It's been hot takes on hot takes on hot takes in regards to the Philadelphia Eagles this week as the team, wholly constructed in Chip Kelly's image, struggled to put up any semblance of a fight against the NFC East rival Dallas Cowboys on Sunday, marking the second straight week that Kelly's handpicked team has fallen well short of what, rightly or wrongly, became sky-high expectations prior to the season. With the Eagles showing so little on offense behind an absolutely abhorrent running game and a passing attack so anemic that the Cowboys and Falcons simply loaded the box and dared Sam Bradford to beat them, the defense has been too-often asked to pick up the slack and, to no surprise, hasn't been able to keep games close despite mostly strong efforts. With a tough New York Jets team next on the docket and the buzzards already circling this Eagles season, we can add another name to the list of people who believe Kelly's Eagles may already be on the verge of imploding.
"Chip Kelly says, 'I don't care about time of possession, it's all about number of plays.' You might want to reevaluate that," former NFL head coach Brian Billick said Thursday while appearing on the Mike & Mike radio show, via ESPN. "Plus you're putting your defense out there for an unbelievably long time and the players are beginning to chip away at it a little bit. I think the Philadelphia situation with the players, the organization, what Chip is doing, boy, this is a powder keg, this thing could blow up."
While it's early to suggest that the Eagles could be on the verge of a major meltdown, there's no denying that something seems to be wrong in Philadelphia. Perhaps it's too many new faces in a new place in too short a span of time. Perhaps Kelly missed more than he made contact when it came to his personnel decisions during his busy roster overhaul summer. Maybe Bradford won't ever shake off his abysmal first few seasons in the NFL and is forever destined to be the mediocre product he's shown to this point, both in St. Louis and two games with the Eagles.
Whatever the reason, Kelly and Co. need a fix, and soon. Because trotting out the offense for 30-seconds worth of three-and-outs then depending on the defense to get a stop or a turnover time and again is not a recipe for success.
As Billick himself noted, the Eagles are now 5-for-23 on third downs thus far this young season. That's a ratio that can't continue. Of course, the team was plagued with a series of drops on Sunday against Dallas, several of them on key third downs, so that's something that seems completely correctable.
But still, it's likely little solace to Eagles fans that issues like this can be corrected at this late date. With the roster set and Kelly indicating during press conferences this week that he has no plans to change personnel, there's really only one answer for the Eagles to fix what's broken. Billick made it pretty clear himself.
"The fix is play better."
