Another game, another tough loss.

It's definitely getting old to keep writing effectively the same article on repeat ("offense not consistent", "offense one dimensional", "turnovers tell the tale", etc), but here we are. This article comes in a few days late again as the game ended so late and I wanted to think about it a bit. Here are a few thoughts in no particular order:

Jalen has an awful game. I'm not going to be too awfully hard on QB1 as several of his career high five turnovers weren't fully his fault (two tipped passes got picked and his fumble came on that wild three turnover play in which no one on either team knew which end was up), but that still leaves two earned turnovers (too high no matter what) and an ongoing trend of putting the ball in harm's way. Jalen did have several passes dropped (he was only scored with two but I think it was much more), but in fairness had a couple more INTs dropped as well. It has been correctly pointed out in multiple places that the Eagles seemed determined to show that they can be a passing team; on this particular night, they were wrong.

Herbert wasn't much better, in no small part due to the Bird's defense. I'll give Herbert a pass for having a broken finger and for missing his two starting OTs, but that was still a rough outing, caused in no small part by the Eagles' relentless defense. Herbert outperformed Jalen by only nominal margins in passer rating (59.6-31.2), ANY/A (2.45-1.24) and ESPN's QBR (33.0-27.3). It's not out of the real of reason to suggest that Monday night's game represented two good QBs with banged up OLs playing against two really good defenses.

Sorry for the cliche, but turnovers once again tell the tale. Philly lost the turnover battle, as we know. In Eagles games this season, the team that has won the TO battle is 9-0 (four games in which it was tied).

Trend of ugly, nail biting games continues. I think it's fair to say that the Birds could have won or lost all five of the games that they've played since the bye, which points to their 2-3 record since that time as being pretty representative. All told, I think ten of Philly's 13 games fit the toss up descriptor in different ways (all but the two NYG games and that Vikings game) and the Eagles are 6-4 on those ten games.

And now, some perspective. Philly at 8-5 feels like a failure, but if you had made predictions three months ago you'd likely have struggled to justify a record better than maybe 9-4 at this point in the season. The Eagles have faced a difficult schedule, by any reasonable measure. Throw this same team into a schedule like New England's (a schedule that I will charitably describe as "historically easy"), and this might be a 12-1 team. I'm dead serious, no exaggeration. Their magic number to break the curse of the defending NFC East champion is three, and Philly has three remaining games combined against bad teams that have given up (Raiders and Commanders).