Sunday’s 37-34 overtime win against the Bills was the latest sign of the Eagles’ ability to find a way to come back and win a game after falling behind.
The Eagles trailed at halftime for the fourth week in a row and they rallied to win for the fourth week in a row. Quarterback Jalen Hurts and others have discussed the team’s knack for making plays in the biggest moments, but the flip side is that they haven’t done enough offensively early in games to avoid the need for such heroics.
Head coach Nick Sirianni was asked about the slow starts at Monday’s press conference and he said to “give credit to the defense” for their work in limiting the Eagles’ success. He also said the Eagles have not traditionally had an issue starting fast and that he isn’t overly concerned about the last stretch of games.
“I’m not hitting a panic button by any means. I think we’ve been pretty good on our first drive, pretty good starting in general, obviously the last two games, but I get it, you’re judged off the last two games, not the whole body of work sometimes. So, we’ll make sure we’re working hard as coaches to put the guys in positions to succeed. So not just scripting. I think a lot of times what happens, because you asked scripting, so that’s going to mean play calls and all that stuff. It’s design of plays, too, right? And so, when a play doesn’t work, we put it on ourselves as coaches. It’s not just about the play call, it’s about the design of the play and our detail of which we go about teaching it and instructing it. So, any time I take something like, ‘Hey, that’s us as coaches’, I’m not speaking of play calls. Sometimes it’s the play call, but sometimes it’s the design of the play which goes into that. So, we look at all that and we’ll be better.”
Winning makes it easier to remain calm about things that aren’t going as well as you’d like from week to week, but finding a way to thrive for all 60 minutes would be a good way to ensure that the wins keep coming the rest of the way. We’ll see if they come up with a more productive plan for this week’s date with the 49ers.
