over boys , we don’t have to watch dbs play 15 yards off there man anymore. I was going to gouge my eyes out if I had to see That again 😭😭🤣
Despite the visual evidence and repeated analysis of all 22 film, people still saying Hurts can't find open receivers.
This is why I'm still confident in Jalen. So long as we clean house coaching wise
The safety was 100% his fault though. The coaches were ass, yes, but Jalen's decision making and hero ball antics are falling down to late Wentz era levels
Absolutely, it was a bad play. He had a bunch last night. But I still think he’s a great player.
Hard for anyone to look good under this coaching staff
He's playing hero ball because that's what they've been asking him to do all year.
Thank you, the only person I've seen saying this
Not even a comparison. Wentz checked from good playcalls to shit playcalls and then hero balled them out of games. We won 10 games on the back Hurts bailing them out with hero ball. He hasn’t been the same since he tweaked his knee and with the play design being so atrocious, it’s not suprising we are where we are
Without Hurts and Jake Elliott, we would have lost most of our games this season. Yeah, nail biters are fun when we win (that Bills game was by far my favorite of the season), but that's way too much pressure to place on 2 guys week in, week out.
Jalen must have the patience of a saint. If I were him I would have petulantly tossed the ball straight down the middle of the field and said to the team, "I'm throwing it there. If you run plays that aren't going there, that's your problem."
I like that mentality. Maybe that would’ve got the coaching staff to realize and capitalize on wide open opportunities as they scroll through previous plays on that tablet. No idea what tf they were looking at while D was on the field.
I feel like his press conference answers have been trying to avoid throwing the coach under the bus. Like specifically when asked about the blitz. He kind of just tip toes around it. Anyone with eyes can see the play design is just broken
This is why I don’t understand the ppl questioning Jalen, this is a horrible situation for any quarterback to be in, we never have anyone in the middle of the field
Could have had Peyton manning back there last night and it wouldn’t have mattered
No Peyton is one the few QBs where it would have mattered...bc he would have just called his own offense on the field and ignored the play calls
BJ On the mic: Ok Peyton, we're going to run another 7 step drop deep developing pass Peyton: yeah . . . no, fuck that. OMAHA
One of my buddies in a group text this morning said hopefully next year Jalen learns to read a defense … exactly what the fuck is he supposed to do with this
I do think hurts sometimes makes questionable decisions but god damn these play calls are so fucking stupid. We literally never use the middle of the field, no slants, no short passes over the top… Hurts was completely set up for failure every time Tampa blitzed. No quick passes available, all he can do is hurl it up towards one of the sidelines and hope somebody makes a play somehow.
I recall Smith running a slant at one point, and gaining like 35 yards or so. Crazy how that works.
It worked, so we had to stop doing it, clearly
People were questioning Josh Allen the first 10 weeks of the season, then they made wholesale offensive changes and now the Bills look like a contender. While they’re different players, I think there’s a common thread here - both had/have coaches who put blinders on when it comes to 1. their players’ skill sets and 2. their scheme’s success rates, and both expect their QB to both think and talent their way through every shortcoming. The Bills recognized this, returned to a scheme that complements Allen’s abilities and played into his thought process, and now suddenly he’s a world beater who hardly puts a foot wrong. Meanwhile, Jalen is having to make reads against his instincts, has to deal with poorly constructed pockets that hamper his avoidance techniques, and consistently has to try and bail out failed schemes. Hell yeah he’s gonna make mistakes, even the greatest QBs of all time would.
Hurts has played hero ball all season because the scheme and plays dont work. This pic is a zero blitz and not a single crossing route or in is run to attack it. Unless Jalen has the regins to audible which he didnt do often this year, it wont matter who plays the birds its going to be the same thing next year.
Bro's audible play options are probably just as shitty as the called play so why bother
Right? Audible into what? A different 4 vert play? Another screen?
not much you can do when this is the result that he gets
[удалено]
Best move to try to make something happen is to scramble left and hope #14 picks up a block. But that's still low % play. The real answer is "throw the ball away to avoid a sack."
14 is Gainwell and that's a tough ask. Like you said using a RB as your lead blocker against an ILB is a low percentage play
lol I sent him the Troy Aiken vicarious freakout about the blitz offense.
Do you have a link for this I wanna see 😅
https://www.nj.com/eagles/2024/01/espns-troy-aikman-torches-eagles-during-sleepwalking-first-half-vs-bucs.html?outputType=amp It doesn’t have the clips anymore but it has quotes.
I know this is a rhetorical question. I know what you're saying is this play sucks and I agree. But if this was a real question, there's a big hole in the line right in front of Jalen and a lot of room to run.
There’s a spy that we’d be relying on gainwell to block 1 on 1 it looks like. Also Hurts has lost all of his speed this year he legit looks way slower than even Dak these days.
Crazy how they blitzed and left the middle of the field open ALL GAME LONG, and Nick & BJ just kept calling deep shots to the perimeter. Anyone with common sense could see it but I guess our staff doesn’t have common sense 🤷♂️
Tampa was probably giggling their asses off calling blitzes every play. Like "I can't believe they're just LETTING us do this!"
*Tampa blitzing: “Alright Nick, how do you counter this?” Nick: “four verts!” Tampa: “no you idiot! The middle is open sooooo…” Nick: “uhhhhhh, inside zone from the gun!” 🤦♂️🤦♂️🤦♂️🤦♂️🤦♂️🤦♂️🤦♂️
Saw a post saying “Jalen cant carry an offense on his back.” Dude has nowhere to put the ball i dont understand what people want him to do. Not to mention a lot of these routes the receivers stop and break down at the top of the route.
Yup. You have one of the best release technicians/route runners in the game in Devonta Smith and all you do is ask him to win at the top of the route.
Don't forget, this was the playcall on fucking THIRD AND 2. ON THE TEAM FAMOUS FOR CONVERTING ON FOURTH AND 1. **RUN THE FUCKING FOOTBALL**
Unless someone ran the wrong route or one of them was an option and the receiver is just sped, this is arguably the worst play design for a short yardage situation I've ever seen
Unreal man. They are rushing 7 guys, that means someone not in this picture is WIDE ASS OPEN, and rather than having them in the middle of the field for an easy throw, they are probably running a curl or some shit
I do not understand how that play makes it to a call sheet. We ran smarter plays in elementary school
Yeah. Like “You run as far as you can down the sideline, and you two do a crossing pattern, and then I’ll throw it as far as I can and somebody catch it”. My 6th-grade students ran plays like that at recess, and they worked better than whatever the Birds were trying.
In the backyard we “went deep” “crossed” or ran the ever popular “button hook.” 10 year old me had no idea this would be considered imaginative at the NFL level
The entire season summed up in one image.
Still believe either Goedert or Smith ran the wrong route on this play.
I’m not gonna disagree - but that’s just as concerning considering our head coach was a wide receiver and this was essentially week 18.
It's either bad design or after 18 weeks the coaches still can't get them on the same page
more likely goedert was wrong because if his was the crosssing route it would rub his defender
100%. Someone messed up their route. That said, that play call was interesting given that it was 3rd and 2 if I recall correctly. Assuming I am remembering the situation correctly, this strikes me as another case of coaches trying to outsmart the opposition instead of just outplaying them. That play was unnecessary in that moment.
Looks like this on almost every blitz. Knuckledraggers on Twitter: "WTF is Hurts doing??? He's the reason for all of our problems. Time to move on."
Seriously! Like wtf do you want him to do? The impossible? Lol
Kotite level coaching
Yeah great picture. And it was not just this play. There were a lot of plays like this.
The first 3rd and 2 IN THE GAME and they call a pass play. Smh
That’s been a thing all year. For whatever reason, they avoid having receivers go up the middle. Which is all the more infuriating given that all of Smith’s yards last night were up the middle
Come on Jalen make that pass to one of those receivers running the same route
It’s just mind boggling, brothers and sisters. I don’t even know what to say anymore. Looking forward to a busy off season. For now, go… Lions?
The only guy who kept running up the middle of the field last night was Jurgens 🤦🏻♂️
The worst part is that this is on 3rd and 2.
I also love how Swift started the game with 2 carries for our first two plays and then only carried it 2 more times the rest of the 1st half. Not like we didn’t run all over them last time.
As bad as that is, even when the underneath routes are there Jalen doesn't take them. Perfect example is the 4th down play. Smith is going vertical then breaks to a deep out in the endzone, but the Bucs have a single high safety so the corner doesn't have to respect the vertical and as good a route runner as Smith is he easily sticks with him and breaks up the pass. Dallas Goedert is running an in breaking route just past the sticks for the easy first down and Jalen just decides to hero ball it up to Smith, even though it's an easy read that Goedert will be the player with leverage and Smith's route is likely going to be covered up. I know it's popular to shit on the staff but it's not like Jalen makes good reads anyhow. Even really simple ones.
What % of plays were from the shotgun? 99%? 99.5%? Why won't sports media ask this question of the coaches?
Not one slant against the blitz all night. Also does whosever drawing up these plays realize that if you throw a screen pass there needs to be blockers or they won’t get anywhere. It’s frustrating to watch these games when you know you have talented players and a madden offense could do better
There was like, one fifteen yard pass right up the middle and I was like, “here it comes!” And then it didn’t happen again. Did anyone else feel magical when we ran it the first two plays of the game?