The Eagles weren’t ready for the quality play that they saw from the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. As usual, they started out slow and this time they weren’t able to even think about coming back against the quality opponent they faced. The Eagles were beaten in every facet of the game. Their offense wasn’t good enough and seemed to be confused by Todd Bowles’ defense for three quarters. Their defense wasn’t nearly good enough and neither was the special-teams good enough. It was a dominating beat down by Tom Brady and the Buccaneers.
As usual the blame starts at the top with head coach Nick Sirianni. He did a poor job of adjusting to the game plan that the Bucs defense threw at them. He didn’t revert to a short passing game by letting Jalen Hurts know that the Bucs cornerbacks were playing ten yards off of the receivers, so they could have thrown 8 yards routes to DeVonta Smith all day long. If Troy Aikman is seeing it up in the booth, why aren’t the Eagles coaches seeing it down on the field.
Birds defensive coordinator Jonathan Gannon and the Eagles defensive coaches didn’t attack the Bucs offense. They let Brady and his crew build a huge lead by dinking and dunking. Why didn’t they get up on the receivers more in the first half? In the second half with the game over, Gannon decided to play some tight defense. The Buccaneers were playing without a healthy right tackle and the Birds got some sacks on Brady, but they didn’t force any turnovers.
On the other hand, Todd Bowles and the Bucs showed numerous run blitzes which confused the Birds and took away the Eagles running game. The Eagles offense struggled to adjust through the entire first half without getting into any kind of rhythm. Their offense game plan wasn’t effective against the Tampa Bay defense.
Jalen Hurts has to take some of the responsibility, but it doesn’t erase the growth he has made this year. It was a horrible performance by Hurts. He missed open receivers, threw two interceptions and failed to get anything going until the fourth quarter when the game was over. Tampa Bay took Sirianni and Hurts out of what they wanted to do, which was to run the football and they weren’t able to connect outside even though the Buccaneer cornerbacks were playing well off the Eagles receivers. Sirianni didn’t have Hurts throw the little simple out routes.
I do think Sirianni did a good job during the entire season. He was able to communicate with his players to get them to perform. I was also pleased with the progress that Hurts made. I think he will be the Birds quarterback next year and I think he will continue to improve.
