Regardless, Go Birds
I saw a reel on Instagram by an autistic woman who said that in order to process emotions we have to communicate them. In this blog post, I communicate some of my emotions around the 2023 Philadelphia Eagles team and season.
It’s been 48-ish hours since the Eagles lost 9-32 to the Tampa Bay Buccaneers on Monday Night Football in the last game of Super Wild Card Weekend, finishing the season 1-6 after a 10-1 start.
If you’ve spent anytime with Eagles fans, you’ll probably have come across the fact that no matter how much fans of other teams hate the Eagles, you don’t hate them as much as we do. Why? Well, it’s a different reason every season.
In 2023, I had high expectations for the Eagles. I didn’t expect us to win the Super Bowl, but I started the season expecting them to win two playoff games. If we got the 1-seed, I expected the team to get to the Super Bowl. If we had to play a Wild Card game, I expected us to get to the NFCCG. Yes, that’s still a lofty goal, but that’s what NFL expectations are.
And there was good reason to have those expectations—Hurts was an MVP candidate and outplayed Mahomes in the Super Bowl. The Eagles had put up 24 points by halftime (before a defensive collapse with Gannon daydreaming about the weather in Glendale). If Bradberry didn’t tug on Smith-Schuster’s jersey (or if the refs ate the flag), if Quez didn’t drop the ball, or if Jalen didn’t fumble, it might have flipped to a three or four point win. The expectations were so high that, I’m embarrased to admit, I thought the departure of both coordinators would be good for the team because the offense did not have any systematic answers to pressure, and the defensive system couldn’t seem to adjust to good offenses. I thought losing T.J. Edwards or C.J. Gardner-Johnson wouldn’t matter.
Starting the 2023 season at 10-1, there was evidence that these expectations seemed reasonable: we beat the Chiefs on the road, and the Bills, Dolphins and Cowboys at home. All four of them playoff teams, three of them division winners. After 11 games, the Eagles were 6-0 (3-0 on the road) against teams who would eventually make the playoffs (@ Bucs, @ Rams, Dolphins, Cowboys, @ Chiefs, Bills).
The first halves of those 11 games weren’t always great (at halftime, the Eagles were down 4 and 7 vs Commanders, down 3 to Cowboys, down 10 to Chiefs, and down 10 to Bills). But some of the second halves were amazing (shutting out the Rams in LA and the Chiefs in KC, holding the Dolphins to 7, and Dallas to 6). Jalen set the record for comeback wins (6) after being down double digits, had 13 straight wins against teams with a winning record, and was 25-2 in his last 27 games. The Eagles had the toughest schedule coming into the 2023 season, and we all know you have to gut it out sometimes, so this was just a testament to the team’s grit.
And then, somebody pulled the plug.
The Eagles lost to the Bucs in the Wild Card when, in Week 12, during pregame warm-ups, seemingly every player on the entire 49ers roster intentionally bumped into James Bradberry IV as they walked past him. And not a single Eagles player or coach stood up to defend him. Not Slay, nor Blankenship, nor Fletch, nor BG, nor Kelce, Lane, AJ, Smitty, nor Hurts. Not even Big Dom. And not even after months of Deebo calling Bradberry trash. Watching that felt like somebody pulled the plug, and the screen went blank.
I was at the game in Seattle (which, btw, was my first time ever going to an NFL game) when Drew Lock went on a 92-yard TD drive to put on for his team. Jalen and the offense couldn’t respond. Whether they were trying to draw a flag, or the players went rogue, the magic that I felt in the first 11 weeks (sans the Jets game) had fully evaporated.
I don’t need to repeat the rest of the season in detail—scraping by the Giants at home, losing to Gannon and the Cardinals after putting up 31 points, getting blown out in East Rutherford while losing AJ and Sydney Brown to that godforsaken turf—which was an epic collapse of what felt like historical proportions (e.g., the Eagles ending with the worst point differential in NFL history after starting 10-1). Every week felt like being punched in the gut. The entire apartment stunk of my crummy vibe while watching the Eagles get punked by teams, both greater and lesser than them. The day after each game was uncomfortable, full of angst, anger, and self-loathing comedic relief on Eagles Twitter. My mental health will significantly improve this offseason, and not in some figurative, intangible way.
I think Nick Sirianni deserves a shot to fix this. Based on reports today about him and Howie shopping coordinators, it seems like he will get that shot. It will take me some time to get over the demotion of Sean Desai (if Nick gets a chance to fix this 11-7, Wild Card losing, no-hot-route, no-middle-of-the-field-route, only-run-Swift-4-times-in-the-first-half mess, why didn’t Desai get a shot to get out of a rut at 10-3?) And based on the (lack of) planning that went into the last 8 weeks, extrapolating that into the offseason doesn’t make me optimistic.
And yet, what if Nick figures this out? What if he gets the right people on his staff and listens to them? What if he overhauls his offensive system and puts into place simple, common elements that get his receivers separation more easily and gives Hurts the ability to make pre-snap adjustments based on what he sees? What if that opens up the run game again? What if Jalen Carter, Reed Blankenship and Kelee Ringo take the next step? What if Howie invests in the Linebacker and Safety positions? What if all three layers of the defense work as one unit to get the right angles and tackle hard? What if Sirianni turns this things around and wins Coach of the Year next season?
What if he doesn’t? What if Hurts starts to absorb these bad habits that they force him into with their system and scheme? What if we lose AJ’s prime? What if Kelce comes back to a rebuild year with a roster capable of winning a Super Bowl?
What saved the season for me, with seemingly nothing left to save, was the heart with which DeVonta played in the Wild Card loss. He was putting his body on the line, he was running clean routes, blowing by dudes, going up for the ball and then coming down with it. He was fired up on the sideline. He didn’t care that they had lost 5 out of 6 and were down two scores on the road. He was a true WR1 that night. So, I’ll take that energy with me into the offseason. If it works out, that’s great. If not, it will suck. Again.
Regardless, Go Birds.