‘Starts with the Head Coach’

The Philadelphia Eagles offense once again sputtered on its way to elimination.

On the Wild Card edition of “Inside The Birds Postgame”, Adam Caplan and Geoff Mosher discussed the season-ending 23-19 defeat to the San Francisco 49ers.

GETTY IMAGES: Eagles Head Coach Nick Sirianni continues to face scrutiny for the offense’s scheme.

Saquon Barkley

Adam Caplan: “When you look at (Saquon) Barkley’s numbers, you go ‘wow, he had over 100 yards,’ but it didn’t feel like it. He had some really nice runs, but what happened as the game progressed in the second half was negative yards, gets hit, falls down.”

Geoff Mosher: “Going over 100 yards is nice, but overall the team averaged 3.9 per carry. That’s not good.”

Jalen Hurts

Mosher: “Some people thought Hurts was saving the quarterback run game for the playoffs. They don’t do that.”

Caplan: “It was an uneven game for him, but he made some good throws.”

Offensive Line

Mosher: “I’m not even sure at this point that Lane Johnson being healthy or not is the difference because they have plenty of poor offensive performances this year with Lane, but when he couldn’t be a full participant in practice after seven or eight weeks of being on the sideline, that’s just a bad sign. It has been a really rough season for the Eagles offensive line.” 

Caplan: “The story of this season is if you want to rank your 10 most disappointing things, I can just not believe the offensive line this season…The run blocking to me overall has been one of those things that I never understand.”

Nick Sirianni

Caplan: “It starts with the head coach, it’s his scheme. How much longer can they run this junk [offense]?..We have talked to so many teams that says this scheme is awful. Advanced people tell us this is really bad.”

Mosher: “It’s a unique situation. Nick Sirianni is an offensive coach but he’s not a playcaller. He didn’t call play with the Colts and he gave it up early in his first year [with the Eagles]. This is a unique situation for offensive head coaches because most of them usually are playcallers and they can throw a life preserver…This is why maybe one of the offseason needs is a senior offensive advisor who has called plays.”

– Benjamin Paul is a staff writer for InsideTheBirds.com.