The Eagles defeated the Bucs 31-25 yesterday with a wire-to-wire victory in Tampa in September. I know the second half scared the hell out of us, but everyone is acting like this was some sort of “bad win” and I don’t get it. I’m not one to tell people how to be fans, especially when it comes to negativity. Hell, my sky is falling constantly. But, for this game at least, the negativity is just unwarranted. Here’s why:
The Bucs
Not only is Tampa good, but they’ve had our number for most of my adult life. For some reason, this was the 3rd year in a row we had to play Tampa, in Tampa, in September. Lately, they’ve known exactly what to do to bottle up Jalen Hurts too. Blitz him early, blitz him often. That’s what Todd Bowles knows, and that’s what they did. It usually works very well, but not yesterday; at least not until the second half. He went from handling the blitz with calm precision to throwing the ball errantly. I don’t know if they did anything differently, but once Hurts took that big hit on the scramble, he was effectively out of the game from a performance standpoint. Because he didn’t technically get hit in the head by the defender on the play, he was not checked out in the medical tent. His head hit the turf though. He was not the same after.1
The Bucs are now 3-1. Their 3 previous wins all came the same way: come from behind win against the Falcons, come from behind win against the Texans, and come from behind win against the Jets. Say what you will about the opponents, but they are a team that apparently plays much better from behind, exactly how it went yesterday. You can call it a collapse by the Birds, but it is probably more accurate to say the Buccaneers are a second half team that wore the Eagles down in the scorching September heat.
Personally, I hate Tampa. Yes, I hate the team, but I’m talking about the city. I’ve had some of my all time worst moments there. Game 2 of the 2008 World Series, food poisoning before boarding a flight, and even my girlfriend/future wife giving me the “how come we aren’t engaged yet” talk, plus many more misadventures.2 Why my favorite team has to play football there so often, I have no idea, but it is interesting…
The Heat
The Florida sun is no joke, yet everyone in the northeast is dismissing this as a reasonable excuse for the 2nd half collapse. It is no accident that Tampa sets the opponent’s sideline to be directly in the angled sun for the second half. Earlier in the game a temporary canopy was set up over the bench to shield the stifling rays from the players, but no such luck as the angle gets worse in the afternoon. This is done with purpose because it’s a serious advantage. It CLEARLY had a negative effect on the Eagles performance as the game went on.
In writing this, I took a look back at the last decade of Tampa home games in September. Strangely, this was only their 8th 1pm home game in the last 11 years. Somehow, 3 of them were against the Eagles. The Packers and Giants received curious 4:25pm starts for their visits while the Chiefs, Steelers, and Cowboys were scheduled for primetime. That seems like some bullshit to me. In case you were wondering, the Bucs are now 6-2 in these games.3 It’s an advantage.
I live in Florida. I have trouble sitting in my car with the AC on during school pickup at 3pm because the sun is that damn crazy and coming in through the window glass. Officially it was 93° with a heat index of 102°. They played football in that heat! That’s pure insanity. Is it more likely that the Eagles forgot how to play football in the second half or that they were completely gassed?
The Offense
It looked great until it didn’t, right? Only that’s not really true. The running game has been completely off so far this season. Not surprisingly, this affects the whole offensive system. Last year, the team could rely on short yardage on 2nd and 3rd down because Saquon just ran for 6+ yards. This year, he is getting hit in the back field. Now an offense that relies on either short throws or different coverage due to the running attack no longer has an advantage. To me this is the biggest concern.
In the first half this week, the Eagles were throwing it all over and on odd downs. There seemed to be an effort to change things up and it worked. The strategy even opened up the running game some. However, this was abandoned in the 2nd half for some reason.
It’s also pretty confusing as to why it has been so hard to get our two great receivers the ball? In previous years, maybe Hurts wasn’t seeing open targets, but this year they just aren’t there. Last year, the offense was a mess through 4 weeks too, so at least there’s that. I don’t have a good answer for this.
One thing we need to understand is that this offense plays conservative, and it is for a reason. If it is 3rd and long, they are running a coward’s draw with Saquon rather than having Hurts force it and possibly throw an interception. It is an annoying strategy, but it is also an effective one. Baker threw the game away yesterday trying to force a ball on 3rd and long. Justin Herbert and Brock Purdy threw two picks in close losses yesterday too. For some reason, these aren’t nearly as condemned as the Eagles’ alternative despite the results.
The Defense
23 points isn’t ideal, but this defense still played phenomenally yesterday. The one TD to Ebuka is probably easily intercepted 9 times out of 10, but Andrew Mukuba is a rookie and was out of position. Otherwise, the play of Mitchell, DeJean, Baun, and Campbell is nothing short of elite. These guys are always in the right position, cause turnovers, and absolutely swarm to the ball. There are never mistakes with these 4.
They were on the field waaayyy too long in the 2nd half and still had enough left in the tank to make plays when we needed it. Just when it looked like the game might be slipping away, Jalen Carter freed up Moro Ojomo for one of the biggest bulldozer sacks I’ve ever seen. Carter then caused Baker to force a throw into a tight window, causing the ball to be tipped by Reed Blankenship, and into the arms of Jihaad Campbell to seal the win. All 3 guys had every reason to be fatigued and not capable of their fullest effort on the play. It didn’t happen. Without all 3 doing exactly what they had to, we probably do not win the game.
The Creativity
It sure seems like the Eagles decided they weren’t going to hear about the Tush Push this week. We saw two shovel-ish passes and a fake TP in 3 trips to the goal line. No Tush Pushes this week. Is it because Tampa has been critical of the play in the past? Probably.
It’s those goal-to-go plays that make the rest of the offense so confounding. Kevin Patullo apparently has things in the playbook but just isn’t using them. You can get Dallas Goedert the ball in traffic at the line, but can’t get AJ Brown into space? I don’t have a good answer for this.
AJ Brown
Brown was on his passive aggressive nonsense after the game, choosing to post some cryptic message about withdrawing from the team. The media and fans are up in arms about this despite it happening several times per season. This does not bother me in the least. Everyone needs to understand 2 things:
First, AJ Brown cares. I would be more worried about him NOT being upset with his production and roll in the offense. He just won a Super Bowl and is holding his offense accountable for not looking good enough. He’s right! This is how he shows his displeasure. It worked last year, and I suspect it will work again this season.
Second, he is not getting traded and is not the type to sabotage the team because of that. His contract is set up to where the dead cap would be so horrific that they literally cannot move him and be cap compliant. He would get sent home before he is traded. That wouldn’t happen though. Despite the urge to paint AJ in selfish WR stereotypes, that has never been him. He doesn’t undermine the team, he doesn’t run to the media with complaints, and he doesn’t give blame. He just wants the team to be the best it can be, and he knows he is a major part of that.
Jalen Hurts
That’s 9 TDs on the year with ZERO interceptions and ZERO losses. Anyone who is bashing his level of play this year by comparing his stats to other QBs is either not being honest or not watching the games. He is simply not making any mistakes. He isn’t tucking and running too early like in previous years, he isn’t throwing into tight coverage, and he isn’t missing open receivers. It’s been an all-around great performance by him so far. The second half yesterday was bad, but that only happened after he hit his head hard on the turf. I would not be surprised if he is listed as limited in practice all week.
Hurts and Jayden Daniels are the only QBs who have not thrown an INT this season (Daniels in only 2 games). His team has also only been trailing once. In that one game, he made all the throws he needed to for the win. If you dissected the arguments from the media, their problem is basically that he is not losing enough to put up better stats like other QBs. Dak Prescott leads the league in yards, completions, and attempts. He is damn near double Hurts in all those categories. He has also been trailing in every game and has a 1-2-1 record. I’m not blaming Dak for the losses, I’m just pointing out that Dak NEEDS to throw and Hurts does not. This is not a bad thing! Hurts has won the last 18 games he’s finished. You are not going to get a chance to pad your stats with a record like this.
Postmortem
This was a game set up to be a loss by the schedule makers. Adam Schefter wants to claim the Chiefs lost their Eagles matchup back in March after the Tush Push vote, well explain to me why we always play Tampa in the worst possible conditions Adam. Playing at 1pm in Tampa IS a problem and a loss probably would have been more easily forgiven than yesterday’s win for some reason. Everyone, this team is very good. I know we are worried about the 2023 collapse, but that is not this team.
- A-holes like Chase Daniel took a victory lap for his second half performance though, disregarding this very obvious change in circumstances ↩︎
- My personal favorite though was a client suing under the Americans with Disabilities Act claiming “I’m not handicapped” after 6 hours of deposition. ↩︎
- The other was last year to the Broncos ↩︎
Philly Front Office 
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