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In Week 14, the Philadelphia Eagles defeated the Carolina Panthers 22-16.
Saquon Barkley hit his number to remain in the running for Erik Dickerson's record, the defense made Carolina one-dimensional, and in the end, when the team needed them most, Philly's playmakers stood up and secured the win, keeping the win streak alive while guaranteeing a playoff spot one way or another.
And yet, if you actually watch the game, you know the stats don't tell the full story, as the Eagles played down to their competition like they so often do and could have been embarrassed at home by one of the worst teams in the NFL with a Philly-born starting quarterback no less.
Are the Eagles about to fall apart like in 2023, losing to the Pittsburgh Steelers in Week 15 on the way to a brutal end to the season? No, while they could lose to the Steelers, they are much closer to their last Super Bowl team than their 2023 effort in terms of talent and effectiveness. Still, that doesn't mean the team doesn't have some areas of concern heading into the final stretch of the season, much of which comes down to their inability to get much going through the air.
1. The passing offense is downright boring
Despite securing a win in Week 14, you would think Jalen Hurts threw four pick-sixes on the way to a crushing trap game loss.
Some fans called for Kenny Pickett, others suggested that Philly should pursue a new QB in 2025 regardless of the season's outcome, and others still noted that the team's ceiling is only as high as Hurts' abilities as a passer, which, by their evaluations, isn't exceptionally high.
Are these fans correct? No, the Eagles don't have a hole at QB, and they should be able to make it to the Super Bowl and even be competitive in it, as Hurts has done before under head coach Nick Sirianni, no less.
… with that being said, the Eagles do have a major issue in the passing game, and it has more to do with which plays are being called, as opposed to how Hurts is executing them.
Now normally, the Eagles have been supplementing their reliance on short passes, comeback, and out routes with deep shots down the field to AJ Brown and DeVonta Smith, who both make it work even when they are relatively well covered, but in Week 14, that didn't happen, with Hurts' longest pass against the Panthers – completed or not – just barely going for 20 yards through the air. To make matters worse, the Eagles really didn't spread the ball around against a below-average defense, completing passes to just five receivers with seven targeted, which, frankly, is an improvement over Week 13, when only four receivers caught a pass and six were targeted.
Now granted, when a team only throws the ball 19 times, most of those balls should go to Brown and Smith, with the former airing out his frustrations with how the passing game has operated after the game. But for having such a deep talent pool of varied players, with Johnny Wilson the tallest receiver in the NFL, Ainias Smith a gadget guy with open field YAC ability, and Jahan Dotson wasting away on a one-catch-for-five-yards diet all season long, it's really hard to look at the offense and now see something broken.
Goodness, when was the last time the Eagles had two tight ends have a good game on the same day? Grant Calcaterra has proven he can be a player over the past few months, and yet, when he and Goedert are both fully healthy, there is almost no creativity in the passing game from the 12 personnel grouping.
Can the Eagles figure their aeriel offense out on the fly? Potentially so, as it feels like Kellen Moore has a number of movement-assisted plays that he simply isn't working into the weekly plan with Sirianni for one reason or another – let's hope he's saving the good stuff for the playoffs. But if this really is the Eagles' passing ceiling, with their 32nd-ranked attempts per game a byproduct of poor planning instead of a concerted effort to win on the ground, then it's hard to imagine Philadelphia will figure it out on the fly or make adjustments amid a nine-game win streak that might backfire.
2. Jalen Hurts needs to be more decisive
While the Eagles' passing offense is underwhelming versus league standards, as they are simply not winning games in the same way as many of their peers around the NFL, some of that does fall on Hurts' shoulders, even if it's not for the reason some fans might initially assume.
For one thing, Hurts simply holds the ball too long. In Week 14, Hurts had an average time to throw the ball of 3.47 seconds, according to NFL Next Gen stats, which is among the longest in the league. While that stat alone doesn't say anything specific, as it could mean a number of things, when you consider that he really wasn't executing anything complex from a passing standpoint, with, again, his longest pass coming in at 20 yards, that number is alarming.
Yes, Hurts is a running quarterback, and his ability to scramble will inevitably make some runs take longer than they probably should, but when many of the plays called are timing-based, which many of the “Sirianni staples” are, being indecisive on those calls will lead to holes closing in a fraction of a second. When that happens, Hurts either has to throw the ball away, run for a potentially positive gain, or hope that someone like Brown is able to get themselves open and serve as an outlet target, which is simply unrealistic as a regular option.
Fortunately, after the game, it seemed like Hurts understood that there was frustration about how the passing game was going before acknowledging that he wanted to keep building a compelling passing game down the stretch.
“Just the lack of synchronization there. You get there by everybody being on the same page and going out there and executing and becoming in sync. We see our moments where we play at a high level, and we see our moments where we don't. I think we just have to do what we do, do well,” Hurts said via NBC Sports Philadelphia.
“It isn't about solving anything. Everybody has a reason to want more. It's a fair desire of being in fullness to where we can be because we've done it before. Just got to build, got to progress. Have to find a way to come together and come and synch as a unit and play complementary ball.”
If anyone should be mad about how the passing game has been going in 2024, it should probably be Hurts, as he is throwing the ball a dozen fewer times per game post-bye and is being called a system quarterback, a game manager, a bum, or worse for averaging less than 200 passing yards per game in 2024. Is Hurts taking too long to throw the ball? Yes. Is he missing open receivers or blowing timing plays? Yes, those are both valid criticisms, but the idea that Hurts isn't sacrificing his individual stats and his public perception to help the Eagles win 11 of their games in 2024 is just silly; Hurts is just as important to the Eagles' success as Saquon Barkley and subbing Pickett into the same exact offense won't magically make it better, it'd just remove the rushing threat from the quarterback position.
