👋 Good morning! Time to update the chart, Nick.

And time to get yourself some Spector Sports Art! You know, from happier moments. Head on over and see what Jordan has to offer for the Philly sports fan in your life.

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I am about to tell you how I feel about the 2025 Eagles.

But you know what? Tell me how you are feeling about the 2025 Eagles, now that the season is over. Hit me up at [email protected] and vent away. If I get enough of ‘em, I will run a few of those emails each day the rest of the week.

(And if I don’t run yours, I will at least, like, respond to you.)

But first, our post-game coverage! PHLY will be here for you, in sickness and in health.

On the “Crushing Philly Playoff Loss” scale, that one does not amount to much. As a kid, I had multiple NFC Championship Game losses that were followed by avoiding SportsCenter at all costs for a week and a half. This one? Maybe a 2 or 3 on a scale of 1 to 10. And that is precisely because we were all prepared for that exact game.

But let’s be clear here: The fact that we were all prepared for that exact game is an indictment of this Eagles season. In fact, it only reinforced what a tremendous missed opportunity this season turned out to be. When will the Eagles again hold their current roster and talent advantages in a season that is this wide-open?

The 2025 Philadelphia Eagles were an Offensive Catastrophe, plain and simple. And they were an Offensive Catastrophe when they were both winning and losing.

Sometimes when you lose in the playoffs, you just get outclassed. Think the 2021 Eagles in Tampa Bay. Those losses are no big deal. Sometimes when you lose in the playoffs, it’s an uncharacteristically poor performance. Think the 2002 Eagles against Tampa Bay at The Vet. Those losses sting, but they happen in a one-and-done format. Sometimes, you play to your capability and lose a coin-flip game on a bad break. Think Alshon Jeffery’s drop in New Orleans in 2018 or James Bradberry’s holding penalty in Super Bowl 57. Those losses haunt you, but the margins are often thin in sports.

But sometimes when you lose in the playoffs, it’s the same exact way you played all season. That was yesterday. You are almost resigned to those losses. All of the issues that persisted this season for the Eagles offense were present in the 23-19 loss to San Francisco at The Linc, against the single-worst defense in this year’s playoffs. Let’s go through a few of them…

(1) Four three-and-outs in five possessions in the middle of the game! For the rest of our lives, I am not sure we will ever see an offense willingly go to sleep for 90 minutes like this one did every week. Truly maddening stuff. They led the league in three-and outs (as Deniz’s chart below indicates) and went three-and-out about as much as any team in the last decade. It’s pretty much inconceivable.

Look at that chart! The Eagles went three-and-out more than Shedeur Sanders! Even after two touchdowns on their first three drives, of course this offense inexplicably shut down for two quarters after that. After all, that is what they did all season.

(2) All of those runs on 2nd and long to nowhere. All season, even after your offensive line proved it could not run block consistently.

(3) The offense got set with three seconds left on the play-clock for the biggest play of the game, forcing them to burn a timeout. The Eagles get the play-call in slower than every single team in the NFL, there are stats for that as well. And on the biggest play of the season, they turned a probably-gotta-have-it 4th and 11 into a gotta-have-it 4th and 11 with their inability to get the play in on time.

When Jalen Hurts’ final pass to Dallas Goedert fell incomplete, there were 40 seconds left. It would have been a longshot for the Eagles to win the game, but you could have gotten the ball back with three timeouts left. But not with two. And that was just another example of the Eagles offense lacking in the details department, as they did all year.

(4) Weirdly good red-zone design, particularly to Dallas Goedert. This was the one positive of The Kevin Patullo Experience. Maybe in Patullo’s next job, wherever that is, he should just call plays in the red zone. He was actually good at that.

When the Eagles did get the ball inside the 20, they usually cashed in. Unfortunately, a football field is 100 yards. They did not get the ball inside the 20 nearly enough.

(5) Some more A.J. Brown weirdness. Three catches for 25 yards for A.J. And I have to ask the question: Was that his final game as an Eagle?

The key sequence of the game for Brown was a three-and-out late in the first half. Hurts tried to connect with Brown twice, and both passes fell incomplete. Nick Sirianni got in Brown’s face on the sideline, because he did not get off the field fast enough.

And then Brown had a pretty brutal drop on the final drive, which would have been a bigger story if Hurts and Goedert did not erase the mistake on the ensuing play.

A.J.’s final surface-level numbers this season — 15 games, 1,003 yards, 7 touchdowns — do not look completely out of whack. They are down, sure, but still a productive season. But his energy has been draining all year, and there were also some legitimately bad on-field moments that cannot just be chalked up to coaching (although the coaching was a huge problem). Remember when A.J. stopped running on the deep route against Denver?

It feels like Brown would be a logical trade candidate, but his dead cap hit would still be huge. There will be some interesting conversations to have about A.J. Brown in the offseason.

(6) Just six points in the second half! After finishing 26th in the league in second-half scoring. They had great field position the entire half, too.

(7) 19 points against the NFL’s 24th-ranked defense by EPA per play! All week, I wondered what would happen if Kyle Shanahan and Vic Fangio battled to a draw. The 49ers have one of the best offenses in the NFL and the Eagles have one of the best defenses. I thought that the “draw” number would be 20 points. Would the bad Eagles offense be able to put up 24 against a terrible 49ers defense?

Well, San Francisco got 23 points with two Quinyon Mitchell interceptions mixed in. If you want to give Shanahan the edge against Uncle Vic for the game, I will not argue with you. But pretty close to a draw, all things considered. 24 would have been enough against a banged-up and bad 49ers defense. Instead, the “A Win Is A Win” Eagles Offense managed just 19.

There were three wild-card playoff games this weekend before Eagles-49ers. In each of them, the victorious team came from behind and scored on a long, late gotta-have-it touchdown drive. But the Eagles did not. And why would they have? All year, Sirianni and Kevin Patullo deployed an uber-conservative approach that required the defense to be superhuman on a weekly basis. That is, of course, not a sustainable way to live. When the defense was not superhuman yesterday, the offense could not respond with an above-average game against a terrible defense.

For Sirianni and Patullo, there could not have been a more damning way to go out. Kyle Shanahan lost George Kittle to a torn ACL and did not have Ricky Pearsall either. Without those two guys, the 49ers’ skill talent is among the worst in the NFL postseason. And here Shanahan is, scheming up Demarcus Robinson and Kyle Juszczyk for big conversions. The game-winning play was a trick play called at the perfect time, Jauan Jennings to Christian McCaffery.

One coaching staff doing more with less. Another coaching staff doing less with more. It could not be spelled out any clearer.

It was also a terrible day for Sirianni’s “avoid turnovers at all costs” mentality. The Eagles won the turnover battle 2-0 and lost the biggest game of the season. Brock Purdy threw those two interceptions, and you know what? He just kept playing, and pushing the ball down the field. The lack of ambition from this Eagles offense all season was appalling. I cannot even imagine what Jeffrey Lurie was thinking watching this.

“Repeating is hard” they say, and that is true. Only one team gets to win every year, after all. There are reasons to be proud of the 2025 Eagles, particularly on defense. But the offense fell so incredibly short of the mark, which is inexcusable.

I am gonna leave you on a positive note, Eagles fans, one that I truly believe.

You root for one of the best-run organizations in sports. The combination of owner and general manager is as good as it gets. That is not to say they are perfect, or that Howie Roseman will ever have the insane 2020-2024 draft run again, but they are quite good. The track record is there. They should keep you in the mix.

One thing that Roseman in particular has always been terrific at is cleaning up messes… whether they were primarily his or the organization’s. And when the Eagles fail for a crystal clear reason, it is much easier for Roseman to identify the mess.

You know another time that the Eagles lost a playoff game the same exact way they had played all season? Their last playoff loss, two years ago in Tampa Bay.

In that game, the Eagles’ back-seven got embarrassed by Baker Mayfield after they got embarrassed by every offense they faced the final two months of the season. So, what did Howie do? He went out and addressed the back-seven all offseason, bringing in Vic Fangio in the process. Now, the Eagles have two First Team All-Pro cornerbacks.

This offseason will be all about fixing the offense. That starts with the personnel. The Eagles have to get better at run blocking, plain and simple. They need to get younger and tougher on that side of the football. They need to draft linemen and they need to draft tight ends. And with a 1, 2, two 3s, two 4s and two 5s, they have the chance to do just that.

But just as importantly, they also need to modernize the offense. As poor of a job as I thought Sirianni did this season, I think Bo’s analysis below is probably right. I think he has built up enough equity to keep his job, if he wants to. I think Roseman and Lurie are going to tell him who the new offensive coordinator is, and if he does not like the suggestion, well, then that will be that. The only reason Sirianni got the job in the first place is because the last Super Bowl-winning coach in Philadelphia wanted to keep Press Taylor.

We will see if that is how the offensive makeover actually plays out.

I do not want to walk on eggshells around The Sirianni Conversation, either. While it’s understandable to defer to Sirianni’s incredible win-loss record and the Lombardi Trophy that he won last year, it’s also fair to what edge he is bringing to the table. There is a good amount of evidence that he needs to be stripped of offensive input entirely. In a league where it’s increasingly clear that an elite offensive schemer and play-caller makes a difference, the Eagles have to recycle through coordinators after both good and bad years because their head coach is not that person. Did it feel like Sirianni’s culture-setting this season offset those offensive deficiencies? Certainly not to me.

I did not mention Jalen Hurts in all of this, and it’s sometimes hard to parse blame between coaching and quarterback play. Hurts is getting a lot of heat right now, some of it fair and a lot unfair. With that new offensive coordinator, one of the keys of this offseason will be taking Hurts out of his comfort zone. All of these hitch routes, the play getting in at the last possible second, that stuff just has to stop. The Eagles need to start throwing over the middle more, with timing. They need to start running routes that can produce yards after the catch. The offense needs to be torn down to the studs and built back up, and there really is no debating that point. This season was that bad.

Like two years ago, it will be a busy offseason. In a way, I am already looking forward to see how Roseman attacks the challenge of revamping the offense. We will have a lot to talk about over the next few months.

Until then, Go Bills.

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Think about that: $2,500 for furniture, and then $1,000 for art to decorate your walls. Imagine the setup that you could have for watching football next year!

Enter now at ashleyfancave.com and you might be watching the next big game in a fan cave built by you, courtesy of Ashley. The winner for The Ultimate Fan Cave will be selected the week of the Super Bowl.

I think the Sixers and Flyers played this weekend? I think the Phillies might meet with Bo Bichette? We will talk about that stuff tomorrow.

Seriously, watch the Super Bowl 59 mic’d up. It’s good for you.

Your tentative Monday schedule at PHLY:

Let's make it a good one.

Rich Hofmann
Daily Newsletter Editor
PHLY SPORTS