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Listening to Fran and The Professor break down the film yesterday for a special Monday Eagles pod, I am wondering if maybe I went too overboard with the “took their foot off the gas” criticism yesterday. At least for Sunday’s game.

The Eagles only ran the ball five times after halftime yesterday. Realistically, they had a ton of penalties, turned the ball over and did not quite execute in the passing game late. Well, that and they can’t run the ball. The combination of all those things is what did them in at Jerry World.

But the “too conservative” criticism is still probably deserved after an entire season spent watching this underachieving Eagles offense. If it took a loss for all of those accumulated critiques to come out, so be it. When you run coward’s draws and inside runs/hitch routes to nowhere all season, I am sorry, you do not get the benefit of the doubt.

And look, there are clearly other issues with this Eagles offense outside of the play-calling and play-design. The star quarterback and receiver’s relationship is clearly not what it once was. And the offensive line just is not run blocking like they used to, as Fran details below.

But here is what I do know: These efficiency stats from The Prof are, in the words of Strathmere resident Jim Lynam, tooottallly unacceptable. The worst success rate since the Mike McMahon year? Are you serious? The Eagles have had plenty of average to straight-up bad teams since then. This team’s talent is far from average.

Something else I know: Even if the play-calling might have been appropriate for this particular game, that does not absolve the coaching entirely. Game-planning is an important part of the job, too. Take Landon Dickerson’s comments about five-man fronts, which you can read in the Early Bird.

They were not prepared for five-man fronts? Cuz and VG were all over this on their show yesterday. The Cowboys have three good defensive tackles. In fact, they traded for two of them in very high-profile deals over the past three months. Those moves were big news and everything. And those three tackles are the best part of their defense by far! How are you surprised by them getting all of them onto the field?

The “unscouted look” is a tired excuse, but that is not even true in this case. That look was on film before this game. Look at what old friend Joe Hoyt wrote weeks ago.

What I know is that when you sign up to be the Eagles offensive coordinator, you are under a microscope. Brian Johnson became a local punching bag for coordinating an offense that, while possessing a major flaw (handling blitzes), was much better than this one. He was replaced after one season.

That scrutiny does not just come from the football-mad market, either. Inside the NovaCare Complex, you have an owner that once chastised a Super Bowl-winning head coach for his play-calling in a win. This is the furthest thing from a coach-centric organization.

Again, you know all of this when you sign up to be the offensive coordinator and you sign up anyway because of the talent. Pro Bowlers and All-Pros, everywhere. You sign up because of the opportunity. When you make a Super Bowl, like Shane Steichen and Kellen Moore, you get a head-coaching job elsewhere. And sure, the Super Bowl is a high bar to reach. But sitting here after 13 games, I did not expect this offense to have such a low floor. They are underachieving by a lot.

There have been two high-profile in-season play-caller replacements in recent years around these parts.

Something about those odd years, man.

One went great, one went terribly. Steichen, as it turned out, was an A+ play-caller and play-designer. The Pencil, who had less talent to work with than Steichen, was not. I do not know who that replacement would be this time around. Nick Sirianni himself? Scot Loeffler dusting off the Bowling Green playbook?

Sirianni says he is sticking with Kevin Patullo, for now. But the offense has been bad enough that it’s more than fair to wonder if that is the right decision.

Drew Mukuba, maybe out for the season: 🤦🏻‍♂️

There seems to be some disagreement from reporters on whether or not Mukuba could in theory return this season, but it does not sound great.

Sneaky big loss. Mukuba started the season playing like a rookie, and there were a few examples of explosive plays where he was very clearly at fault. Rookie plays, basically. But as the Eagles offense put together a few dominant games, you started to hear Mukuba’s name called less and less. That was a good thing. In his recent pressers, Vic Fangio noted that the game was starting to slow down for Mukuba.

Let’s assume that Reed Blankenship and Adoree’ Jackson are back, if not this week, early enough where an IR trip is not necessary. That still means you will need to see Sydney Brown or Michael Carter II back there. Howie compared Carter to Avonte’ Maddox, in that he could also played some safety. Vic did not seem to think so, but then again, Vic basically said Adoree’ was terrible in training camp and is playing him a ton now.

Chip Kelly fired: That return to The Linc in a few weeks? It’s not happening. Pour one out for the local beat writers that had pre-written Chip-centric stories for the lead-up to that game. I mean, I guess you can still run ‘em, but he’s just an unemployed guy.

I thought the Raiders paying Chip $6 million to be the highest-paid coordinator in the NFL was nothing short of crazy. Because he called the plays for an all-star team in college football?

Tampa Bay 3, Flyers 0: The Flyers are not gonna use this game to beat the boring charges. They had no space all night, and it’s hard to beat someone as good as Andrei Vasilevskiy when you don’t have space.

In better news for the Orange and Black, that terrible Guelph team in the OHL that may have been hindering Jett Luchanko’s development that I have written way too many words about? Well, he gone.

And not only that, Luchanko will go to Brantford, who should might just win the Memorial Cup like Denver Barkey and Oliver Bonk did in London last year. Good coach, better teammates. Luchanko will also play in the World Juniors in a few weeks.

Adolis Garcia: The Phillies need a right-handed power bat, preferably in the outfield. And as I point out every time, it is so, so much easier to say that than actually find one that you would get even half-excited about. I would kill for 2023 Nick Castellanos, but I 2023 Nick Castellanos ain’t walking through that door.

I am a left-handed athlete, and people were always so surprised by that when I was a kid. Oooh, a lefty! But we need to apply that same level of surprise to a righty outfielder that can hit like 25 bombs before we even get to whether or not he’s a butcher in the field. There is like seven of those guys! Oooh, Andy Pages!

Tyler had a crazy stat: The Phils had the fifth-fewest homers from the right-handed side last season. So, would you liked the hero of the 2023 MLB playoffs who was just non-tendered?

I am not in on the Adolis García idea, by the way. Just like Marcus Semien, who the Mets traded for yesterday, he just has not been very good the past two seasons. But I do admit that there are not a lot of good answers out there.

A little off-topic, but is there any weirder champion than the 2023 Rangers? Here is their last nine years of baseball: Under .500, Under .500, Under .500, Under .500, Under .500, Under .500, World Series Champs, Under .500, .500 exactly.

Like, what is that?

One Union thought: I have enjoyed reading Matthew Doyle over on the MLS league website. And he had a nice post-mortem on the Union’s season.

Most of it was complimentary. The Union made a shocking coaching change when they went from Jim Curtin to Bradley Carnell. That worked out swimmingly for the most part, because Carnell was more aligned with sporting director Ernst Tanner in terms of style of play and roster usage.

But, as Doyle pointed out, the Union were not MLS Cup favorites heading into the playoffs because they feasted on bad teams for most of the season. And that is perfectly fine, you gotta beat up on the bad and average teams. But the Union struggled against the good teams, and to win a title, you do have to beat a few of them.

We will see what happens with Tanner and this off-field investigation. And there will be some player movement, hopefully Cavan Sullivan takes a step forward next year. But you do wonder if the Union’s poor record against the best teams is simply a well-run team with a Moneyball payroll not having the horses to play against the big boys.

The big one tonight is Sixers-Magic at Xfinity Mobile Arena (8:00 p.m., NBC, fire up “Roundball Rock”). Can I get an injury report, Mr. Neubeck?

Tyrese banged his shoulder on Sunday, good to see that he is probable. And even if VJ had been putting together some 8 for 20ish performances from the field, he is such a huge loss for a team at an athleticism deficit most nights. That said, I fully support being careful with a prized rookie who comes down with calf tightness. That is the way of the world right now.

The combination of the Sixers’ lack of depth and Nick Nurse responding by playing his regulars 40-ish minutes has the Sixers paying the piper a bit here. We talk often about the top of the roster, and Joel Embiid and Paul George’s lack of availability. But how about the bottom of the roster? Punting two 15-man spots on Eric Gordon and Assistant Coach Kyle Lowry really puts the Sixers in a bind here. They could badly use a wing-sized player who could just run and jump even if he had no idea what he was doing.

Man, I hope Joel can play tonight. The “Franz, no Paolo” Magic have been excellent over the past few weeks. Think it might be an uphill battle if he cannot play.

Your tentative Tuesday schedule at PHLY:

Let's make it a good one.

Rich Hofmann
Daily Newsletter Editor
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