Forget it: The Eagles and their defense aren’t good enough

No one could blame Jonathan Gannon for doing nothing but snickering as he stood along the visiting sideline Sunday at Lincoln Financial Field. For a guy who left Philadelphia bearing the blame for the Eagles’ loss in Super Bowl LVII, for staying a step behind Andy Reid throughout the second half of that heartbreaker in the Glendale desert back in February, Gannon can gloat all he wants now. Hell, it’s difficult to dispute, based on that 35-31 monstrosity, that he’s a comparative genius compared to the two men who have succeeded him as the Eagles’ defensive coordinator.

Yes, Gannon and the Arizona Cardinals delivered the definite proof that the Eagles — not the 2022 team that dominated the NFC, but the 2023 version — aren’t good enough to get where they want to go, where people once thought they were capable of going. Everything about the Eagles gets graded on the flattest of curves. This is a team that aspires and is expected to compete for a championship — not a division championship, not even a conference championship, but the whole freaking Super schmear. And Sunday showed that standard is too high for this team to meet.

If you wish, call out Nick Sirianni, Brian Johnson, and that puzzling play-game play-calling. (Two quarterback runs on first-and-20 from the Cardinals’ 30-yard line?) It was bad. There was so much that was bad here Sunday. But nothing was worse than the Eagles defense. Nothing was more disheartening than to see the Cardinals — the 4-12 Cardinals, who entered the game ranked 29th in the NFL in pass offense — do whatever they wanted against a defense that is just as porous under Matt Patricia as it was under Sean Desai. It would be just as helpless under Gannon if he were still here or under the ghosts of Buddy Ryan and Jim Johnson if someone managed to conduct the mother of all séances.

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“It’s frustrating,” cornerback James Bradberry said. “We knew at the end of the day, before they made a coaching change, it was on us as players. We’ve got to go out there and make a difference. We’ve got to figure this out.”

What hope is there now that this team, with this defense, can win three times in the NFC half of the playoff bracket to qualify to play at Allegiant Stadium in Las Vegas on Feb. 11? The pass rush has vanished. The linebackers leave the middle of the field vacant. The secondary, no matter who is back there — Bradberry, Kelee Ringo, Reed Blankenship, Kevin Byard, it really does not matter — can’t defend a passing attack with even a modicum of varsity and versatility. This defense against Matthew Stafford? Against Jared Goff? Against Dak Prescott? Against Kyle Shanahan’s brain and that 49ers offense?

“We’ve just got to make it through this little storm right now,” defensive end Brandon Graham said. “But we believe in us. At the end of the day, I know we’re going to get it right. I feel so good we’re going to go out next week, take care of our business, and it’s zero-zero at that point.”

Look, no one is more optimistic and buoyant than Graham. But his words, as if he were trying to will the Eagles into a respectable performance next week against the New York Giants and the following week in the wild-card round, felt empty. Forget it, BG. Forget it. The evidence is there for everyone to see: four losses in five weeks, three games in which the defense has allowed more than 30 points, two leads surrendered, and two games lost in the final minute of regulation. Believing in this defense now requires the kind of faith that only a fundamentalist can muster.

You want the ultimate irony? The Eagles gave up more yards to Arizona on Sunday (449) than they did to Reid, Patrick Mahomes, and the Chiefs in Super Bowl LVII (340). The only instance — hell, pretty much the only play — where one could say that the Eagles stopped Kyler Murray & Co. on Sunday was when the Cardinals stopped themselves. Murray and wideout Michael Wilson miscommunicated on a pass route. Wilson went one way, and Murray threw the other … into the arms of Eagles safety Sydney Brown, who zoomed 99 yards for one of the longest interception-return touchdowns in franchise history.

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That was it. That was all. Good luck finding anything else competent that the Eagles did on defense. The Cardinals never punted. They rushed for 221 yards. Their time of possession was nearly 40 minutes, but it might as well have been ∞. James Conner and Michael Carter ran so easily and broke so many tackles and the Eagles offered so little resistance that even a 15-point halftime lead wasn’t safe. The only merciful aspect was that Arizona ate so much of the clock that the game lasted less than three hours — all the better for Eagles fans to escape the stadium complex, get to their New Year’s Eve get-togethers, and start pouring drinks. They would need them after this one.