This one has to go down as one of the worst regular season losses in the Andy Reid era. The 49ers, who brought the worst offense in the NFL into this game, scored 21 unanswered points in the fourth quarter as the Eagles choked away their third straight fourth quarter lead and dropped to 1-3 on the season. It’s easily the ugliest loss in an already ugly season.
"Absolutely terrible job by myself and my football team today." said head coach Andy Reid ."When you have the lead in the National Football League, you build on it and you continue to score points when given the opportunity. In all areas we were terrible today. We had a lot of yards, but we didn't punch it in, and we were just 2-for-7 in the red zone. Defensively, we gave up three scoring drives in the second half. Our young kicker [Alex Henery] has got to figure it out too, just like everybody else on our football team. When you have opportunities to score points, you score points."
The question is where do the Eagles go from here? We know Andy Reid isn’t going to be fired (not during the season anyway), but clearly there has to be some kind of accountability from the top. They can’t be happy after spending all that money to see their team play like this against the 49ers of all teams. It’s just not acceptable.
It was another game, like last week where there’s plenty of blame to spread around. Rookie Alex Henery missed 2 FGs from inside 40 yards, which in a 1 point game is obviously huge. The offense was horrendous in the end zone and was held to three points in the second half. Jeremy Maclin for the second time this year makes a huge mistake on a potential game winning drive to cost the team a game. The defense…. oh the defense.
Say what you will about the Eagles offense. Certainly they didn’t get the job done in the second half. However, they did hand the defense a 20-3 lead at the half against a team that had the 32nd ranked offense in the NFL prior to this game. Even if they never scored another point (which was almost the case), that should still be more than enough to win a game. And yet, as we’ve seen all year the Eagles defense can not get a stop in the second half when they need one. This defense has now given up 57 points in the second half of the last three games.
Here’s the important thing to take away about this defense. The problem with the Eagles D is not that they can’t stop the run. It’s that they can’t stop the run or the pass.
The Eagles fall to 1-3 and now face a road trip to the surprising Buffalo Bills, who did seem to come back down to earth today, but have a high scoring offense that the Eagles should be petrified of right now.