Nick Sirianni and Jalen Hurts tried to lose the Eagles’ opener — but Bill Belichick wouldn’t let them

It’s rare that two superb head coaches and one elite quarterback lay similar eggs in the same game, but these birds were of a feather on Sunday afternoon.

Nick Sirianni’s preseason fears, reckless use of his franchise QB, and a fourth-down failure came home to roost, largely in the form of Jalen Hurts’ poor play, in a win as ugly as the 25-20 score. Can they fix this by Thursday, when the Vikings visit?

Incredibly, on Sunday, “Riverboat” Bill Belichick saved them from themselves.

» READ MORE: Source: Eagles’ new starting LB Nakobe Dean expected to miss multiple weeks with a foot injury

First, to Hurts.

For a $255 million quarterback coming off an MVP runner-up season, he played badly. He played like a quarterback who hadn’t seen game action since February, because he hasn’t, because Sirianni wanted to protect his quarterback and his veterans, so he gave them no snaps in preseason games. Sirianni is not alone — every team should play its starters at least two series in two of the three preseason games, but few do — but coaching out of fear results in playing to not lose.

That’s what it looked like Hurts was doing Sunday.

He played slowly. He missed reads, threw poor passes, missed blitz cues, declined to force balls into right windows, and misread the field in front of him when he ran. Hurts finished with a quarterback rating of 36.4, which is his worst rating of any game in which he has been completely healthy — not injured during the game or coming back form injury — since his 10th NFL start, in 2021. Quarterback rating, unlike passer rating, attempts to factor in all facets of a QB’s game, and it better gauges the value of a running quarterback like Hurts.

This QBR was astonishing, but lay it at the feet of Sirianni more than Hurts. Sirianni did.

“I’ll definitely reevaluate some of the preseason stuff next year,” he said after the game. “If I had to do it over again right now, I would say, yeah, I would have played starters one or two drives in the preseason.”

Sirianni’s offense wasn’t exactly overhauled — he lost offensive coordinator Shane Steichen and promoted quarterbacks coach Brian Johnson to OC and replaced free agent guard Isaac Seumalo with second-year guard/center Cam Jurgens — but, for the second straight season, Sirianni relied on training-camp sessions with other teams to sharpen his skill players. For the second straight season, that failed. The Eagles won their 2022 opener in Detroit, 38-35, but Hurts’ passer rating in that game was 80.6. He had to run for 90 yards and continually throw the ball away, not unlike his performance Sunday, when he rated 89.2.

» READ MORE: Eagles are 1-0, but have some reason for concern after the offense struggled vs. the Patriots

There were other similarities.

Hurts threw to just once to Dallas Goedert, ranked the fourth-best receiving tight end last season by profootballfocus.com, and that was a throwaway. This recalled the DeVonta Smith debacle in that Detroit game last year, when Smith had zero catches on four targets.

Hurts had nothing to do with the absence of running back D’Andre Swift, who cost the Eagles a fourth-round pick but had just one carry. Sirianni swore those players won’t be ignored in the future. Johnson calls the plays, but everything filters through Sirianni, so ignoring them Sunday was all on him.

So was Hurts’ fourth-quarter fumble, to a degree. On first-and-10 at the Eagles’ 27, Hurts ran for the eighth time in the game. Eight yards later, Jabrill Peppers clobbered him head-on, and dislodged the ball. It was a designed run, and Hurts rarely fumbles, but these are the sorts of runs that $255 million quarterbacks should only make when absolutely necessary. Hurts injured his shoulder last season on a designed run that likely cost him the MVP. He’s had ankle surgeries each of the past two offseasons. Sirianni needs to handle him with care.

The defense held after the fumble, but that only served to set up Sirianni for another mistake. He tried to convert fourth-and-2 on the Patriots’ 44, with two minutes left and a 25-20 lead. He failed.

This decision put the game in peril, especially when cornerback James Bradberry was knocked out of the game with a concussion as the Pats drove 36 yards in about 90 seconds. But Bradberry’s replacement, Josh Jobe, pushed wide receiver Kayshon Boutte out of bounds at the Eagles’ 8-yard line before Boutte got his second foot down on a fourth-down pass with 29 seconds left, and that was that.

» READ MORE: Eagles LB Nakobe Dean expected to miss multiple weeks, CB James Bradberry enters concussion protocol

And that was that because Belichick is either delusional about his personnel or he can’t do math.

The Patriots trailed, 22-14, early in the fourth quarter, and faced fourth-and-3 at the Eagles’ 17 with more than nine minutes left. Instead of kicking a 34-yard field goal, they tried to convert. They failed. The numbers might have told Belichick his best chance to win was going for broke, but fourth-down analytics works only when you have a double-threat quarterback, an excellent offensive line, and at least one offensive weapon that requires a double-team. The Patriots have had none of that lately; they were fifth-worst in fourth-down conversions last season.

The game could have gone in many different directions had they made that short kick, but they also might have trailed, 25-23, in the game’s final seconds.

“Made the best decision we could at the time. Didn’t know we would be down there multiple times [with] six minutes to go in the game,” Belichick said, weakly, then bullied: “If we had kicked it, I’m sure you would be asking why didn’t we go for it.”

This, of course, is wrong. Just like Sirianni and Belichick were for most of the season opener.