INGLEWOOD, Calif. — In a moment of angst for the Philadelphia Eagles and all those who love and judge them, Jeffrey Lurie was oddly ebullient.
Thirty minutes after the Eagles dropped their third consecutive game, a 22-19 overtime heartbreaker to the Los Angeles Chargers Monday night at SoFi Stadium, Lurie, the team’s owner since 1994, approached second-year cornerback Cooper DeJean at the player’s locker and offered cheerful words of encouragement.
Lurie was a more powerful messenger than the “Positivity Rabbit” that appeared in the locker room at the team’s training facility last week, and a far more authentic one.
“In 32 years, I don’t think we’ve ever lost a game we were about to win, like on a missed field goal or a last-second catch or something like that,” Lurie said, his eyes sparkling with childlike wonderment. “(Brian) Dawkins would get a pick in the end zone, or something would happen and we’d pull it out. Maybe I’m not remembering something, but I don’t think it’s ever happened (until now). I expected us to do it again. We were just a couple of plays away.”
But if Philly fans were already in freakout mode following their previous debacle, a dispiriting 24-15 defeat to the Chicago Bears on Black Friday, Monday’s misfire amplified the noise like a Jack White guitar solo.
The defending Super Bowl champs (8-5) have now failed to score more than 21 points for five consecutive games — their most impotent stretch in two decades. Their offense looks about as crisp as Timothy Ratliff after sampling his wife’s lorazepam in “White Lotus.”
Yes, many of the same players were part of an Eagles team that annihilated the Kansas City Chiefs in Super Bowl LIX just 10 months ago. Even so, it’s beginning to feel a lot like 2023.
Jalen Hurts speaks with the media. #FlyEaglesFly https://t.co/9MZnTaDOPV
— Philadelphia Eagles (@Eagles) December 10, 2025
In that surreal season, the Eagles started 10-1 before suffering a blowout home defeat to the San Francisco 49ers, a game best remembered for a sideline skirmish between then-Niners linebacker Dre Greenlaw and the Eagles’ longtime head of security, Dominic (Big Dom) DiSandro. From that point on, the season was a Big Bummer. The collapsing Eagles lost six of their final seven games, including a 32-9 thrashing by the Tampa Bay Buccaneers in the first round of the playoffs.
It was an inglorious end to a once promising campaign. This recent stretch of stench raises the question: Is this a bad sequel?
After Monday’s game, several Eagles players defiantly insisted that they’re not repeating recent history.
“No,” receiver DeVonta Smith said. “It’s nowhere close to 2023.”
Star running back Saquon Barkley, who joined the Eagles as a free agent following that season, was similarly declarative.
“A lot of people bring up 2023,” Barkley said, shaking his head. “I wasn’t here. A lot of guys weren’t here. And the guys who were here would be crazy not to learn from that. It may not make sense right now. … It doesn’t make sense to me.”
On paper, it makes about as much sense as a fourth-string running back (A.J. Dillon, who last played on Oct. 9) taking it upon himself to change a team’s vibes by bringing a large, blown-up Easter Bunny into the locker room. Talk about a deflating defeat: When reporters entered the locker room on Wednesday, the rabbit was gone, seemingly having been placed on waivers.
Then again, for all their success over the past decade (three Super Bowl appearances, two Lombardis), the Eagles habitually defy conventional wisdom.
Most teams look to their franchise quarterback for motivation and leadership. Jalen Hurts, amid all his accomplishments — including a Super Bowl MVP performance last February — isn’t known as a “connector” in the building. His frayed relationship with star receiver A.J. Brown became a conspicuous talking point earlier this season when Brown voiced his frustrations.
Conversely Barkley, a first-team All-Pro in 2024, is regarded as a team leader; his 52-yard touchdown run off a faked tush push at the start of Monday’s fourth quarter gave Philly’s sideline a temporary jolt of adrenaline that proved to be unsustainable.
Nothing about the Eagles’ offense has resembled the unit that steamrolled teams last January and February. Hurts (seven turnovers in his last two games, including an eye-popping five on Monday) has added ball security to a growing list of issues that includes an unwillingness to throw in-breaking, intermediate routes. Barkley, running behind a hobbled offensive line, is averaging 4.0 yards per carry, down from 5.8 in 2024. Brown and Smith have combined for just nine touchdown catches and have collectively caught only about two-thirds of the throws targeted their way.
The gaudy numbers have gone away for Eagles receivers A.J. Brown and DeVonta Smith. (Kevin Jairaj / Imagn Images)
First-year offensive coordinator Kevin Patullo, elevated to his position after Kellen Moore left to become the New Orleans Saints’ head coach following last February’s Super Bowl, has absorbed a healthy share of criticism, with coach Nick Sirianni becoming more involved in game planning. Following the Bears game, some foolish fans egged Patullo’s house, seemingly without the Easter Bunny’s involvement.
Two years ago, the Eagles’ offense was a mess, too — with embattled offensive coordinator Brian Johnson playing the role of Patullo. Back then, however, the team’s defensive deficiencies were equally glaring. In mid-December 2023, senior defensive assistant Matt Patricia became that unit’s primary play caller, replacing defensive coordinator Sean Desai. The slide continued, and both coordinators were gone at season’s end.
In retrospect, the staff upheaval that occurred following Philly’s narrow defeat to the Chiefs in Super Bowl LVII had taken a toll: With offensive coordinator Shane Steichen (Indianapolis Colts) and defensive coordinator Jonathan Gannon (Arizona Cardinals) having departed for head coaching opportunities, their respective replacements were one-and-done temps in the wake of the 2023 meltdown.
Head Coach Nick Sirianni speaks with the media. #FlyEaglesFly https://t.co/cQ0BTTG4Hw
— Philadelphia Eagles (@Eagles) December 10, 2025
After that season, the Eagles brought in Vic Fangio, one of the most renowned defensive strategists of his generation, with predictably great results. Fangio, 67, remains entrenched as the team’s defensive coordinator, which is a major reason so many players and others in the organization are confident they can forestall another freefall.
“Nah — this ain’t no crash at the end,” said 37-year-old defensive end Brandon Graham, who came out of retirement to rejoin the Eagles in October. “It’s just the way it’s going right now. We’ll get it right. I’m not worried at all. We’ve still got Vic. Back then, we lost (coordinators) on both sides of the ball.
“This isn’t 2023. We’re definitely gonna get it right. I just know that how we handle this right now is key. Let people talk. While they keep talking, we’ll just keep working.”
Nick Sirianni’s Eagles team hasn’t topped 21 points in five straight games, starting with a win in Green Bay. (Michael Reaves / Getty Images)
To be sure, people will keep talking. The Eagles have an engaged and notoriously alarmist fan base and are subject to the NFL’s most aggressive and discerning local media coverage. To be clear, however, the growing frustration that has seeped into the locker room and infiltrated the sideline on game day isn’t simply the product of outside noise.
“It’s the same thing every week,” Smith said long after Monday’s game in a near-empty visitors’ locker room at SoFi. “We’re doing some good s—, but we shoot ourselves in the foot. Nobody’s doing anything to stop us. We’re stopping ourselves every time. We get something going and we just start doing some dumb s—.”
Two years ago, once things began to unravel, the Eagles couldn’t stop the downward spiral. This time, beginning with Sunday’s home game against the 2-11 Las Vegas Raiders, their challenge is to do so amid growing cynicism.
With a game-and-a-half lead over the Dallas Cowboys (6-6-1) in the NFC East and a favorable schedule — after the Raiders, Philly has two games against the 3-10 Washington Commanders sandwiched around a road clash with the 9-4 Buffalo Bills — a turnaround seems feasible. As in 2023, however, the Eagles will ultimately be judged by what happens in the postseason, assuming they even get there.
“We know we have the talent,” Barkley said. “We know we have the coaches. We’re training. We’re working hard, doing all the little things right. But it’s not transitioning to the football field (in games). It doesn’t make sense right now. But we’ve got to keep working.”
They’ll do so in an environment that one front-office executive called a “pressure-cooker” — with some very accomplished authority figures attempting to meet a relentlessly high standard.
Sirianni, for all his emotional outbursts and perceived flaws, proved to be a masterful tone-setter in guiding the Eagles to a championship, earning a massive contract extension in May. General manager Howie Roseman is one of the sport’s most adept and fearless acquirers of talent.
And Lurie, a truly elite owner who has twice fulfilled his dream of giving Philadelphia a Super Bowl victory to celebrate, hasn’t given up hope of completing the trifecta by raising a trophy in Santa Clara, Calif., two months from now.
“I have zero concern,” Lurie said as he stood near DeJean’s locker Monday night, shaking off the sting of a third consecutive defeat. “We had a lot of turnovers, but some of them were flukes.”
Did it feel like 2023?
“Nothing like it,” Lurie insisted. “Absolute opposite. We have a Super Bowl defense and great special teams. Our offense will get it going. I’m not worried at all.”
In the coming weeks — with all eyes on the Eagles — we’ll find out if they can live up to the Positivity Owner’s projection.