The Eagles went to Tampa on Sunday hoping to exact some measure of revenge after losing to the Buccaneers in the playoffs last season, but it didn’t take long to realize they would be heading home as losers once again.
Tampa scored touchdowns on their first two possessions while the Eagles ran six plays for no yards in the first quarter. The Bucs would push their lead to 24-0 before the Eagles got on the board and the 33-16 final score makes the game look closer than it ever really felt on the field.
After the game, head coach Nick Sirianni pointed to himself when it came to assigning blame for what went wrong on the field.
“We obviously didn’t start well, down 24-0 to start things off. Obviously, no excuse for that. We didn’t come out — we didn’t coach well enough and we didn’t play well enough,” Sirianni said, via the team’s website. “I didn’t have the guys ready to start. But, our fundamentals weren’t what we needed it to be. We’ll make sure we’re working hard on that — bye week is coming at a good time. We’ve got to get our bodies right and we’ve got to make some changes as far as what’s going on fundamentally. Early on in the game, I thought we had some missed tackles — thought we had a couple drops. Those are going to stop drives and those are going to extend drives – and that’s where it’s going to have to start with fundamentals. Then, it’s going to be looking at what kind of positions we are putting the guys in. But, yeah – we didn’t play well enough and coach well enough fundamentally, penalty-wise — everything.”
The Eagles are 2-2 and they can hope to get players like A.J. Brown, DeVonta Smith and Lane Johnson back after the bye, but the first month has been short on reasons to think the Eagles are about to catch fire. Sirianni won’t have to fight to take the blame for that and continued struggles will only add to speculation that someone else will be calling the shots in Philly before too much more time passes.
