Gardner Minshew and the Eagles offense beat themselves with miscues in a loss to the Saints

A.J. Brown said he tried to get Gardner Minshew’s attention. The ball was going to be coming Brown’s way. It was a play the Eagles ran earlier in the game, and Minshew thought he had the same look.

But Marshon Lattimore knew what was coming, and Brown knew it. The New Orleans cornerback hadn’t played since October, but he was about to come back with a bang. Lattimore watched as Minshew took a shotgun snap on second-and-8 from his own 11-yard line, his team trailing by three with 5 minutes, 30 seconds remaining.

Lattimore’s eyes never left Minshew. Fewer than two seconds lapsed between the snap and Lattimore jumping Brown’s route and intercepting the football. He could’ve crawled into the end zone to give the Saints a two-score lead that sent fans to the exits at Lincoln Financial Field on Sunday.

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“He saw one look and stayed with that look,” Brown said of Minshew.

“They made a great adjustment to it and jumped the route,” Minshew said of the play.

The interception essentially put the game away, and was one of many miscues from Minshew and the Eagles offense in what was a miserable outing. The 10 points were the fewest the Eagles have scored all season and marked just the second time they finished a game by scoring fewer than 20.

The Eagles hadn’t been held to fewer than 18 first downs all season. They had 11 on Sunday.

“That’s a good, well-coached defense with good players,” Eagles coach Nick Sirianni said. “Obviously we didn’t put the players in good enough position to succeed and we didn’t execute good enough. It’s always going to be those two things.

“We didn’t have a rhythm.”

Especially not early. The Eagles went three-and-out on their first four possessions, just the fourth time they’ve done that since the 2005 season.

The Saints sacked Minshew on Philadelphia’s first two plays from scrimmage, two of the six times he was sacked on the day. While you could look at that number and attribute it to the Eagles being without star right tackle Lane Johnson, a few of the sacks were avoidable by Minshew, who made poor decisions in the pocket.

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On the second series, Minshew handed off to Miles Sanders on first down for a 4-yard gain, then Sanders ran on second down for 5 more yards. On third-and-1, Minshew was sacked by Cam Jordan, who was a tough assignment for reserve tackle Jack Driscoll, who was filling in for Johnson.

On the third series, with the Saints leading 10-0, after an incomplete pass on first down, Minshew was sacked for a loss of 6 yards, putting the Eagles in third-and-16. The fourth series went: incomplete, 7-yard pass, incomplete.

The Eagles dropped back to throw the ball 15 times and attempted just two running plays in the first half — against the 23rd-ranked run defense in the league.

When Sanders took handoffs and ran for 9 and 14 yards on consecutive plays to open the second half, Eagles fans playfully cheered.

Minshew said he took all the first-team reps this week at practice. He completed 18 of 32 passes for 274 yards to go with a touchdown and an interception. He said that he was comfortable with the early game plan and that the Eagles just “didn’t execute.”

“It didn’t really seem like much was working,” center Jason Kelce said. “I’m never going to criticize a play-caller or anything in terms of, ‘We should have done this or that.’ Because we were doing a pretty good job of screwing up everything there in the first half. We put ourselves in some bad situations regardless of what was called.”

Kelce was critical of his own play and said he missed a lot of assignments. While Minshew wasn’t great filling in for the second consecutive week for the injured Jalen Hurts, the offense — in particular the offensive line — also beat itself. At one point, the Eagles had three false starts on one drive, including one on Kelce, who was later penalized on an illegal man downfield flag on a play that would have had the offense at midfield trailing by only three early in the fourth quarter.

“With a new guy coming in at quarterback, I’m a constant piece and it’s kind of my job to make sure everybody is on the same page,” Kelce said. “I was complete horse [bleep] on that today.

“We haven’t had a lot of reps with Gardner, but we’re professionals and we should be able to handle it.”

The Eagles offense did show some life in the second half. Two hundred fifty of their 311 yards came in the final 30 minutes, including a 78-yard touchdown pass from Minshew to Brown.

But there were too many missed throws, missed blocking assignments, and one fatal miscommunication that helped the Saints spoil the Eagles’ chances of clinching the top seed in the NFC.