👋 Good morning! I am no special teams expert, but maybe just let this one go.

What ever happened to a punt returner putting his heels on the 10-yard line? I know that is not the case in modern football, but is it too much to ask for you to put your heels on the, say, 4-yard line? The 2-yard line?! I might have to tune into Michael Clay’s presser this week just to hear him try to justify that one.

Watching games with my family growing up, all of them lunatic Eagles fans, once in a while you would hear a “Cut his [redacted]!” after a disastrous mistake by an anonymous player like the one Xavier Gipson made yesterday. Being the impartial Big J that I am nowadays, I would never let a “Cut his [redacted]!” fly during a game. Too much objectivity for that. But I did immediately think that Gipson’s fumble was that level of mistake. And so did Fran (not in the same terms, of course), which surprised me. I support it, though! Spicy Fran!

It’s OK, y’all. We’ll do our best to get through a tough newsletter together, me and you.

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As always, you can reach me at [email protected]

Well, that one sucked. All of our #content is here. The Superchatters were angry, and you know what? I get it.

As always, look for EJ’s Early Bird on the site.

You know how I usually write that the Eagles offense does nothing for an hour of real time every Sunday? Well, the offense basically did nothing for 2.5 hours of real time this Sunday. Suboptimal.

Day and night, literally…

Your 2025 Eagles offense, everyone! What makes it so frustrating is that they usually have a stretch in which they show they actually can be good.

I have a silver lining here: When you are at Thanksgiving dinner with your family, you will have to argue about politics or whatever else you normally argue about because A.J. Brown had himself a day. And not in a way that felt forced or outside of the offense, as A.J. finished with 8 catches on 10 targets for 110 yards and a touchdown.

Now, you might have some qualms with A.J. getting one target in the entire second and third quarters, and you know what? I am not gonna argue with you on that one. Maybe your family simply bashes Nick Sirianni and Kevin Patullo in harmony at the table, and it’s a blessed Philadelphia thanksgiving. Sounds nice, honestly. Pass the gravy.

But if you were to take a positive from this game, the Eagles were efficient passing the ball to A.J. Brown, and perhaps even more importantly, A.J. looked like A.J. Getting open, dominant at the catch point, and making plays running after the catch.

I have wondered all season if Sirianni is taking the wrong lessons from wins, in that he believes some of his uber-conservative tendencies are working simply because his team has more points than the opponent at the end of most games. But the primary reason that the Eagles have more points than other teams at the end of games, at least the last two weeks, is because the defense has played lights-out football.

Well, on Sunday against Dallas, the defense was banged-up and not quite lights-out. I would like to see the Eagles at least try to win another way.

With that in mind, the big lesson from this game is that continually playing one-score games is gonna come back to bite you. If you play one of those every week, you are playing with fire. The key plays are not always gonna go your way. Sure, Zack Baun could have caught that potential interception. Sure, Saquon could have held on to the football. And absolutely, the DeVonta Smith OPI was an egregious call. But wouldn’t it be nice if all of those things did not matter? I am not sure they do have to matter.

Three related lessons that you would hope sink in…

(1) This is not a team that is built to play conservatively. The Eagles run the ball the third-most in the NFL, which is a lot for a team that cannot run the ball in the traditional manner. Saquon Barkley ran 10 times for 22 yards against Dallas. Eagles players said they were surprised by Dallas’ five-man fronts.

When the Eagles got ahead in past years, their superpower was that they could run the ball when the defense knew they wanted to run the ball. But that is not the case anymore. There may be a few reasons for that — Saquon has seemed to have juice at times this season, but did leave some yards on the field yesterday — but it seems pretty clear that the offensive line is just not blocking at that level. That 21-play drive to run out the clock against Pittsburgh last season? That’s gone. The 15-play drive to run out the clock against Tampa Bay in 2023? Forget about it.

The Eagles passed about twice as much as they ran it on Sunday. And they were pretty good passing the ball, as Jalen Hurts went 27-39 for 289 yards. But even with a heavy passing game that was decently efficient, the limited running game was terrible. I do not pretend to know exactly how the Eagles move forward here — there needs to be some modicum of a ground game — but the run should probably be treated as an off-speed pitch moving forward.

(2) Stop worrying so much about turnover avoidance! Jalen Hurts more or less let it rip yesterday, and yes, the Eagles coughed it up twice. But not because he let it rip! The Eagles’ two turnovers were on a punt return and and Saquon getting caught from behind on a checkdown. Things that have nothing to do with playing aggressively.

Now, the 14 penalties? Those need to get cleaned up. A couple of cheapies mixed in there, but the pre-snap mistakes have to stop.

(3) Understand that this is not good enough. When you score 21 points early, your philosophy should be to score another 21 points and put the game away. And despite the run-pass ratio yesterday, it really just does not feel like that is the Eagles’ current philosophy. As Fran put it here, it just feels like they are trying to gut out games… which is underperforming this team’s talent.

As for the defense, I am less worried because their performance was more understandable for a few reasons: Dallas’ offense is legitimately good and the Eagles got super banged-up in the secondary.

Dallas was able to move the ball against the Eagles defense, and if there were any disappointments, the pass-rush was quiet after two straight ferocious performances. Oh well. But the secondary suffered three injuries:

So, uh, things might get shuffled quite a bit on Black Friday against Chicago. Man, The Alliance is gonna be tested in that one.

Who is the next-man up outside after Adoree’ Jackson? And where does Uncle Vic slot Cooper DeJean and Michael Carter II respectively? Regardless, I think we will see more Sydney Brown in that one. Buckle up, The Sydney Brown Experience is usually a roller-coaster.

Those injuries worry me, as Carter ran into Mitchell on the game-sealing completion. That is the type of mistake that the Eagles defense has not made much over the past two seasons.

But truthfully, gang, I just cannot get too worked up about the defense when the offense goes asleep for a half every game. That part is just not good enough.

Flyers 6, Devils 3: Tough weekend for Josh Harris. Well, at least the Commanders were off. Post-game show is below.

One of the criticisms of this Flyers team is that they have at times played a bit of a boring style. “Low-event” is the more diplomatic way to put it, as the Flyers are all the way up to 29th in the NHL with 25.1 shots per game. Seems like they share some similarities with their co-tenants, who clearly have to work through some of their offensive issues.

But you know what helps? When you score three goals in 26 seconds, and Tyson Foerster scores twice in 17 seconds. That’s all you gotta do. Easy game, right?

Matvei Michkov had the first goal in the 26-second barrage. Recently, we wrote about Sean Couturier’s blunt comments and the line that Michkov has to walk between being aggressive in the defensive zone and being irresponsible in the defensive zone. Well, Michkov did a perfect job recognizing that Coots was gonna corral a loose puck and making himself available for the stretch pass on this one.

Penn State 37, Nebraska 10: Two in a row for Terry Smith. Does this affect that Matt Rhule search at all?

Au revoir, Brandon Nimmo: From the NL BEAST, that is.

The Mets traded the 32-year-old Nimmo to Texas for the 35-year-old Marcus Semien. Nimmo is an outfielder, Semien is an infielder. Nimmo has five years left on his pricey deal, Semien has three. Semien is supposedly better at defense, but Nimmo has been a much better hitter the past few years.

At the very least, I am excited to not have to watch Nimmo sprint to first on walks anymore. Fake hustle!

Miami 127, Sixers 117: Kind of a depressing game, to be honest. The Sixers were without VJ Edgecombe (calf tightness, you gotta be careful with those). And Miami, without a few of their top players as well, just felt faster, bigger and more together than the Sixers. The Sixers battled like they always do, but the Cultures have been playing good basketball.

Since Joel Embiid left the lineup seven games ago, the Sixers are 23rd on offense and 15th on defense in that time. Better than I would have guessed on defense, especially with the lack of wings on this team. Poor Justin Edwards is playing a good bit out of necessity, but he just cannot stay in front of ball-handlers consistently.

But a lot of the free-flowing offense from the season’s first two weeks has definitely been taken away. No question about that. I do think the Sixers have leaned bigger —Andre Drummond at the 5, plus one of Dom Barlow or Jabari Walker for long stretches at the 4 — and that has helped the defense perhaps at the offense’s expense. But they need to get that offensive rhythm back, in one way or another. It’s definitely a slog right now.

The one positive, that can help with the slogginess? Jared McCain played 26 minutes and scored 15 points on 5-11 shooting. Not all the way back yet, but he looked more like the guy from last year.

McCain ramping up gives the second unit its best chance to function without Tyrese Maxey. I really like what Edgecombe and Quentin Grimes have done this season overall, but their minutes without Maxey are producing an 11th percentile offense according to Cleaning The Glass. A healthy McCain probably gives the Sixers the best chance at a backup point guard who can both stabilize the offense and let Maxey rest for six measly minutes per half. Encouraging performance from him.

NYCFC 1, Union 0: If this Sunday could get any worse! I would rather not talk about it.

Great season for The U, but single-elimination is always tough.

The Flyers are in Tampa to take on the Lightning (7:00 p.m., NBC Sports Philly).

We will be in a less than festive mood tomorrow! Why don’t you air some grievances with us?

Your tentative Monday schedule at PHLY:

Let's make it a good one.

Rich Hofmann
Daily Newsletter Editor
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