Obviously, a little bit of a quicker Philadelphia Eagles film review this week so that I can get to previewing the San Francisco 49ers 49ers. I will watch this one back in more detail in the off-season, focusing on a few other performances that I couldn\u2019t get to this time. The Eagles rested most of their starters, played a full slate of backups, and paid for it with a 24\u201317 loss that cost them the No. 2 seed. Watching this back mostly reinforced how much Jalen Hurts and A.J. Brown cover up on a weekly basis. That was my biggest takeaway!<\/p>\n
If the goal was to showcase Tanner McKee and potentially raise his value, the plan backfired. Sticking him behind an entirely backup offensive line that couldn\u2019t handle any second-level pressure exposed his biggest limitation immediately. McKee cannot create outside of structure. When the pocket collapsed or linebackers ran free, there was no escape. Jalen Hurts routinely bails this offense out of bad situations with mobility; McKee simply doesn\u2019t have that in his bag. The Eagles didn\u2019t put him in a good place to succeed.<\/p>\n
Nick Sirianni\u2019s postgame comments about keeping DeVonta Smith safe don\u2019t really line up with this rep! Smith took a clean hit early, but still looked like a superstar among backups. The separation, ball tracking, and body control all jumped off the screen. It was actually jarring how much better Smith looked than everyone else on the field at receiver, which unintentionally highlighted how reliant this offense is on elite individual talent rather than structure.<\/p>\n
The empty looks were interesting. Given McKee\u2019s lack of mobility, leaning into empty was surprising, but when he got the ball out on time, it worked well. This route against split-safety coverage was beautiful, and it served as another reminder of how misused Grant Calcaterra has been all season. This is what he\u2019s good at! Yet the staff rarely gives him opportunities like this in meaningful games.<\/p>\n
The spacing issues on display here were brutal. As the game wore on, McKee\u2019s inability to survive once the play broke down became more obvious. This wasn\u2019t just a quarterback issue; the route distribution and timing didn\u2019t give him margin for error. Hurts\u2019 ability to turn broken plays into positive ones has masked how fragile the offensive design often is. This should not be a surprise to anyone. If anyone magically expected the design of the offense to change once Jalen Hurts was removed, they would have been disappointed.<\/p>\n
The interception was ugly, but it also felt inevitable given McKee\u2019s play style. He throws with anticipation, which is generally a good trait, but here the ball came out far too early. He was clearly hoping the safety would be pulled out of the window by the vertical route, but he\u2019s too early. Over an extended stretch, you\u2019d expect several interceptions like this. I don\u2019t say that as a major criticism; I just think it\u2019s part of the way he plays.<\/p>\n
Tank Bigsby was one of the few positives. He ran hard, found yards where there weren\u2019t many, and absolutely deserves a larger role going forward. The Eagles pulled both the center and left guard at times in this game, which is something we haven\u2019t seen much of this year. I just think that\u2019s an interesting note, condering the health of Landon Dickerson and Cam Jurgens this year. Brett Toth and Drew Kendall held up better in the run game than expected. If Cam Jurgens really isn\u2019t healthy, I\u2019m a little surprised that Toth hasn\u2019t been given a chance to start this year.<\/p>\n
The second half was rough. The offensive design did McKee no favors, and there was very little in the way of easy completions. That said, this was the best concept of the night. McKee absolutely has to take the deep post once the safety bites. This is the stuff we have seen more of over the 2nd half of the season. Ironically, this is usually the kind of throw associated with McKee, which probably makes the miss hurt even more. He will hate seeing this one back!<\/p>\n
This rep explains why many of us like what we see from McKee. This is high-level. He eliminates the frontside concept cleanly and works back to the backside dig within the timing of the play. That\u2019s advanced processing, and it\u2019s something Hurts has struggled with throughout his entire career. The ball placement isn\u2019t perfect, but Dotson has to help his quarterback here. Make a play, man.<\/p>\n
This fourth-down miss likely erased any chance the Eagles had of getting a high pick for McKee, not that I really believed that was possible anyway. I think he\u2019s a perfect backup QB for now. Britain Covey is wide open in the slot, but McKee forces it to Dotson and sails it out of bounds. Once again, when structure breaks down, things fall apart quickly. That\u2019s not entirely on him. The coaches didn\u2019t put him in a position to succeed, and it directly contributed to the loss.<\/p>\n
This game highlighted the same flaws as we\u2019ve seen with the Eagles\u2019 offense, even if the starters weren\u2019t out there. It showed just how much Jalen Hurts\u2019 mobility and A.J. Brown\u2019s dominance prop this offense up week after week. Tanner McKee was underwhelming, but the coaching staff did him very few favors, and the structure collapsed the moment elite talent was removed. Losing the No. 2 seed hurts, but the bigger takeaway is how thin the margin really is for this offense at times. When the stars aren\u2019t there to bail them out, the flaws become impossible to ignore.<\/p>\n
Thank you for reading! I\u2019d love to hear your thoughts, so feel free to comment below and ask any questions. If you enjoyed this piece, you can find more of my work and podcast here<\/a>. If you would like to support me further, please check out my Patreon here<\/a>!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Obviously, a little bit of a quicker Philadelphia Eagles film review this week so that I can get…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":660203,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2068],"tags":[25,12132,7,6,242,109,84309,2476],"class_list":{"0":"post-660202","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-philadelphia-eagles","8":"tag-eagles","9":"tag-eagles-film-review","10":"tag-football","11":"tag-nfl","12":"tag-philadelphia","13":"tag-philadelphia-eagles","14":"tag-philadelphia-eagles-analysis","15":"tag-philadelphiaeagles"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/115851944737523879","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/660202","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=660202"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/660202\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/660203"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=660202"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=660202"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=660202"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}