By: Kylan Watson
The Philadelphia Eagles traveled to Tampa to finish off the first round of the 2024 NFL Playoffs looking to save the sinking ship that was their season. Unfortunately for them the Buccaneers wanted it more and they took full advantage of the Eagles miscues. Tampa Bay beat them 32-nine and sent them right into the most important offseason in franchise history.
The Eagles did not have it from the opening kickoff when they started their first two possessions going four-and-out. The Buccaneers took full advantage of the early power outage as they were able to score on their first three possessions, one capped off by a touchdown throw from Baker Mayfield. Who came into this game with a bad ankle and bruised ribs but was still able to carve Philly’s offense up like its meat on a dinner table. Tampa feasted on the Eagles defense through its first five possessions and the Eagles offense showed no signs of life besides one drive that was capped off by touchdown pass to Dallas Goedert. That was the only offensive point besides a field goal that Philly could muster tonight. Throughout the entirety of the 2023-24 NFL Season nothing has been easy for Philly on the offensive side. The fault for that falls on everyone involved in the offensive scheme. Both Nick Sirianni and Brian Johnson failed to scheme people open throughout this season and criminally misused D’Andre Swift and Dallas Goedert failing to take advantage of their speed and talent to get off the ball. Now Jeffrey Laurie and Howie Roseman have big decisions to make after the most embarrassing collapse in the history of Philadelphia Sports. The most pivotal being, does Coach Sirianni deserve one more chance to right the ship or is it time to cut the cord? Sirianni has led one of the most successful periods of winning in Eagles history. However, after a collapse like this he really cannot keep his job without a solid plan of how to maximize the Eagles offense and get Jalen Hurts back on the right track. Jason Kelce, Lane Johnson, Fletcher Cox, and Brandon Graham deserved a better end to what might be their last game in midnight green besides anemically going out in Tampa because of a poor team showing that was filled with miss blocks, tackles, and so many coverage mistakes its going to give the YouTube analysts months of content talking about it.
All credit to Tampa after only scoring nine-points last week they put up 32 on the struggling Eagles defense. That did an excellent job midway through the second quarter of slowing them down, but ultimately the dam finally broke and the Eagles hopes were washed away. Bad tackling, missed coverages, running into each other trying to cover wide-open receivers were some of the many Philly defensive miscues that Tampa took full advantage of to score their points. When push came to shove Baker Mayfield and Todd Bowles outexecuted the Eagles tonight. When Mayfield had to make a play, he found the right one to make, and Philly did not do enough to stop them. In one sequence in this game Mayfield hit a receiver in stride and he did the rest making a bunch of Philly’s defenders miss tackles on the way to a long touchdown that put this game away. All credit to the Buccaneers they wanted it more and played like a team that realized it was playoff football and not just another game.
The Buccaneers will now move on to face the Detroit Lions and the Eagles will have a long offseason to evaluate who should continue here in Philly and who should not. The Eagles will need to find a Defensive Coordinator who can specialize in limiting miss tackles and bad penalties. Howie Roseman has to bring in more people who can cover in the backend of the defense because so many good defensive stands were undone by bad penalties or missed coverages in the secondary. The question that should be at the forefront of this offseason is who can come to Philly and maximize Jalen Hurts’ potential to be a top-five quarterback in this league. If they can do these things, then the Eagles can be a title contender again if they cannot then its time to blow it up.