The single greatest motivator in professional sports is not pride or love of the game or legacy. It’s money.
The second greatest motivator: winning.
When it comes to the Eagles, most of their offensive players seemed to have satisfied their appetite for both.
They’ve won a Super Bowl. They’ve been paid. And now, faced with a demanding schedule, playing with the residual fatigue of three postseason runs, and with everyone getting a year older, they look like a shadow of what they should be.
The Eagles don’t rank among the top half of the NFL’s teams in rushing offense, passing offense, or scoring. This, despite allotting just under $130 million of their salary cap on offense, more than twice the allotment on defense.
Why? Simple.
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After the Eagles scored zero points for the final 41 minutes and blew a 21-0 lead at Dallas, running back Saquon Barkley said this:
“They wanted it a little more.”
He hit the nail on the head, and he hit it as hard as any hole he’s hit all season.
Something’s missing with the Eagles this season, especially with their offense. They lack desire. They lack motivation.
What they do not lack is money.
They’re 8-3, which isn’t bad, until you drill down and realize why they’re 8-3. They have three losses because they played flat all game against the Giants on Oct. 9 and because they didn’t show up for the second half on the road vs. Dallas (Denver, the other loss, actually is a pretty good team).
That, as the Eagles host an 8-3 Bears team ravenous for relevance on Friday, is troubling.
They’re smelling themselves, and we’ve seen this before.
Just like the 2017 team that won Super Bowl LII with Doug Pederson, the Super Bowl LIX winners and Nick Sirianni are basking in the afterglow of the title. It’s hard to blame them because it’s hard to win it all, and when you’re set for life, and you’re wearing a $50,000 ring, it’s a little bit harder to hold that backside block or finish a decoy route.
That’s the difference between dynasties and winners. Dynasties hold their blocks and finish their routes. Dynasties seek greatness for its own sake and are not weighed down by million-dollar pocketbooks.
Barkley, wide receiver A.J. Brown, left tackle Jordan Mailata, left guard Landon Dickerson, right tackle Lane Johnson, and quarterback Jalen Hurts are playing on what likely will be their most lucrative contract. Some got new money after the Super Bowl win. None are playing to their expected level.
The exception: wide receiver DeVonta Smith, who is on track for an excellent season.
Meanwhile, on defense, linebacker Nakobe Dean, defensive tackles Jordan Davis and Jalen Carter, and corners Quinyon Mitchell and Cooper DeJean are playing like demons. Not coincidentally, all are playing on rookie deals and are due for big raises. The exception here: sixth-year linebacker Zack Baun, who cashed in on a career season and has been elite again. At any rate, after a rocky start, a midseason infusion of talent via trade, an unretirement, and a return from injury, the defense, which led the team to the title last season, is dominant again.
The offense, meanwhile, has yet to deliver consecutive halves of proficiency against a good team. Former Eagles safety Malcolm Jenkins this week suggested to Tim McManus of ESPN.com why the Eagles seem flat: “You just won a Super Bowl. So even though you go back to the starting line, in your mind, you are a Super Bowl-caliber team, and you think you deserve, almost, to get there, even if you don’t talk about it, you might say the right things internally.”
He wasn’t done dealing hard truths.
“A lot of times, you lie to yourself. … Everyone in the sport tells you how good you are and why they expect you to do something. And then the season comes, and you realize that this season has nothing to do with last year,” Jenkins said. “I think the faster teams get to that truth, that they’re starting at zero and [not to] take anything for granted — I think those are the teams that can repeat, that can create dynasties, and that can stand the test of time.”
One of the best barometers of efficiency is penalty count. The Eagles last season committed 103 penalties for 793 yards, which ranked 11th-fewest and fifth-fewest, respectively. Their 37 pre-snap penalties tied for seventh-fewest.
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This season, they rank 26th in total penalties against, 27th in total yards against, and 25th in pre-snap penalties against. It’s getting worse: They had 14 penalties at Dallas, the most since Sirianni took over in 2021.
They are an accomplished, veteran team, but they’re playing like a rebuilding bunch of kids.
Jenkins is one of the most qualified people on the planet to say what he said.
He was one of the hardest-working, toughest, most resilient Eagles in history, and for that, he will be inducted into the team’s Hall of Fame on Friday, assuming these comments don’t put him in Jeffrey Lurie’s doghouse. Jenkins played six seasons in Philly, went to three Pro Bowls, was the team’s unquestioned leader, and, most significantly, won Super Bowls with both the Saints and the Eagles. Jenkins knows what a Super Bowl hangover looks like.
Sirianni pushed back on the assertion from Barkley.
“I felt like, when I watched the tape, I saw the effort sky-high on both sides of the ball,” Sirianni said.
Wonder who else was sky-high during that film session … or some of the others this season.
Don’t forget: Nick got paid, too.
Sirianni and his pithy axioms — great without the greatness of others, tough, detailed, together, flower power — have not been able to overcome this offensive malaise. Maybe there’s just too much, this time.
The Birds have, in Brown, a wide receiver who, considering his words, actions, and social media posts, clearly is more interested in burnishing his Hall of Fame prospects than simply winning.
They have, in Barkley, a running back who has stopped hitting the right holes and has started seeking the sideline — but at least he got a Wawa sandwich named after him. Consider, though, that Reggie Jackson hit 223 more homers after the “Reggie” bar came out. Saquon hasn’t hit a homer yet this year.
The offensive line, once a pack of stampeding rhinos bent on destroying linebackers on the second level, now can’t keep Barkley clean at the line of scrimmage.
All of these are issues of effort, not execution.
As Jenkins said, the Eagles themselves probably have not realized this. They had given no indication before Barkley’s confession on Sunday.
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There’s a chance that the effort is the same. Maybe injuries have more to do with it than they’re letting on.
Barkley missed a chunk of training camp with a groin injury that has flared again recently. Brown missed most of training camp with a hamstring injury that also cost him Week 8. Dickerson has endured three injuries so far, and Johnson was hurt twice before a foot sprain sidelined him indefinitely two weeks ago. Pro Bowl center Cam Jurgens missed two games with various ailments, and, after offseason back surgery, he hasn’t been anywhere close to 100% all year.
Regardless, they’re not moving the ball.
They can not afford to be this kind of team with a quarterback who is limited, as Hurts, whose unremarkable arm strength, slow release, and ponderous processing are only modestly offset by his speed, power, toughness, accuracy, and leadership. The rest of the offense has to operate at an extremely high level — holding those blocks, completing those routes, hitting those holes — to compensate for Hurts’ limitations.
There’s a chance, too, that the culprit is fatigue. Between Super Bowl runs after 2022 and 2024, plus a playoff game after 2023, the Birds have played about two more months of football than every other team except Kansas City.
And the Chiefs look pretty ragged, too.
To the Eagles’ credit, most of the offensive players who got paid last year got paid before they won the Super Bowl. When the monetary incentive disappeared, winning was enough to fuel their fire.
Now, though, they’ve won.
What, if anything, fuels their fire today?
The Eagles enter Week 13 with an 8-3 record, holding first place in the NFC East and remaining among the conference’s top contenders. They’re looking to rebound after last week’s disappointing loss to the Cowboys. Join The Inquirer’s Olivia Reiner and Jeff McLane on Gameday Central for expert analysis, insider insights & live updates. Listen live.
