After running the show over the past five weeks against a murder's row, including the Green Bay Packers, the Tennessee Titans, the Indianapolis Colts, the New York Giants, and the Chicago Bears – okay, maybe it wasn't that tough of a schedule – the Philadelphia Eagles dropped a nail-biter to the Dallas Cowboys on the road, recording only their second loss of the season while keeping their division rivals alive for the NFC East pennant.
To some, this loss was a brutal reminder that the Eagles aren't guaranteed to win the Super Bowl, a defeat made all the more disappointing considering it came at the hands of those darn Cowboys. But for others? Well, it was a meaningless loss for the top-ranked team in the NFL, who are still two games up on the first seed in the playoffs with two games left to play and a backup quarterback – albeit a good one – under center for his first start since January.
Where does this defeat actually fall? Probably somewhere in between – if the Eagles beat Dallas down Jalen Hurts, CJ Gardner-Johnson, Lane Johnson, Avonte Maddox, and others, it would have been a defining moment in both Gardner Minshew's career and Philadelphia's season. But then again, the loss pointed out a few clear deficiencies across the Eagles' roster/scheme that will be surely exploited by a team when the postseason rolls around. These four Eagles – two players and two coaches – have the most to blame for Philadelphia's loss to the Cowboys.
3. Miles Sanders
No matter how well Sanders played through the first three and a half quarters of the game, rushing the ball 21 times for 65 yards plus one more catch for six yards, the first-time Pro Bowler's efforts in Week 16 will forever be defined by his fumble on 1st and 10 from the 25 with 2:19 left to play that gave the ball back to Dallas and set the team up for a field goal. While the play didn't technically cost the Eagles the game, as Dallas' drive only took 26 seconds and still kept the score within a single touchdown with 1:41 left to play, had the Eagles been able to run their full two-minute offense with just a field goal needed to tie things up, the results could have been very different indeed.
2. Josiah Scott
Josiah Scott drew a tough card in Week 16. After excelling in the slot in place of Avonte Maddox earlier in the season and playing a hybrid role once the third-round pick out of Pitt returned to the field, Scott was thrust into action playing a sort of slot/safety hybrid role that Maddox has excelled in over the past few weeks despite only working snaps at safety over the summer.
Unfortunately for Scott, the growing pains came at a very inopportune time, as on third and 30, Scott ran back in Cover 3 to provide over-the-top support for Darius Slay, who was in man coverage on TY Hilton, and proceeded to give up a very improbable first down that set up Dallas' game-tying touchdown and placed Gardner Minshew in a very unfortunate situation down his franchise right tackle. While the Eagles are obviously better off with Maddox on the field than not, as he's a Pro Bowl-caliber slot cornerback, hopefully, a week of practice in the starting spot can get Scott's ship righted ahead of Week 17.
1. Nick Sirianni and Jonathan Gannon
Though they aren't technically players or even just one person, the Eagles' coaching staff, specifically Nick Sirianni and Jonathan Gannon, turned in horrible efforts in Week 16, with Sirianni absolutely blowing his clock management on the three drives of the game and Gannon unable to counter-punch the offensive attack Dak Prescott and Kellen Moore were throwing at him. When the Eagles' offense had to turn to a pass-heavy attack in a two-minute look on their final two full drives – excluding the fumble – Minshew recorded three-straight incompletions to close out the game and left the Eagles incapable of even advancing the ball across the middle of the field, as their poor timeout management left the team in a very unfortunate place. Gannon, too, was ill-equipped to adjust his game plan, especially when he started losing players at key positions like in the slot, where CeeDee Lamb likes to play.
With two more games left to tune things up, expect the Eagles to run a ton of two-minute offense drills and for Gannon to at least try to play Darius Slay in the slot with Zech McPhearson filling his shoes on the outside, as locking down an opposing team's best receiver has to be priority number one in the playoffs, especially if Maddox can't play and the team ends up taking on the Minnesota Vikings and their all-world inside-out receiver Justin Jefferson.
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