Well, last week I went mad at the Philadelphia Eagles’ offense. This week, I’m not as angry as you may expect. I try to judge with process over results, and I think the offense did make ‘some’ improvements in the pass game this week. I probably have low standards at this point, though. The run game, on the other hand… yikes.
On the other hand, this might be the most frustrating offensive film of the season because, for the first quarter, the Eagles actually looked like the offense we all thought they could be. The opening script was genuinely excellent. Once they were up 21–0, the offense completely stalled with seven straight failed drives and the familiar themes of poor run-game structure, protection breakdowns, penalties, awkward spacing, and confused identity returned. Ugh.
Offense
This opening touchdown is the best representation of how well the Eagles started. They finally stretched the Dallas Cowboys horizontally and created a simple picture here for Hurts. Hurts read the safety dropping immediately, pulled the trigger, and the ball was out nice and early. This is what the passing game should look like. They did a much better job isolating AJ Brown and using more 3×1 sets rather than living in 2×2 sets.
The run game is fundamentally broken. There is no rhythm, no sequencing, no identity, and certainly no cohesion up front. Barkley had nowhere to go from the first snap, with defenders consistently in the backfield before he even hit the line of scrimmage. He may have had a couple of plays he would want back, but he is categorically NOT the problem with the run game. The Cowboys’ five-man fronts were not some unpredictable surprise. After trading for Quinnen Williams, they showed these looks repeatedly against the Raiders but the Eagles looked completely unprepared for them. This was an offensive line getting physically dominated, and a run scheme that did nothing to help them. There are too many bad individual performances, but I still think the scheme is predictable, and it’s not helping them out.
Remember when we ran Duo against the Giants, and it worked really well? Now we’ve just stopped doing it?
The few times the Eagles injected designed quarterback runs into the game, the offense looked dangerous again. The QB draw out of empty remains one of the only consistently effective run plays they have, because it manufactures a numbers advantage and forces the defense into conflict. Hurts’ power on these plays is still elite, and this one again created a real spark. But this remains a situational tool rather than a core component of the offense, and the staff clearly remains reluctant to lean into it. It is the cleanest answer to fix the run game, but it also exposes Hurts to hits. Still, when your base run game is completely non-functional, it becomes harder and harder to justify not using it more. I maintain that I think Hurts needs to be a bigger part of this run game moving forward in the big games.
The early aggression in the passing game continued with this ball to DeVonta Smith. The deep shot Hurts missed a few snaps earlier didn’t discourage them, and the offense stayed vertical. They were far more aggressive than they were against the Lions. What a ridiculous catch. Smith won at the catch point like he always does with absurd body control.
This is the kind of design we’ve all been waiting for. The Eagles use alignment and angles to create easier blocks for their players (look how easy it is for Dallas Goedert to ‘pin’ here. But it also highlights the offensive inconsistency. They ran this once successfully and then never came back to it. The Eagles routinely find things that work and then disappear from them entirely. It is maddening. I mentioned Duo earlier, but remember when we played the Broncos and ran loads of RPOs? We’ve just stopped doing them, too. The offense is so random.
As the game progressed, the familiar issues kept reappearing. The Eagles continued asking linemen to win blocks they cannot win in this scheme. This is an impossible block for Cam Jurgens. He’s not playing well, but this is impossible. He’s never reaching Quinnen Williams here. This play is never going to work. The Eagles must audible out of this, but of course, they get to the line with barely any time left, so they rarely have time to get out of these bad looks. Almost every run looked like someone losing at the point of attack. This isn’t a Barkley problem; it’s a structural one. There are still way too many zone runs and not enough variety. Defenses have realised they are running Counter more often now and are adjusting. We adjust too late.
The passing game tightened once the Eagles went up 21–0. I’ll be honest, I don’t entirely blame the design of the offense here. They continued to call some downfield plays. However, Hurts’ early aggression and decisiveness softened. This play shows him hesitating just long enough for the window to close. I don’t think he suddenly got scared, but the offense as a whole clearly shifted to a “don’t mess this up” mindset rather than continuing to hunt for explosive plays. This comes from the top down. Despite not taking the shot, I think this could have been completed still if AJ Brown ran hard enough to clear the deep safety out. But the Eagles receivers don’t run clear-out routes hard. We’ve seen this all season long.
The second half was full of these almost-plays. This out to AJ Brown is a perfect example. When the offense is in rhythm, this is automatic. But at this point, nothing felt easy. The early rhythm and timing had evaporated, and the offense just couldn’t get going again.
The protection issues got worse as the game progressed. The Cowboys leaned into more simulated pressure, and the Eagles were late to adjust. The pocket shrank consistently, and Hurts found himself stuck between wanting to stay in structure and dropping his eyes because he felt the pressure. Landon Dickerson does not look healthy to me, and the interior leaks, combined with the right tackle instability, made it hard for Hurts to trust anything. The Cowboys’ pass rush was a big reason why they won this game.
The Eagles simply cannot run outside zone successfully from under center. Running it behind Fred Johnson is almost performance art at this point. He is bad in the run game. The coaches should know this. The Cowboys slanted right into it, Jurgens got blown backwards again (as he often does from under center runs), and Barkley had no chance. Nothing about the scheme helps the offensive line. There is no motion to widen defenders, no change in presentation, no new wrinkles every week. It is stale and predictable. It’s a bad combination of poor coaching and bad execution.
On another note, when you get to the defensive version of this article, watch the Cowboys’ tight ends in the run game. The difference is huge. The Eagles are really struggling to get anything from their tight ends in the run game.
Despite not being as mad about the pass game design as I was last week, some aspects were still very frustrating. This was standard for 3rd-and-long. No motion. No bunch. No leverage advantage. It’s easy to blame Hurts for not throwing someone open, but the concept simply isn’t stressing the coverage. Everything is one-on-one, static, and easily patterned by the defense.
The phantom pass interference call wiped out what little momentum the offense had, but it also reinforced this larger theme: this offense cannot survive setbacks. They commit too many penalties, they operate too close to the margins, and the structure isn’t robust enough to overcome issues. I’m not making excuses, but this offensive performance could have been a little different without a few bad penalties and the Saquon Barkley fumble. It wasn’t ‘all’ bad.
Once again, an effective play was wiped out by an illegal formation. This is the stuff that detail-oriented offenses do not do as often as this Eagles team does. Every game, the Eagles lose two or three valuable plays because of the basics. Whether it’s alignment, snap timing, spacing, or personnel usage, the details continue to undermine the offense. They don’t sweat the small stuff, and it shows every single week. I’ve been banging this drum all season long. It comes back to coaching, and it starts at the very top.
Protection completely collapsed on this rep, and Hurts never had a chance. The Cowboys’ pass rush won this matchup. This concept needed timing to work. The pass protection was an issue in this game.
This kind of play is why I enjoyed some elements of the pass game this week. We FINALLY saw a concept to defeat zone coverage! The flood concept the Eagles dialled up late was one of the best-designed calls of the game. And then Fred Johnson negated it with hands to the face. Ugh. The discipline issues were the most damaging part of the night. I can only say what I see, and I don’t think this performance was on Kevin Patullo as much as I am seeing online. I also disagree that the playcalling got really conservative at times. I think that’s more of a mindset than a play-calling issue. It goes higher than that…
And finally, the 3rd-and-2 after the two-minute warning. The play that effectively ended the game. I don’t really know where to go with this play. I think it’s a bad call that could work if Hurts reads it better. But there are so many reasons why it doesn’t work, it’s hard to point to one. The route concept didn’t marry Hurts’ drop perfectly. Jahan Dotson takes a while to break out because the cornerback has outside leverage. Hurts began on the correct side, as the pre-snap leverage dictated he should, and I think he could have stayed on the read and thrown the out to Dotson. However, I don’t fault Hurts for coming off it when he did, as the leverage suggests that this throw to Dotson would not be on. I think he feels the pressure, ever so slightly, too. I think Hurts is processing things quicker this year, but that can sometimes lead to issues. But once he eliminated that side, the play was dead. There was nothing left. No secondary option.
They could have called something that gave Hurts a chance to use his legs by booting him out or putting him in Empty for a QB draw. In a situation where they could not run the football, they had to throw, and they still didn’t build a concept that gave Hurts a chance to use his legs.
Final Thoughts
What this film ultimately shows is an offense with no true identity. They can look brilliant for stretches, but the structure is not stable enough to survive adversity. The run game is functionally non-existent. The offensive line is playing badly and losing one-on-ones. The passing concepts lack creativity and conflict. The penalties are crippling. And the staff repeatedly fails to adjust to what the defense is presenting. They basically admitted it this week with the 5-man front stuff!
There is still enough talent here to score points, to win games, and to look dangerous in spurts. But unless the offensive design, discipline, and run-game architecture improve dramatically, this unit will continue to collapse in the same predictable ways. I have said the same thing week 1. The Eagles HAVE to fix the run game. I think it starts with Hurts becoming a significant part of this run game, and the team looking in the mirror at what they are doing.
Thank you for reading! I’d love to hear your thoughts, so feel free to comment below and ask any questions. If you enjoyed this piece, you can find more of my work and podcast here. If you would like to support me further, please check out my Patreon here!
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