What’s Wrong With the Philadelphia Eagles?

It’s no secret that the NFC East is a disaster this year. The Philadelphia Eagles sit atop this division with a 3–5–1 record, but regardless of how bad the division is Philadelphia has looked nothing like a champion. Carson Wentz has largely been the focal point of the blame, but he’s not the only cause for concern. Head coach Doug Pederson’s play calling has been questionable, injuries have forced the team to rely on backups everywhere on offense, and for the most part the “stars” on the roster haven’t been playing up to their potential.

The Eagles came into the 2020 season with high expectations. Preseason Vegas odds had their win total set at 9.5 wins and many expected them to win the NFC East. Although the division title is still in play, even winning all of their remaining six games wouldn’t be enough to eclipse their preseason win total. Are the Eagles as bad as they’ve looked so far in 2020, or are they closer to the team many expected them to be coming into the season and they’ve simply been underperforming?

Just three short years ago the Eagles won the Super Bowl, and for Eagles fans those three years may be feeling more like three decades. Although many names on the jerseys remain the same from that Super Bowl winning team, the performance level of the 2020 Eagles show little resemblance to a champion.

Super Bowl LII was the first time in franchise history the Eagles were able to hoist the Lombardi trophy. Everyone in the city was not only ecstatic, but optimistic that this was only the beginning of the team’s success. The Eagles won a title with their backup quarterback and (understandably) Philadelphia was quick to assume success would remain constant when their starter returned the following year. The Eagles front office leaned in on this belief and quickly handed out lucrative contract extensions to many of their key contributors. The team wanted to lock up their championship core and continue capitalizing on their championship window.

Unfortunately for Philadelphia, the production of these big contract players has largely fallen short of expectations. Due to injury or simply a decline in performance, the majority of the stars from that Super Bowl run are no longer playing like stars and disappointment has been the result. Zach Ertz is injured, but even before hurting his ankle he looked like a shell of himself, Fletcher Cox has performed like a good defensive tackle but not like the All Pro his contract indicates he should be, Alshon Jeffrey has missed all but one game in 2020 and he failed to record a catch in that game, and the list goes on and on.

When building a roster in any sport, it’s important to pay for a players future production rather than pay a premium for what they had done in the past. In 2017 Eagles GM Howie Roseman constructed a roster that sent six players to the Pro Bowl by following this strategy and a Super Bowl title was the team’s reward. Unfortunately it appears Roseman may have broken this golden rule of roster building following the team’s championship when he tried to eek out a few more good years from a core that had already reached their apex. It’s possible Roseman’s moves following the championship were a strategic decision to show loyalty to his players, but it’s more likely he was blinded by the team’s success and a home town bias caused him to veer away from the very strategy that brought his team to the pinnacle.

These moves have left the 2020 Eagles with an aging roster that lacks the depth and star power required to contend for Super Bowls. This offseason Roseman has his work cut out for him if he hopes to find a way to get this roster back to a championship level.

In addition to the underperforming roster, the Eagles coaching staff has proved to be an issue in 2020 as well. Doug Pederson was in just his second year as head coach when he hoisted the Lombardi trophy in 2017. The early success caused many to anoint Pederson one of the great coaches in the NFL, and his actions so far in 2020 indicate Pederson may be letting the praise and success go to his head.

This past offseason the Eagles fired 2018–2019 Offensive Coordinator Mike Groh largely due to the offensive regression the team had experienced since their Super Bowl season. Rather than identify a replacement for Groh, the Eagles made a few internal promotions and elected to enter the 2020 season without an Offensive Coordinator. When asked about the decision, Pederson was quoted as saying the following:

“You look around the league and there are teams who don’t have coordinators. There are teams that have coordinators. I’ve had a coordinator by title. I look at the structure of what we’re doing offensively and how collaborative we put our game plans together. It’s like players; it’s not about one guy. Same way on the coaching staff. It’s not about one coach who has to do everything. It’s a collaborative effort…

…Bottom line, I’m the one calling plays on game day. So in some facets, you could consider me the offensive coordinator as well.”

To put it lightly, the decision to bypass bringing in a replacement coordinator seems to have been a bit presumptuous. Philadelphia hoped to accomplish addition by subtraction, but instead the offense has taken yet another step in the wrong direction as the offense has continued to get even worse in 2020.

In 2017, the Eagles’ Offensive Coordinator was Frank Reich who, following his Super Bowl victory, was hired to become the head coach in Indianapolis where he has the Colts sitting at 6–3 atop the AFC South. A similar opportunity for promotion presented itself to Philadelphia’s quarterback’s coach, John DeFilippo, who was hired by Minnesota to serve as the team’s offensive coordinator that same year. The combination of Pederson, Reich, and DeFilippo were able to produce the 7th best offense based on yards per game in 2017, and since the departure of his top assistants Pederson has tried to replicate this success largely on his own. The result has been a steady decline in performance as the offense has taken a steady tumble all the way down to 27th on the leaderboard. It’s common for coaches to be poached from teams that make a Super Bowl appearance, but the great organizations in the NFL are able to retool and replace these guys without missing a beat if the right guys calling the shots at the top.

A few statistics really highlight just how poor the game planning and preparation have been for the Eagles so far in 2020. The biggest one that jumps out to me is the lack of usage for running back Miles Sanders. It’s clear to anyone who watches the Eagles (besides maybe Doug Pederson) that Sanders is a budding star in this league and probably the team’s best skill player. He averages a whopping 6.0 (!!!) yards per carry, placing him second amongst NFL running backs, and has looked absolutely explosive every time he touches the ball. Meanwhile, the Eagles offense in total averages just 5.0 yards per play — good for 28th in the league.

Even with how well Sanders has performed in 2020, Pederson seems intent on making Philadelphia a pass first offense. They pass the ball on 63.7% of their plays ranking them 3rd behind only Jacksonville and Chicago (two offenses you do not want to be compared to). When you have a quarterback who leads the league in turnovers, a group of pass catchers decimated by injuries, and a bonafide star at the running back position, throwing the ball at a high rate doesn’t seem to be an ideal route to success. It’s unclear what Pederson’s logic behind this pass happy approach is, but one thing is obvious — he’s not utilizing his best offensive weapon and the team is suffering as a result.

The lack of balance on offense has prevented the Eagles from sustaining long drives and making life easier on their defense. This past Sunday against the Giants, the Eagles went 0–9 on third down conversions. This was the first time since 2004 that the team put up a goose egg in that category and unsurprisingly the team lost the game. Going back to 2017, the Eagles were the 2nd best team in the league converting on 3rd down at a 44.7% clip while this year they rank 24th in that category converting only 39.3% of the time. A large part of their 3rd down failures this year have come from the difficult situations the offense consistently finds themselves in. According to Sharp Football Stats, the Eagles rank 25th and 28th in 1st and 2nd down success rate respectively. This poor performance on early downs has constantly put Philadelphia in unfavorable 3rd down situations that have been difficult to overcome. On 3rd down Wentz often finds himself in a situation similar to what a baseball batter would face if he were to step up to the plate down 0–2 in the count.

The most disappointing part about the third down performance is the fact that the offense has been outstanding when handling third and manageable situations so far this year. When the Eagles face 3rd and 4 or less, they have the second best conversion rate in the league where they find success 70% of the time. This may come as a surprise to many, but when Wentz and the offense are faced with a manageable task, they find a way to succeed at a rate that puts them on par with the league’s best teams. Doug Pederson has an electric running back and a quarterback capable of sustaining drives when the task isn’t insurmountable, but somehow as a play caller he hasn’t been able unlock the potential of these two players.

I think this Eagles offense is capable of making a turnaround, but they will continue to disappoint if Pederson can’t start calling plays that make life easier on his players. He’s a good coach and a good play caller — the Eagles don’t win a Super Bowl if he’s not — but at the same time it’s becoming clear that he’s not a one man band. NFL coaches are notorious for having big egos, and I hope for the sake of the Eagles, Pederson’s ego hasn’t been overly inflated by the Super Bowl victory. He didn’t win the Super Bowl alone, and if he ever wants to return to one he needs to acknowledge this fact.

An aging, underperforming roster and a stubborn head coach have been two focal points of the Eagles downfall in 2020, but quarterback Carson Wentz has absolutely been a cause for concern as well. The young quarterback leads the league in turnovers, possesses the league’s 3rd worst passer rating, and appears to have been unable to develop any chemistry with his teammates.

There have been talks of Wentz’s issues being largely mental — he constantly looks like he’s trying to do too much on the field, and the pressure of playing in one of the league’s largest (and least forgiving) markets may be weighing on the young man from a small town in North Dakota. 2020 has been a hard year for everyone, and the drafting of a quarterback in the second round paired with watching your backup win the Super Bowl could very well be weighing on Wentz and affecting his play. When you watch him play you can clearly see he’s trying to do too much too often — at times this has lead to greatness, but more often than not this gunslinger mentality has killed drives and led to turnovers. Is he trying to do too much because he simply has no choice, or is he playing to prove something rather than trusting his coaches and playing within the system?

The Eagles have numerous problems within their organization, but the big question they need to address is what’s the primary source of concern? The trio of Roseman, Wentz, and Pederson have all proven they’re capable of greatness in the NFL, but although most of the blame for the Eagles failures in 2020 has been directed at the quarterback, none of the three are doing their jobs at an elite level right now. Many have already counted the Eagles out for 2020 and beyond, and there’s no secret that proving the doubters wrong will be an uphill battle. Luckily for Eagles fans, there’s no city in sports that likes being an underdog more than Philadelphia.