Concerns Mount: An In-Depth Look at the Eagles’ Crisis of Confidence and Trust

As a sports psychiatrist who closely follows the Eagles, I'm concerned. Though I don't work with the team or any of its players, I've worked with professional teams at all levels. So, headlines like 'Is the offensive scheme helping Jalen Hurts enough?' or 'How Eagles failed on fourth and eight against the boys' worry me.

Though Nick Sirianni seems to repeat after each game, 'We have to put people in better positions to succeed,' Olivia Reiner opined that on the aforementioned fourth and eight, 'Schematically, Sirianni and Johnson did not put their players in the best positions to succeed.' Sirianni and Johnson appeared to bank on Smith’s ability to 'make something happen on the play.' It's alarming to hear that coaches need to figure out how to put players in the best position to succeed going into Week 14. This is a quote usually heard after a preseason game or perhaps at some point in the first four games. That Sirianni and Johnson haven't figured out how to do this at this late point in the season is more than worrisome.

Jeff McLane further notes that Sirianni and Johnson's playcalling haven't provided enough answers, particularly against the blitz. But Hurts is not seeing the field like he was last season either. This last observation is a kinder version of what David Carr said when he suggested that the Eagles bench Hurts after the 49ers game, adding that Hurts was indecisive in his reads.

I've read other criticisms of Hurts, such as 'His field vision is not what it was last year' or 'He does not seem as comfortable in the pocket as he was last year.' Clearly, the Eagles don't have Superman to bail them out, as they did last year. They cannot trust that an inconsistent Hurts can do that at this point. He can at times, but trust equals consistency over time, and he has not shown that consistency.

On defense, one headline reads 'Birds defense struggling to get off the field on third down.' And Jeff McLane does a very adept interview with Josh Sweat after the Cowboys game. And it would seem that Josh Sweat dragged McLane across the locker room so he could make his comments out of earshot.

A winning team trusts each other and trusts the coaches. Not sure this is happening on the Eagles. And I worry that the players don't trust the coaches, that there is no effective plan. So Sweat says regarding another play, 'We were just trying anything at that point.' Sweat then ended the interview poignantly with 'I feel the season is slipping away from us.' My sense is that this is true because the players don't sense a steady hand on the tiller.

In my opinion, gleaned from watching the team and reading the quotes, particularly over the last two weeks, I feel there is a crisis of confidence and a crisis of trust on the Eagles. It can send coaches into panic mode if they are not there already and can destroy any cohesion that a winning team once felt. My worry is that the Eagles are not going to win another game this season.