Thoughts From Eagles-Lions

Eagles Clearly Have Quit On Chip Kelly

Good lord.

You think you’ve hit rock bottom. You think there’s no lower to sink.

And lo and behold, Chip Kelly’s Eagles find new pits to sink into.

The Birds somehow managed to turn in an even worse effort against the Detroit Lions than they did against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers just a few days ago, falling 45-14 in a Thanksgiving Day laugher in the Motor City.

All throughout the week leading up to this game, we had heard all of the talk of turmoil within the team, from players calling out each other, to agents saying Kelly has lost the locker room, to speculation about Chip’s job security.

While some questions remain unanswered, if there’s one thing that’s for certain after today’s game its that the Eagles have absolutely tuned out Chip Kelly, and have quit on their coach.

The Birds turned in a completely disinterested effort, just going through the motions as the mediocre Lions marched up and down the field, while their defense pounded Chip’s pathetic offense into submission.

There’s no fight left in this team, and there’s even less fight left in the coach. Chip look defeated in his press conference after the game. His demeanor appeared shaken. His words were empty. For the first time in his career, he’s finding that he’s in over his head and he doesn’t know how to react to it.

Billy Davis Is God Awful

If there’s one thing that’s even more painfully clear than the fact that the Eagles need to move on from Chip Kelly, its the fact that they need to move on from defensive coordinator Billy Davis.

Davis had his worst showing as a defensive coordinator on Thursday. An absolutely horrendous gameplan for the second week in a row led to Matthew Stafford having a career-day, throwing for over 300 yards and 5 touchdowns, three of which went to Calvin Johnson.

The Eagles lost starting corner Nolan Carroll to a broken ankle during the game, forcing rookie Eric Rowe into action. The Lions went after Rowe right away, and demolished the inexperienced corner, and Davis left him on an island to fend for himself. Sure enough, Rowe never had a chance.

For the life of me, why is it so much of an issue for Davis to give help to a struggling corner? He wouldn’t do it with Bradley Fletcher a year ago. He wouldn’t do it Rowe today.

The Eagles defense has been the strength of the team for most of the season, but I never believed that had anything to do with Billy Davis or his schemes.

Davis is the most vanilla defensive coordinator I’ve ever seen. There’s no creativity in his approach, few adjustments, no elaborate blitz packages…his defense seems to be dependent on the individual talent of his players winning their individual matchups with the guys in front of them.

There are times that a Fletcher Cox will dominate his man, come up with a multi-sack game, or force a fumble. There are times when the guys in the secondary will match up well with the receivers they’re up against. But the week to week schemes are so weak, and so flawed, that even the talent that’s in place can’t overcome it.

I think the Eagles have enough talent on their defense to be a top-10 unit, but Billy Davis is not the guy that’s going to bring it all together and get the most out of these guys.

DeMarco Murray Is The Worst Free Agent Signing Since Nnamdi

I can’t stand watching DeMarco Murray.

He’s one of the most heartless, disinterested players I’ve ever seen, and frankly I’m at the point now where I find the sight of him in an Eagles’ uniform completely offensive.

The former Cowboy ran for a whopping 30 yards on 14 carries, barely averaging over 2.0 yards per touch.

Murray’s here strictly to collect a paycheck. He couldn’t give a damn about the team or the city, and he’s been a terrible fit ever since he walked in the door. It was a signing that didn’t make a lot of sense to me at the time (here’s the article I wrote back when it happened) and I think he’s had a lot to do with the decline of the character and attitude of this team.

Quick Thoughts

Offense

• Why in the world is Chip Kelly calling running plays out of the shotgun on the goalline? That playcalling is absolutely absurd.
• Mark Sanchez once again played just as you would expect him to. A couple of decent drives here and there, but ultimately an inability to stretch the field combined with a high rate of turnovers, and you have a mediocre quarterback with mediocre results.
• Also, I just don’t buy the idea that Sanchez is “the best backup quarterback in the league”. He might look semi-passable at times, but he’s just not a winner. He’s a guy who is going to find ways to lose games. I don’t believe him to be the driving force in either of the Eagles’ last two losses, but I’ve still seen more than enough of him and would prefer the team to move on from him at the end of the year.
• Jason Peters was injured once again, and had to come out of the game. What else is new?
• The line play was abysmal for the third straight week. The o-line allowed six sacks today.
• One of the few bright spots today was Brent Celek scoring a touchdown. With the lack of playmakers at wide receiver, Kelly has been forced to involve his tight ends in the passing attack, and Celek has taken full advantage of the opportunity.
• The one thing that I don’t understand is that a lot of people always seems surprised when Celek gets back into the act and has some big receiving games. Celek isn’t that old of a player; he’s not even in his 30’s yet. He’s always been able to play, and has plenty of good football left in him, Chip Kelly has simply asked him to be primarily a blocker over the last few years.
• With Zach Ertz sitting this one out, Trey Burton got some more snaps with the offense, and caught a 43-yard pass to set up the Eagles’ only meaningful score of the day.
• Jordan Matthews was held quiet for most of the game, but scored a hollow garbage time touchdown.
• Nelson Agholor had his standard two catches for 15 yards. Yep, looking like a total Jeremy Maclin clone every week.
• Miles Austin and Riley Cooper both caught passes!

Defense

• Kiko Alonso was once again invisible, managing just four tackles.
• Ditto for DeMeco Ryans.
• Vinny Curry was the lone defensive bright spot, registering two sacks.
• Malcolm Jenkins had a horrendous game, missing tackles left and right and blowing coverages. He’s really looked like he’s checked out mentally over the last few weeks.
• Connor Barwin went without a sack once again. I feel like Billy Davis has gravely misused him this year.
• Tackling as a whole was pretty abysmal today. Amazing how fundamentally bad this defense has become within a span of three weeks.
• Fletcher Cox was quiet with just one tackle.
• Don’t understand why Taylor Hart gets more snaps than Vinny Curry. Most be an Oregon thing…

Special Teams

• Caleb Sturgis missed a 50-yard kick on the team’s opening drive. The Eagles actually had a pretty decent drive to start out the game, but Sturgis made them come away with nothing to show for it.
• Its the second time in three games that Sturgis has cost the Eagles, and he’s missed at least one kick in all but two games this year. Why haven’t the Eagles even worked out any kickers since Sturgis was signed?

Final Thoughts

The Eagles are in a sorry state right now.

The Birds have all kinds of issues on both sides of the ball, and they’re in a complete free-fall.

Chip Kelly has driven the team into the ground, and suffered two humiliating losses within four days. The team has been outscored 107-34 in the last three games. They’re now 4-7, sinking closer and closer to the bottom of the division.

And with the way things are going, I don’t know if this team will win another game this year.

They’re marching towards certain doom in New England next weekend, and I don’t give them much of a chance to beat the Bills or Cardinals. I see only one win, two at the most between now and the end of the year, with possibly a couple more embarrassing losses along the way.

Jeffrey Lurie needs to understand that Chip Kelly’s time needs to come to an end. He hung on to Ray Rhodes a year too long, and wasted 1998. He hung on to Andy Reid a year too long, and wasted 2012. Will 2016 be a lost season as well while Lurie gives Kelly one more chance to get things right?

Just think about what another year of Chip would mean for this team.

Kelly would likely need to perform yet another massive overhaul on the roster next year in another attempt to fix the “culture”.

He’d need to try again at quarterback. He’s likely going to have to move on from DeMarco Murray. He’s going to need to throw more assets into upgrading the wide receiver position, despite the fact that he’s already poured first, second, and third-round picks into the position. He’ll need to find a way to replenish the offensive line, and will likely need to move on from Jason Peters.

And he’s got to do all of that without a second-round pick.

There’s just so much to be done to this team, Kelly wouldn’t be able to do it in one off-season, likely leading to a year similar to what we’ve seen now.

The thing that makes the most sense for this franchise is to be proactive, recognize that Kelly isn’t the future, and start over fresh.

Follow Denny Basens on Twitter, @DennyBasens