When you’re turning to Matt Patricia, it’s obvious you’re out of answers. You may not even know the questions.
Whatever went wrong for the Eagles in the second half of this season – injuries, age, confusion, lack of a Plan B – it’s a pretty clear signal to everyone on the team that the coach doesn’t know what to do and is in a panic when it turns to Matt Patricia. The players aren’t stupid or blind when it comes to football matters. They know this doofus was an utter failure in Detroit and can see the bounce the Lions (the Lions!) got from launching him. They know that he wasn’t any better in returning to New England when Bill Belichik thought he could play coordinator-a-go-go and put them anywhere. And they know when he’s given the keys to either side of the ball, it’s going to be a mess. And it was.
Not that the other side of the ball on Monday night was squeaky clean. The Eagles played as if blitzing against them was illegal and receivers rarely, if ever, turned around in their routes until some Bucs lineman was wearing Jalen Hurts’s face as a hat. Which is pretty much as it’s been for seven weeks or so, Hurts unable to go scorched Earth to Davonta Smith or A.J. Brown, the way it looked so seamless last season.
They didn’t have any answers there either. This is the kind of spin-out of a season that usually leads to some behind-the-scenes, anonymous quote filled tell-all in the coming weeks where we find out someone defecated in a teammates locker/swimming pool or the coach showed up drunk to a walk-through or some player banged another’s wife and tore the team apart (happening with the Giants as we speak!). Perhaps Jeffrey Loria will panic in the same way his coach Sirianni did by handing any form of reins over to Patricia and start firing people. That’s what they’ll be calling for on WIP tomorrow, you can be sure. Sirianni should have an interesting meeting with the hierarchy about why he pulled that particular lever. They should broadcast that on WIP.
Everything went great for two and a half seasons for the Birds. And then it came time to develop a counter move to tag with what came before. Theirs involved handing Patricia a play sheet. That’s about all you need to know.
The Falcons want everyone to know they are very grown up
Isn’t this a little desperate to get a pat on the head?
Fans don’t want the labor pains, they just want the baby. Let the beat writers leak out who’s been interviewed and who hasn’t. This feels like the Falcons putting on their dad’s shoes and shirt and clomping around the house playing “Adult Dad.” Very good.
Follow Sam on Twitter @Felsgate and on Bluesky @Felsgate.bsky.social
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