Best of unCovering the Birds: Why the Eagles are not dead yet

The Eagles are back from London, looking to leave the disappointment of a last-second defeat behind while choosing instead to focus on lessons they can learn from a third straight loss. And you know what? The Inquirer’s Jeff McLane actually thinks there were encouraging takeaways from the game, outcome aside. He and Mike Sielski discussed why the Eagles’ sky, despite being gray, isn’t falling just yet, and what the team can build on to if it hopes to reverse its fortunes during a key stretch of the schedule that begins Sunday.

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Jeff McLane: I watch that game as I’m writing on deadline, and I’m like, OK, they could have won a game that everyone was predicting them to lose and and possibly lose by a landslide. So I was impressed by not only how the defense played, but the effort of the offense. At times there were good things that we saw on that side of the ball in terms of the play calling and the play design. I think that it’s fair to kind of look at the positives and some of the things that the Eagles can build off here, moving forward, because look, they’re not out of this thing by any stretch.

I know there’s an argument out there that they should just kind of start packing it in, tank it, and start trading assets before the trade deadline. That’s not gonna happen. And I don’t think it should happen. You just can’t run a football team that way, at least at this point in the season.

» READ MORE: Nick Sirianni’s anemic Eagles offense is a bigger problem than his game management

So Mike, you weren’t there in London, but you probably got a better vantage point although I did have a pretty good press box seat for what was a very loud game in that Tottenham Hotspur Stadium, that is so beautiful. But what was your vantage point from kind of like the 10,000-mile view?

Mike Sielski: My feeling heading into these couple of games — and by the couple of games, I mean two weeks ago against the Rams and then the other day against the Jaguars and even heading into the next couple of weeks at home against the Carolina Panthers and the Dallas Cowboys — was I was going to judge the team as a whole and Nick Sirianni in particular, not necessarily by whether they won or lost these games, but by how they played.

Were they still together? Were they still playing hard for Nick? We’ve seen in the past — I’m thinking primarily of the 2023 season — where you get a lopsided loss like they had against the Bears and it snowballs, and all of a sudden they’re getting blown out in one game after another, or they are burping up games at the end after being in control the entire way.

And if you want to be encouraged and be encouraging and evaluating the Eagles, I think you can look at the Rams game and the Jaguars game and say, even though they were shorthanded, even though there are obvious problems schematically with the offense, the Eagles showed up and played for Nick Sirianni in each of those games. Now, the question going forward, I think, is does the way that each of those games ended affect how they handle themselves against the Panthers and the Cowboys?

McLane: You’ve been around long, I’ve been around long —which speaks probably more to our age than maybe any wisdom — but we’ve seen teams that have gone the other way when they’ve had these tough losses, or they’ve gone the other way, which is like to collapse and then start losing by a larger margin. So that’s, I think, the real thing that that Nick has to be wary of.

Moving forward and as you mentioned, the relationships that he builds within the room, I think him standing up there on the on the podium and taking full accountability [has meaning]. Now look, again, he does that all the time as a head coach, but in that moment, that one specific play, [taking blame for] choosing to kick off there to the Jaguars was as much about the locker room as it was about the fans or the outside criticism or even the media.

I think he felt in that moment he had to take the full brunt because quite frankly, I thought it was kind of almost like a 50-50 call there on whether he should have kicked off or not.

Sielski: You mentioned at the start of our conversation how long both you and I have been around. I can remember a 2003 Eagles season where they were 2-3 and Donovan McNabb was playing terribly and they ripped off nine straight victories. I can remember a 2006 Eagles season where they were 5-6 and McNabb was injured and they got blown out in a night game in Indianapolis against Peyton Manning and the Colts, and all looked lost. They were 5-6 and they ripped off six straight wins and came within a hair’s breadth of the NFC Championship game.

You look at Nick Sirianni’s first season. They were 2-5 and they shifted their offense and they rip off a long winning streak and they get to the playoffs, and nobody expects them to be a playoff team.

» READ MORE: Nick Sirianni and Rick Tocchet share the same coaching strength. It might be hurting the Eagles and Flyers.

The NFL season is 17 games now. They are in what is probably the worst division in the NFL. All four NFC East teams played this week. Two of them played each other and none of them won. That’s really hard to do.

So this season is not over by a long shot. And I agree with you. Nobody should be talking about breaking this thing down and building it back up. You can’t get into the habit where you’re all or nothing, where if you’re not competing for a Super Bowl, then you just give up. The guys in the locker room won’t go for that. They just won’t. And so, yeah, they’re 2-3, but they’re not dead yet.

Listen to the latest episode

The Eagles are back from London, looking to leave the disappointment of a last-second defeat behind while choosing instead to focus on lessons they can learn from a third straight loss. And you know what? The Inquirer’s Jeff McLane actually thinks there were encouraging takeaways from the game, outcome aside. He and Mike Sielski discussed why the Eagles’ sky, despite being gray, isn’t falling just yet, and what the team can build on to if it hopes to reverse its fortunes during a key stretch of the schedule that begins Sunday.  Listen here.

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