PHILADELPHIA _ The Eagles' 17-9 loss to the Seahawks on Sunday was an assortment of so many interceptions, fumbles, inaccurate throws, dropped passes, missed blocks, missed blocking assignments, missed tackles, poor coaching decisions, poor player decisions _ and we're talking about just the Eagles here _ that any number of those mistakes could summarize the dilapidated condition of a team that was supposed to contend for a Super Bowl. So let's shove our arm deep into the vat and pull up one moment that was particularly infuriating.
Midway through the fourth quarter, Seahawks quarterback Russell Wilson mishandled the football on a handoff and fumbled. The Eagles recovered the gift turnover, after which every member of their defense sprinted to a corner of the end zone and pantomimed the taking of a family photo. That the Eagles were trailing by two touchdowns at the time and had shown no indication that they were able to mount a comeback seemed not to occur to these players. They celebrated as if they were ahead by 14 points, as if they had accomplished something of note.
In a way, they did. The Eagles proved Sunday exactly what sort of team they are and will be this season. They're 5-6 now, riddled with injuries, relying on players who had been in street clothes as recently as two weeks ago to help them stay in the playoff race. They have a quarterback, Carson Wentz, who over his last two games _ against the Seahawks and the Patriots, two of the best teams in the NFL _ has looked lost, unconfident. The league MVP front-runner from 2017 is, at the moment, a distant memory, and without that version of Wentz, the Eagles have no hope of holding on to whatever relevance they still have in the NFC.
Their offensive line, the most talented position group on their offense, couldn't protect Wentz on Sunday and couldn't run-block well enough to sustain a drive _ not without Lane Johnson and not without Brandon Brooks, who left the game early because of an illness. Their wide receivers are generally incompetent. Nothing could be a greater indictment of that group than the fact that, with Alshon Jeffery and Nelson Agholor out Sunday, its best player was longtime practice-squadder Greg Ward.
It was ugly all-around on that side of the ball. But as well as the Eagles' defense played for most of Sunday, it was that celebration, that total disregard for timing and context and any understanding of how a team that is getting its rear end kicked ought to react to it, that was the most distasteful sight of the day. This isn't the same team that won a Super Bowl recently, but everyone connected to it loves to act like it still is.
Sure, the Eagles might roll off some victories against the bottom-feeders that they'll face in these upcoming weeks: the Dolphins, the Redskins, the Giants. But the notion that they matter in the NFC, that there's more here to be extracted from these coaches and players, evaporated Sunday. Some games, some moments, tell you all you need to know about a football team. This was one.
