Remember when the Eagles started off the season poorly going 1-4 over their first five weeks? And then remember how they won two straight against the Redskins and Cowboys and we all started to wonder who the real Eagles were? The sloppy team with an awful defense from the first five games or the one with the dynamic offense and stifling D we saw the last two games? Well, tonight we got our answer.
Faced with a must win game to keep pace in the division and a chance to resurrect their playoff chances the Eagles reverted right back to the same team we saw at the start of year. The offense turns the ball over in the red zone. The defense can't stop the run or the pass... Dumb penalties, mental mistakes and guys getting paid a lot of money as well as guys looking for a lot of money really not looking like they are worth it.
Twice the Eagles had the Bears stopped on third down and twice they bailed them out with penalties. The first was a somewhat controversial roughing the passer call on Jason Babin where he was pushed into the QB. But that said, when you're going full bore after the passer well after he's thrown the ball, stuff like that happens. That call gets made every single time. The other was on Nnamdi Asomugha who just flat out lost Knox in one on one coverage and committed a pass interference penalty. It was somewhat similar to the back shoulder play to Dez Bryant last week, only this time around they actually threw the flag.
The three pro bowlers were all terrible. We already highlighted the Nnamdi play, but the other two were even worse. Domonique Rodgers-Cromartie put so little effort in tackling tonight, he made Asante Samuel look like Brian Urlacher. And speaking of Samuel, where was he on that TD to Earl Bennett? Do you know, because he certainly didn't know where he was. Just awful coverage that made for an easy TD when Cutler was under pressure.
Matt Forte was pretty awful with ball security tonight and his two fumbles led to 14 Eagles points, but when he did hold onto the ball he ran all over the Eagles D. He and Marion Barber combined for 164 yards on the ground. In both the run and the pass game, the Bears offensive line completely dominated the line of scrimmage.
And just to round up the dejavu recap... LeSean McCoy was easily the best Eagle on the field. He tied a franchise record with his 8th straight game with a TD. He did it in style too with this ridiculous 33 yard run.
And so you're going to hear a lot of people writing the Eagles obituary this week and with good reason. The problem isn't that you can't make the playoffs after a starting with a record of 3-5. The problem is that you can't make the playoffs when you play like this most of the time.