Eagles appear to be falling apart after home collapse to Cardinals

PHILADELPHIA — In their most confounding collapse of the season yet, there is an overwhelming sense that the Philadelphia Eagles are falling apart. They’re a team that has experienced both extremities of momentum. Their 10-1 start helped clinch a playoff spot. Their 1-4 slump in December indicates their postseason will not last long.

The Eagles once played confidently. They once seemed unbeatable. No deficit seemed insurmountable. They trailed at halftime in four straight games, and they generated four straight comebacks that were each more dramatic than the first. But confidence was already wavering behind the scenes. Consistent defensive mistakes led to a jarring structural switch in which coach Nick Sirianni demoted defensive coordinator Sean Desai and handed command to senior defensive assistant Matt Patricia.

Any belief that such a move could’ve been the tweak that saved Philadelphia’s season is now complicated by the team’s most dismal defensive outing of 2023. The Arizona Cardinals, who entered the weekend with the NFL’s second-worst record, embarrassed the Eagles, who were 10 1/2-point favorites, in a 35-31 upset in which Philadelphia surrendered a season-high 221 rushing yards at 5.5 yards per carry. Cardinals coach Jonathan Gannon’s manhandling of the game’s time of possession (39:39 to 20:21) forced his old boss, Sirianni, to maximize offensive possessions with a unit that’s been consistently dysfunctional.

At first, this was no issue for the Eagles, who seized a 21-6 halftime lead. But their initial dominance was only an illusion that was aided by Cardinals mistakes befitting a 12-loss team. Arizona, which averaged 4.7 yards per play in the first half, limited itself to a field goal on its opening drive after quarterback Kyler Murray recovered a sack-fumble on first-and-goal at the 3. Then, after driving to the Eagles’ 20 on the next drive, Murray’s receiver ran one direction, Murray threw in another and Eagles safety Sydney Brown easily intercepted the errant pass and returned it 99 yards for a touchdown, the longest pick six by a rookie in franchise history.

99 YARDS TO THE CRIB @Sydbrown___ !! pic.twitter.com/qMP0nvrSZ5

— Philadelphia Eagles (@Eagles) December 31, 2023

At last, the Eagles appeared they were heading toward the blowout victory they’ve insisted they’re capable of. They limited the Cardinals to a field goal on the following possession. Then, with just 1:50 left before halftime, Jalen Hurts mounted a nine-play, 75-yard scoring drive in which Sirianni appropriately spent his three timeouts to give Hurts enough time to hurl a 22-yard touchdown to Julio Jones.

This was yet another elusive moment in which the Eagles appeared to be the kind of team that was still in the running for the NFC’s No. 1 seed, an NFC East leader that was fittingly outplaying a Cardinals defense that entered the weekend surrendering the league’s second-most yards per drive (34.2). A New Year’s Eve crowd of 69,879 at Lincoln Financial Field also appeared it would have the second-half security their home team denied them after nearly squandering a 20-3 halftime lead on Christmas Day against the New York Giants.

“If we play the football we know we can play, we’re going to win every single game,” Brown said. “I think it’s just a matter of every man doing his job to the best of his ability, being the best version of yourself. If everybody’s the best version of yourself, we’re going to beat the s— out of teams.”

That, too, has become a sentiment that has been oft-repeated by coaches and players in the NovaCare Complex, although their on-field product hasn’t yet offered much evidence that it can be true. A spotty Eagles offense, which remains fifth in the NFL in expected points added per drive (0.39), stumbled again on Sunday in a critical fourth-quarter drive that yielded a field goal instead of a touchdown. But the alternative would have only compensated for yet another disastrous defensive performance in which the Cardinals scored touchdowns on each of their second-half drives, a catastrophe that takes root in a coaching staff whose game plans have been consistently untenable no matter who organizes them.

Patricia, like Desai, did not lack creativity against the Cardinals. He also did not lack personnel. Eagles nickel corner Avonte Maddox, whose Week 2 injury was the source of the secondary’s problems in the slot, returned to the lineup on Sunday in place of Bradley Roby, a healthy scratch. Maddox and Brown cycled at nickel in various defensive looks, and Patricia often featured Maddox in the six-defensive back “Dime” packages he deployed in third-down scenarios.

Yet Murray was 25-of-31 passing for 232 yards, three touchdowns and his pick six, and the 2019 No. 1 pick converted on 4-of-8 third-down situations in which the Eagles were in their Dime package. Murray also tied the game at 28 with 5:26 left in the game by converting a fourth-and-4 in which he fired a 5-yard score to Michael Wilson in coverage against rookie cornerback Kelee Ringo.

.@K1 ➡️ @mikewilllyy TD 🤌

📺: #AZvsPHI on Fox pic.twitter.com/KAT5x1WSvT

— Arizona Cardinals (@AZCardinals) December 31, 2023

Patricia substituted Eli Ricks, an undrafted rookie, for Ringo to protect a 31-28 lead on Arizona’s final offensive drive. But Murray was 3-for-3 for 58 yards, including a 36-yard pass to Greg Dortch, who broke through a Ricks tackle attempt to reach the Eagles’ 5. Two plays later, James Conner scored the go-ahead touchdown on a 2-yard run with 32 seconds remaining.

“If you don’t stop the run in December football, you’re not going to be able to win,” safety Kevin Byard said.

The Eagles, who entered the weekend with the NFL’s eighth-ranked rushing defense, had previously surrendered a season-high 173 yards in a Week 12 overtime win over the Buffalo Bills. They’d last surrendered more than 200 rushing yards in a regular-season game on Oct. 16, 2016, a 27-20 loss at Washington. It is a particularly humiliating performance considering the resources general manager Howie Roseman has invested in the defensive line, which features four first-round draft picks.

Patricia’s attempts to leverage their wealth of talent along the defensive front flopped. He came out in two separate defensive looks that featured five defensive linemen or edge rushers. One included two linebackers and four defensive backs when the Cardinals were in more run-heavy offensive packages. The other featured one linebacker and five defensive backs when Arizona’s offense presented its more balanced looks. The Cardinals averaged at least 5.6 yards per rush against both defensive deployments.

Patricia’s heavier defensive fronts have required edge rushers Haason Reddick, Nolan Smith and Brandon Graham to sometimes play off the ball. Patricia said last week he favors the option because it slows an opposing offense’s “process down a little bit,” and the Eagles can “catch them in a bad mismatch.” But Conner, who rushed for 128 yards and a touchdown on 26 carries, gained 10 yards against a first-quarter look in which Reddick played off the ball. Two plays later, Murray scrambled for a 6-yard gain against the same look.

The Eagles’ defense also found itself in a mismatch when deploying edge rushers as off-the-ball linebackers. On the first drive of the second half, on second-and-goal at the Eagles’ 6, Patricia used Smith as an off-ball linebacker. Still, Murray lobbed a 6-yard touchdown to running back Michael Carter, who snagged the score one-handed while being covered by linebacker Nicholas Morrow.

“You gain confidence when you play good football,” Byard said. “And obviously we didn’t play clean enough today.”

That the Cardinals scored a season-high 35 points against the Eagles doesn’t offer much confidence considering Sirianni has already executed the most drastic defensive coaching change he could make. No other defensive coaches have NFL coordinating experience, and only linebackers coach D.J. Eliot, a three-time college defensive coordinator, and assistant defensive backs coach Taver Johnson, Temple’s defensive coordinator in 2017, have experience as coordinators at the college level.

Said Sirianni: “I still believe in the coaches,” although he made the same public statement before demoting Desai. The third-year head coach knows he must keep the team he helped make a perennial playoff contender from unraveling. Losing to Gannon, his former defensive coordinator, was an additional embarrassment considering the Cardinals hadn’t yet scored 30 points on anyone in 2023.

Sirianni acknowledged that “we don’t have much time, obviously,” with only the Giants separating the regular season from an NFC wild-card round the Eagles now know they can no longer avoid. The San Francisco 49ers clinched the No. 1 seed, and the Dallas Cowboys can now clinch the NFC East title by beating the Commanders in the regular-season finale.

The standings now reflect how the Eagles have been playing for nearly a month. They are no longer the NFC’s best team. Barring the Eagles seizing the turnaround that has so far eluded them, it may force Sirianni to make further changes in his coaching staff in the offseason to ensure they can reach the potential they believe they haven’t yet realized.

“Our goals are ahead of us,” Sirianni said. “We’ve got to get things fixed, and we’ve got to get things fixed fast. We’re not where we want to be as far as how we’re playing right now, and how we’re coaching right now. But we’ve got time to get it fixed.”

(Photo: Bill Streicher / USA Today)