Eagles run out of gas, finally lose a tight one.

It was bound to happen eventually. After living on the ragged edge all year long, a shorthanded Eagles team collapsed in the fourth quarter for the first time in a long time. I have just a few thoughts on the game itself before we head to the big picture:

• Too many missed opportunities today. Philly had wide open receivers running free for would-be touchdowns and missed them more often than not. It's hard to be too critical of Jalen, who hit a few of those plays too but you can't forget about those missed scores.

• Philly was outgained for the fifth straight game. Winning today would have set the NFL record for consecutive wins while being outgained, so in one sense this was luck finally turning against them.

• Notable Eagles who missed the game or had to leave: Nolan Smith, Grant Calcaterra, Landon Dickerson, Nakobe Dean.

• No big picture complaints about officiating as Philly has gotten more calls than not so far this year, but the Birds were on the wrong end of every questionable call this entire game. Just a few off the top of my head: Bo Nix's overturned fumble, Jahan Dotson's overturned catch, the missed roughing call on a late hit out of bounds by Denver, the tacky illegal motion that killed a Philly drive, the dicey and unexplained pickup of a grounding call against Nix, the tacky late hit call against Baun that extended Denver's last drive, the ref swallowing his whistle as the defender arrived early on Goedert on the game's penultimate play. Again, Philly should not whine too much about the refs considering some of the other things that have gone the Birds way so far this season (and considering that Denver did play well enough to win, see bullet 2 above), but these items needed to get on the record.

• On the plus side, Philly's pass game looked as healthy today as it has all season. Jalen threw for 280, two scores and no picks and a passer rating of over 100. In some ways that gives more hope for the future than even a win would have.

Big picture now: Philly is still 4-1 and has achieved that record while playing maybe the league's toughest schedule. As of now, all five Eagles opponents have a .500+ record, are squarely in the playoff chase and have a 10-5-1 record in non-Eagles games (Tampa and KC still to play as of this writing). That's about what we expected at the start of the season. If you had put a gun on my head and made me pick the most likely record after five games, I'd have probably said 3-2, so we're actually ahead of schedule from that perspective. Up next, two games against the awful Giants in three games, giving the Birds a great shot at getting right before the bye. Keep your heads up, Eagles fans!