PHILADELPHIA (KYW Newsradio) — The Eagles couldn't shock the world Thursday night at Lincoqqqqln Financial Field. They must come to terms Friday morning with another loss — 28-22 against the Buccaneers — and another win for Tom Brady against the Eagles.
The Bucs' offense had their way with the Eagles' defense in the first half on Thursday night, while the Birds' offense looked inept throughout.
Nick Sirianni's play-cwqqqqqalling resulted in a lot of questions. The simplest among them: Does his coaching staff know what it's doing?
Sirianni reiterated he's got to do better getting guys in position to make plays and "there are some things that really stalled drives. It's sacks, it's negative place, … it's penalties, right? It's dropped passes, which we had a couple of those tonight."
WIP's Ray Didinger said, "At the moment, I have my doubts,. You know, I'm not in the meetings. So it's hard for me to say, but I see what they lay on the field during the games. And it's head-scratching."
He described a telling moment in the studio.
"I mean, we were watching the game last night in the studio. Seth Joyner was right next to me. And at one point, he turned to me and he said, You know, this is like this, like a high school offense. And it was exactly what I was thinking.
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"You don't even have to be a genius as a defensive coordinator to stop this [Eagles] offense," Joyner said. "This is a high school offense that they're running against some of the best defensive coordinators that the NFL has to offer.," the former Eagles linebacker said on NBC Sports Philadelphia
Tampa sported the best run defense in the league coming into the game, but running back Miles Sanders — presumably one of the team's better playmakers — had only one carry in the first half. Sanders got going later in the game, but Sirianni has not found a way to use his talented running back more this season.
"Again," Sirianni reiterated something he has said before, "some of them are [run-pass options decided by the quarterback], we look at screens as being able to get the running backs the ball as running back plays as well. Again, just the way the flow was going [vs the Bucs] ... We were bad in the first half and I put that on me first."
What can Jalen Hurts do better these last two weeks?
"We need to hone in on being able to make some throws in the pocket first and then be able to escape [and scramble]," Sirianni said. "So, we're always gonna be talking about that with Jalen because that's where he's really good at being able to escape and make plays like he did again today ... But, again, we're always gonna be thinking about how do we get him to be the passer first and then the secondary part of it to be the runner."
Sirianni explained Hurts is making good decisions with the RPO plays, and indicated he wouldn't feel comfortable calling them if Hurts constantly made bad choices with the ball.
Hurts was asked if he would characterize what's happening with the Eagles offense now as growing pains.
"You could," he said. " don't want to make excuses for anything. I know I hold myself to a high standard of play and I'm trying to go out there and play at a high level for the guys around me."
Hurts was asked if there's anything he can do to get Sanders the ball more. Maybe Hurts can help that by giving him the ball more on run-pass option plays, better known as "RPO's.""Yeah, for sure. Big time player for us and it's kinda going the way it's going. It's kinda going the way it's going. "
The Eagles next play the Raiders on Sunday.
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