Although they exercised their Philadelphia birthright to put their lips together and blow after Jalen Hurts had thrown another sickly pass in the second quarter that would bring on Eagles punter Braden Mann, all was well with the fanbase late Sunday after the Eagles had somehow held on to a 22-16 victory over the Carolina Panthers.
So the win didn’t come as easily as expected, but still it came. That was kind of the message coach Nick Sirianni has wanted to put out there for anyone who wants to listen. And yes, that includes his players.
“When you lose, that will sit with you and you’re sick about that, so you have to balance that out with when you win,” Sirianni said Monday. “You empty the tank every single week to try to win a football game and when you win, there should be joy in that.”
Joy? The J-word? As in the whole Christmas bells ringing, sing to the sky kind of thing?
There wasn’t a whole lot of that in the Eagles locker room after the game, with several notable residents admitting luck had a lot to do with this ninth consecutive victory, and a couple of interview participants who happen to play the same position taking almost opposing points of view. Quietly, of course.
Receivers DeVonta Smith and especially A.J. Brown didn’t seem too satisfied with the lack of consistent connections with their quarterback that lowlighted a game in which the Eagles came oh, so close to losing to a 3-10 team.
Asked about the difficulty shown in synching up with Jalen Hurts on passing plays Sunday, Brown responded, “Incredibly tough.” And on the point in the game in which he threw his helmet into the bench with apparent frustration, he said that was prompted by “three-and-out.”
As in the usual Eagles offensive series to that point.
It was difficult to get more than three-word answers from Brown on Sunday, but hey, his larger point seemed clear. Hurts, whose interview had to take place behind a podium, got it.
“I think we did a bad job,” he said of his lack of hook-ups with his receivers. “That starts with me, how I execute, and ultimately, you yearn, and I yearn for better synchronization amongst that, for a more complementary style of ball, in a sense. You know, some things don’t get you until it gets you. And there’s definitely been some urgency there, trying to figure it out.”
Win or not, the difficulties between Hurts (14-for-21, 108 yards, 2 touchdowns) and his usual deep-ball receivers Brown (4 targets, 4 catches, 43 yards) and Smith (6 targets, 4 catches, 37 yards and 1 TD) was going to be the topic of Sirianni conversation, both in the post-game session Sunday and day-after Zoom review on Monday.
Sirianni certainly was prepared for that, since a video of his immediate post-game locker room speech was highlighted by a request to his players: “Do not be a prisoner of our expectations,” he fairly yelled. “Enjoy the journey … we need to enjoy this!”
After all, these are joyous occasions.
“I think there’s no secret that we weren’t up to our standard in that area yesterday, so it’s just going back to work,” Sirianni said of the lack of consistency in the passing game. “I love that the guys care and they care about how they perform, and they care about us meeting our standard. That just leads to us getting better. My only thought on that is, hey, we’re going to get to work on this, which we already did. And we’re going to watch the tape with them and make the corrections and be critical of ourselves as coaches and how we put them in better situations.”
While going over tape on Carolina coverages and how they might have impacted Hurts to not seeing open receivers downfield, Sirianni also prepared himself to defend the guy throwing footballs … or not throwing them enough.
“I think Jalen’s done a nice job over the course of the last two months of the season of playing really good football and going where he needs to go with the football; being accurate with the football, running our offense, getting us in and out of good plays,” Sirianni said. “So like, if we perceive this or that on a certain play, you just try to correct it and get better from it.
“I don’t think our offense in general, as far as our pass game, was up to standard yesterday. But make no mistake about it, we’ve won nine games in a row and Jalen Hurts is a big reason why we’ve won nine games in a row.”
While the passing game was stutter-stepping Sunday, the running game is going along like a well-oiled machine. Yet another brilliant performance by Saquon Barkley, rushing 20 times for 124 yards — a mind-blowing 6.2 yards-per-carry — enabling him to surpass both Wilbert Montgomery and LeSean McCoy to become the Eagles’ single-season franchise record holder for rushing yards after only 13 games.
Barkley now has 1,623 yards, 216 better than nearest NFL competitor Derrick Henry. He’s been great. But maybe with so many playcalls being shifted to the running game, has that had a deleterious effect on Jalen Hurts?
“No,” Sirianni said flatly.
OK, case closed, then.
• • •
While some fans might have lost some faith in kicker Jake Elliott, who missed another field goal attempt Sunday, from 52 yards, and also missed an extra point attempt that was rectified by a penalty on the play by the Panthers, Sirianni again expressed confidence in his kicker.
“He’s been a good player for a long time here. He’s made a lot of bigtime kicks,” Sirianni said. “The wind was a lot more than what you could tell from the stands. There were different types of wind there. But he’s made a lot of huge kicks here, recently and in the past. So confidence is very high with Jake because I know who he is and I’ve seen who he can be.”
• • •
By the way, the Eagles clinched a playoff spot on Sunday. Any joy there?
“When we found out we made the playoffs, that lasted a couple of seconds,” Sirianni said, “and then we said to ourselves, ‘Now it’s back to the Steelers.’ “
The 10-3 Pittsburghers pay a cross-commonwealth visit for a 4:25 Sunday start at Lincoln Financial Field.
“No one’s thinking about the playoffs, no one is thinking about anything, and all of our attention has to be on the Pittsburgh Steelers and that’s it,” Sirianni said.
Source: Berkshire mont
Be First to Comment