The Eagles left the field out west stunned and then deflated.
Jalen Hurts had just thrown a game-sealing interception. They had every chance to win, up until the very end, but they just could never help themselves as they continued to plummet into three straight losses, with the latest all under the prime time spotlight of Monday Night Football.
Now, which Monday night game am I talking about? Week 15 of 2023, when the Eagles crumbled down the stretch in Seattle, or Week 14 of 2025, when the Philly offense turned in a total mess of an effort in a 22-19 overtime loss to the Chargers out in LA?
That’s where the season is at now after Monday night. It’s no longer a fear of falling into a 2023-level spiral, the Philadelphia Eagles are well within it again, and it could very well be too late to stop it.
They had 10 days of down time to try and find some kind of solution to their offensive woes following the Black Friday embarrassment to the Bears. There was an ESPN report that head coach Nick Sirianni had gotten more involved in the offensive preparations, running back Saquon Barkley said the spirits in the locker room this past week were good and that there was optimism from the players that they could still fix this, and, if it helped, there was a giant inflatable Easter Bunny in the middle of the NovaCare Complex floor to brighten up the locker room.
But all that talk, remaining bullishness, and probably that bunny, went out the window after scoring just nine points through three quarters, after getting woefully out-possessed again (38:05-29:26), and after Hurts rushed the game-ending throw for his fourth pick of the night, when the Eagles were knocking on the door of at least getting a field goal to keep themselves alive in OT.
This is where the Eagles are at, and it’s bad.
Kirby Lee/Imagn Images
The moment the Eagles lost Monday night in overtime.
Is the season still manageable at 8-5, and with a relatively soft final stretch of the schedule? Sure, but that’s only looking surface level at a favorable record and the strength of upcoming opponents in isolation.
Paired with how ineffective the Eagles have been playing for going on this past month, it’s an entirely different story.
They should beat a miserable Raiders team back at home at Lincoln Financial Field next week. But the 2023 team should’ve beaten the miserable Arizona Cardinals at home late into that season and didn’t.
We’ve seen this act before. There are no more guarantees…
Maybe except for that they’re not going to fix this.
A couple of other thoughts on the Eagles…
He should make those catches
A.J. Brown made six catches for 100 yards Monday night, but they were empty.
Hurts threw a deep ball up for him on the very first play of the game, but it went off his fingertips.
The quarterback later went looking for Brown over the middle in the fourth quarter, but a high throw instead went off the receiver’s hands and into the grasp of LA cornerback Cam Hart for what became Hurts’ third pick of the night.
Taking another shot to the end zone late for the go-ahead score, Brown, with Hart covering him, couldn’t fight through the contact and let another ball slip through his fingers.
Then in overtime, Hurts put up one more deep ball for Brown, but couldn’t break away from his man or power through to make what would’ve been a tough one-handed catch either way.
All four instances were odd, and just as much concerning because the A.J. Brown of 2022, 2023, and 2024 makes those catches.
The A.J. Brown of 2025, though, couldn’t and quietly hasn’t been to the same effect this season.
In the case of Monday night, he wasn’t getting that one step of separation he needed, nor was he using his strength to body defensive backs away from the ball as consistently as he previously has.
And even though he did still have a good stat line on paper, Brown knew; it was empty.
“Jalen trusts me, any situation,” Brown lamented postgame. “I made some plays, but I wasn’t great when it mattered.”
“I pride myself on making those tough catches,” he continued. “Even the one in overtime that went out of bounds and I tried to get the one hand on it, I’m more than capable of making all those catches. I pride myself on that…but, you know, back to the drawing board.”
With a marker that dried out, it feels like.
A real question of culture
Sirianni loves to tout the strength of the Eagles’ culture inside the building.
But that culture right now has the team on track to slingshot back and forth between two extremes in the past four years.
In 2022, everything worked and the Eagles went to the Super Bowl. In 2023, they fumbled their way to a 10-1 start and convinced themselves and everyone else that it was because they just knew how to win, then it all crumbled underneath them.
In 2024, they had a strong offseason, sleepwalked for a bit, but then found their footing and never looked back on the way to winning it all.
Now 2025, after three straight losses at a similar point in the schedule as two years ago, looks headed toward another spiral, and all after they lucked their way into another great start from “just knowing how to win” and the promise that they’ll figure out their problems.
But Week 14 is over. They haven’t, and everything is on fire.
As far as coaching goes, Sirianni is the one constant through all of it, for good and bad. The good he has achieved is incredible, and he should get his credit for it. But the bad, there is a trend there, and the scrutiny for it does fall at his feet.
After both Super Bowl runs, the offensive coordinator – Shane Steichen after 2022 and Kellen Moore after 2024 – left for head coaching jobs.
The replacements were internal, with Brian Johnson getting promoted in 2023 and Kevin Patullo for 2025, but the offense went backwards and horribly oversimplified in each of their respective seasons, showing both to be unprepared for a crucial job in a win-now window.
So basically, we’re seeing that when the Eagles don’t have a competent offensive coordinator, they can only get by for so long, through a mix of luck, talent, and right now, a strong defense that’s just been left hung out to dry for too long to salvage anything anymore.
What does that say about the Eagles’ culture?
Gary A. Vasquez/Imagn Images
Nick Sirianni has led two Super Bowl runs, but now might be on the path to overseeing two late-season meltdowns.
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