Adapting to Survival: Evaluating the Eagles' Challenges in the Competitive NFL Landscape

Title: "Evaluating the Eagles'

The NFL is brutally competitive and performance-based. It is truly a jungle, where survival of the fittest is the rule. You adapt or die.

In my opinion, the Eagles did not adapt to the fact that the rest of the NFL had adjusted to the 2022 Eagles. This should have been expected by Sirianni, but apparently was not. Ditto for Roseman, who left the Eagles woefully denuded at certain positions.

Hurts seemed to have great difficulty adapting to the film study of his opponents. They identified that he had problems rolling to his left, releasing the ball quickly, and throwing accurately consistently. He struggled with throwing the deep ball, especially toward the sidelines. They learned how to bottle him up when he rolled right.

But perhaps, and this is the sports psychiatrist in me speaking, that big contract that he signed had something to do with his struggles this season. It is much easier for an athlete to exceed low expectations than it is to live up to high expectations. The pressure on Hurts, both external and internal, this season was tremendous, and he may not have been prepared to deal with that.

A psychiatrist could certainly help him in that regard. In my opinion, he needs to be the slashing swashbuckling dude that he was in 2022, dictating to defenses, rather than letting them dictate to him. In 2022, Hurts caused defenses to collapse. In 2023, defenses collapsed on Hurts.

An aggressive, creative, innovative offensive coordinator would go a long way to helping him regain his mojo. Let’s hope the Eagles pick one like that because the offense is going to have to score a lot of points to make up for a Vic Fangio defense.

But they are back in the doghouse, with nothing expected of them as far as the coming season goes. I can’t imagine a network putting them on as the featured game after what happened this season. But traditionally, the Eagles have embraced that underdog mentality.

Unless Jeffrey Lurie sees something the rest of the league and sports media people don’t see, he made a huge error in not firing Nick Sirianni. It could be a fatal error for the upcoming season, as far as I’m concerned. But it’s just my opinion. I hope I’m wrong, but a football team takes on a coach's identity, and really, what is Nick Sirianni’s identity? Hard to say, isn’t it? Nothing solid or tangible.

Take a deep breath, Eagles fans. Things could well get even worse before they get better.