Bolts From The Blue
This week we are joined by Brandon Lee Gowton of our Eagles sister site, Bleeding Green Nation, to help us preview this week’s primetime matchup.
BLG is one of the best in the business so it’s always a pleasure to gather some insight from him into the team he knows best. This is a pretty pivotal game for both teams (for their own respective reasons) and I’m sure both sides will be watching this game on the edge of their seats.
Will the Eagles find a way to bounce back after two consecutive losses? Can the Chargers continue their positive momentum coming out of their bye? Let’s go ahead and jump in to see how BLG foresees this game playing out!
1.) The Eagles are 8-4 but are somehow falling short of the lofty standard they’ve set for themselves in recent years. The offense ranks 24th while the defense is below them at 25th out of 32 teams. I guess to put it simply: What gives?
There’s no good reason for the offense to be THIS bad. It’s the most expensive (cash spending) offense in the NFL by a significant margin; the difference between the Eagles and second place is the difference between second and seventh.
Kevin Patullo is facing a lot of heat as the new play-caller this season. The Eagles offensive coordinator certainly seems to be part of the problem but he’s hardly the only issue. Jalen Hurts has been uneven. The offensive line hasn’t been able to create room for Saquon Barkley. A.J. Brown has been more productive recently but it’s obviously been a really weird season for him. Nick Sirianni isn’t providing any answers.
The defense deserves more grace. They’re the youngest and most inexpensive defense in the NFL. And they’ve carried their weight much more often this season; just look at when they allowed two total touchdowns during the span of back-to-back wins over the Green Bay Packers and Detroit Lions.
They’re hardly above criticism; the run defense was obviously really bad against the Bears. But they also had to play 87 (!) snaps in Week 13. Part of that is their fault; they need to get more stops and get off the field. But a big part of it is the fact that the offense leads the league in three-and-outs and can’t stay on the field to give them rest.
Some of the Eagles’ struggles can be attributed to the toll that last year’s Super Bowl season took. It’s not easy to repeat. But while some things are out of their hands, they could still be doing a better job of addressing the things that are in their control.
**2.) Saquon Barkley and the offensive line performance on the ground has regressed quite a bit this year. Jalen Hurts is still scoring plenty of rushing touchdowns but Barkley is far off his pace for rush yards compared to a year ago. Is there anything going on with that unit that casual fans may not...
