The thing that really drives you crazy about this Eagles team is that the same dang problems that first bubbled up early in the season and haunted the Eagles week after week showed up again Sunday.

Nothing ever got fixed.

They followed decent, productive first halves with lifeless second halves. They never really got the passing game going. They went 3-and-out way too often. The kicker kept missing big kicks. They kept falling apart in the fourth quarter. They couldn’t protect leads. They couldn’t get the ball to their best players in the biggest moments.

You name it. We saw all these issues throughout the season and then in the biggest game of the season, we saw them all again.

How do you go through an entire season without addressing your deficiencies? And why would anybody have expected Sunday to be any different?

This team is too talented for the season to end the way it ended, and while there were execution issues Sunday – penalties, drops, blown coverages, missed tackles – this loss falls squarely on the coaches, and it’s not just Kevin Patullo but Nick Sirianni as well.

The season is over because of their inability to figure out why the Eagles kept falling to pieces after halftime and then to let it happen again against a team they should have dominated.

Go back to Week 4. The Eagles led the Bucs 24-6 at halftime, then had to hang on for dear life to win 31-25. A week later they blew a 17-3 4th-quarter lead at home in a loss to the Broncos. The hapless Giants outscored them 14-0 in the second half. Then there was the horror show in Dallas, where a 21-point lead turned into a loss. The Bears scored 14 points in the fourth quarter at the Linc in a late-season upset win.

Week after week, this team couldn’t build on good first halves. Even in some games they won – Packers, Lions, Bills – the offense was nowhere to be found after halftime, and they only won because the defense was so dominating.

We saw effective offense before halftime, plays that had a purpose, that kept defenses off balance. Then, week after week, we saw it all dry up after halftime. The Eagles grew predictable and conservative. Plays seemed to be chosen randomly with no connection to other plays. Any sign of inventiveness or innovation evaporated. Defenses seemed to know what was coming, and the stuff that worked earlier stopped working.

And there was nothing they could do about it.

This was only the second time in franchise history the Eagles lost four games that they led going into the fourth quarter.

It happened again Sunday and it was excruciating to watch. But you knew the ending.

The Eagles’ offense was good enough in the first half against the 49ers. They netted 188 yards, had two nice touchdown drives, averaged 4.8 yards per carry, were effective on third down and took a 13-10 lead into the third quarter.

Second half? Same old story. Despite great field position, they managed just two field goals, 118 net yards, 2-for-9 on third down, 2.8 yards per carry, no plays longer than 15 yards.

Outscored 13-6 in your own stadium in the second half of a playoff game by a beat-up battered team missing half its good players.

Inexcusable. But hardly surprising. This is what they’ve been doing all year.

You can’t play one half of football and expect to win a playoff game against anybody. No matter how many injuries they have.

They talked all the time about finding an identity, and sadly that identity was collapsing week after week in the second half. And the coaching staff’s inability to figure out how to get this team to play competitive football in the second half ultimately cost the Eagles a chance to get back to the Super Bowl.

The Eagles are the only NFL team to lose four games this year that they led going into the fourth quarter. Only in 2011 did they lose more.

Sunday was hard to watch. In a lot of ways, 2025 was hard to watch. When you have an offense with two elite receivers, a top tight end, a Super Bowl MVP quarterback and a good enough offensive line even when banged up, this can’t be the result.

What made Sunday so infuriating was the inevitability of the result.

You watch a movie a dozen times and you keep hoping the ending changes, but it never does. That’s what this felt like.

Punt-punt-field goal-punt-field goal-downs.

That’s your second half in the biggest game of the season. That’s the best Sirianni and Patullo could come up with.

First three possessions netted 197 yards and 13 points. Last seven drives netted 115 yards and six points.

You can’t play football that way. You can’t win that way.