In Week 13, the Philadelphia Eagles were seemingly set up for success.
After suffering a last-second wakeup call against their division rival Dallas Cowboys the week prior, Philadelphia was at home, on Amazon Prime, up against one of the worst defenses in the NFL. Granted, the Cowboys' defense was bad the week prior, too, but the Bears ranked 21st against the pass, 28th against the run, and had allowed all but two of their opponents in 2025 to run for at least 100 yards on the season.
If ever there was a game for Kevin Patullo to put 12 weeks of questions to bed and really prove he can coach an offense, this was the game to do it. No more excuses, no more quarters where Philly looks unstoppable only to fall back to hit the witness protection program, none of it.
And yet, the Eagles game played out as follows: punt, field goal, punt, punt, punt, interception, touchdown, fumble, punt, touchdown with a missed extra point, missed field goal.
After watching Ben Johnson march his offense down the field for a third of the first quarter on the opening drive, the Eagles didn’t even hold the ball for three minutes, watching some early success on the ground with Saquon Barkley get washed away by a false start penalty by AJ Brown that effectively killed the momentum and ended the drive at five plays.
From there, the Eagles did very little following a Jake Elliott field goal on drive two, but they did seemingly find life after Jalen Hurts threw his second interception of the season, with the Super Bowl MVP getting more aggressive with his arms and his legs to set up a Brown touchdown.
Suddenly, momentum was on the Eagles' side, and yet, that didn’t matter, as Hurts got the ball peanut punched out of his hand on a tush push attempt that would have set up an easy touchdown, and the game was basically over. The Bears went up two scores, the Eagles moved the ball, but down nine, even a Jake Elliot field goal in the final moments – which he ultimately missed due to the wind – was too little too late: the Eagles lost the game and their ceiling was suddenly called into question.
Are the Eagles still in first place? Yes. Can they hold that lead through Week 18? Sure, that’s possible too. But even if they hold the NFC East pennant once more, their offense – or lack thereof – could ultimately be the thing that prevents another parade down Broad Street in 2026.
Something has to change for the Eagles' offense to succeed
Through 13 weeks of action, the Eagles' offense ranks 22nd in passing yards on the 28th-most attempts, 22nd in rushing yards on the 14th-most attempts, and ranks 24th in total yards recorded versus 23rd in yards allowed. They've struggled at times to get much going through the air, have more recently been unable to get much going on the ground, and have begun to lose the time of possession battle to a pretty unfortunate degree, going from 29:58 on the season to 29:09 over the past three games all the way down to 20:42 against the Chicago Bears in Week 13 according to Team Rankings.
Now in the past, Philadelphia's offensive strategy was pretty simple: the Eagles would run the ball early and often behind the strong play of Jeff Stoutland's offensive line, throw deep shots down the field when opposing defensive coordinators would crowd the box and leave one-on-ones on the outside with a single safety over the top, and maximize Hurts' scrambling ability on RPOs and to pick up key third downs if nothing was open down the field.
This strategy, though far from flashy, allowed the Eagles to impose their will on opposing teams, instead of the other way around. Philadelphia would get up early and then demoralize opposing teams that simply couldn't get back into games where they got behind, as the Birds would keep the clock rolling as they went run-heavy in second halves to run out the clock.
But now? Now the Eagles aren't even confident enough in their run game to keep it on the ground on third-and-2 deep into the fourth quarter like their late faux pas against the Dallas Cowboys in Week 12, setting up a sack that more or less cost them their ninth win of 2025 – a win they still haven't captured a week later.
So what is wrong with the Eagles' offense? Is the offensive line simply not able to block up to its former standards? Well, according to Pro Football Focus, that's only a small part of the team's issues. Jordan Mailata, Landon Dickerson, and Cam Jurgens have all regressed in offensive grade, but not by much, dropping from 95.2, 78.6, and 65.6 to 80.2, 67.5, and 61.4, respectively. Tyler Steen is currently the 18th-ranked guard in the NFL, a mark higher than Dickerson's, and while Fred Johnson is pulling up the rear with a 59.1 rating, he's only allowed one sack on 125 pass blocking snaps, even if his nine pressures and three penalties are worrisome considering he's only played 244 total snaps.
Could it be Barkley's regression? His stats are pretty much down across the board in terms of total production and average production, with the PSU product averaging half as many rushing yards per game on just five fewer attempts. His PFF rating has dropped from 85.3 to 62.0, and that leaves him the 51st-ranked running back of 59 qualifying players.
Has Barkley lost that top gear that made him so darn effective in 2024? Yes, he hasn't been able to rip off his signature long runs at even close to the same clip, and even simple runs seem to be labored for one reason or another. With that in mind, the Eagles aren't exactly putting Barkley in the best position to succeed either, as his yards before contact have dropped from 3.8 to 2.4, which is a sign of poor decision-making around him, be that in run blocking or in Patullo's playcalling, which seemingly always puts his players in disastrous situations.
Throw that all together, and the Eagles look like a team shooting from the hip, instead of a squad entering each game with a plan.
Can the Eagles fix these issues? Sure, getting back Lane Johnson will help, giving Fred Johnson a chance to become a super sixth man instead of a full-time starter, as would giving more snaps to Tank Bigsby, who earned exactly zero rushing attempts in Week 13. But one thing is for sure: if the Eagles don't change something, they are doomed to keep going down the same path, which hasn't led to winning football as of late.
