If you want to know how far the Philadelphia Eagles’ defense has fallen since head coach Nick Sirianni made the decision to switch play-callers from Sean Desai to Matt Patricia, here’s one quick and easy statistic for you. The Eagles beat the Tampa Bay Buccaneers 25-11 in Week 3, allowing 174 net yards. But in the first quarter of the wild-card rematch on Monday night, things were far worse.
The Bucs' 178 yards in the first quarter was more than they had in the Week 3 game against #Eagles (174)
— John McMullen (@JFMcMullen) January 16, 2024
Philly’s defense has dropped from 27th to 29th in Pass Defense DVOA in the second half of the season, so that’s been a problem throughout, no matter the guy in charge. But the run defense has gone splat — from fourth to 31st.
Moreover, the communication on defense has become an irreparable issue, as was shown on this 44-yard Baker Mayfield touchdown pass to David Moore with 5:47 left in the first quarter. This had not been a common occurrence. The horrible spacing and tackling, however, has been all too frequent.
"And so far the tackling for the Eagles in their secondary has been awful."
Joe Buck with some hard facts for the Eagles after David Moore's 44-yard TD. pic.twitter.com/utPI93vgir
— Awful Announcing (@awfulannouncing) January 16, 2024
David Moore had 94 receiving yards in the entire regular season, but he comes up with a 44-yard touchdown — he has two catches for 66 yards and Bucs lead the Eagles 10-0, 5:47 left in the first.
— Greg Auman (@gregauman) January 16, 2024
One issue with changing defensive play-callers in season, unless the two coaches have fairly common schemes, is that you’re asking your players to do a lot of new things at a time when NFL practice rules are limited, and it’s tough to get the installs in place to the point where they work on the field.
"Sorry to keep saying the same thing. But I keep seeing the same thing." pic.twitter.com/3ep1iIqpS0
— Awful Announcing (@awfulannouncing) January 16, 2024
Greg Cosell and I discuss this exact issue in this week’s “Xs and Os.”
It's also not great for Philly that @Buccaneers OC Dave Canales has mixed and blurred heavy personnel in the run and pass games to Baker Mayfield's great benefit. Could be a brutal matchup for whatever Matt Patricia is doing these days. @Eagles @gregcosell https://t.co/pr7QmpdKpr pic.twitter.com/VRj3TQNe99
— Doug Farrar ✍ (@NFL_DougFarrar) January 15, 2024
On January 8, Sirianni was asked about the difficulties in installing all kinds of new things in such a short amount of time.
“We’re not completely changing to adjust Matt’s philosophy,” Sirianni said. “Matt’s also doing things to fit the defense that’s currently in place. So, to me, that’s not what the issue is going on.
“You know, are we doing some different things and some new things? Yeah, of course, but we’re doing some different things and new things on offense as the year progresses. And so that to me is not — we’re very conscious of that, and we understand that when you put something new in, every detail has to be ironed out, and every offense that you go against has to be prepared for it with that scheme that you’re putting in. And so that’s done with thought in mind.
“We’re being conscious of how much we’re changing and what we’re doing because it is hard to change. To say, ‘hey, we’re going to run a completely new defense at this point in the year,’ when Matt took over, and that’s why we’re not doing that.
“We’re just making some adjustments, some different things that we’re doing when we’re going through defense, and hey, has it been good enough these last couple of weeks? No, but we’re still working like crazy to get it better.”
Whatever that work may be, it’s not showing up on the field, and it could end the Eagles’ season sooner than anybody in the building would like.
