Nothing’s getting fixed. Doesn’t matter who’s playing, doesn’t matter who’s hurt, the same issues keep showing up week after week. They can’t run the ball. They can’t protect the quarterback. The defense gets leaky in the second half under the weight of too many snaps and too much t ime on the field. They commit too many penalties at crucial moments. Special teams lets them down too often. The Eagles are a bad football team. For the first time since 2020, Doug Pederson’s final season as head coach, the Eagles have lost four consecutive games, this time 25-14 to the Panthers at the Linc, where not too long ago they were invincible. The four-game losing streak matches their longest since 2016 and equals their 3rd-longest in the last 25 years. Welcome to the 2026 Eagles. They’re 2-4, Jalen Hurts is out indefinitely and they’re going to need to go 7-4 the rest of the season for their sixth straight winning season under Nick Sirianni. That’s not happening. Here’s our 10 Instant Observations from another unsightly loss. 1. This offense is such a trainwreck, and their issues go way behind missing Jalen Hurts. They scored two touchdowns Sunday against the Panthers and it seemed like a hell of a day. They’re averaging 14.6 points during the four-game losing streak. They’re averaging 219 yards per game during the losing streak. These numbers are just unfathomable. They haven’t had 300 yards in a game since Week 2. We could go on with first downs, passing yards, 3rd-down percentage, but you get the idea. They’re all just abysmal. Is it all Sean Mannion’s fault? Nah. But he certainly hasn’t distinguished himself in his first six games as Eagles offensive coordinator and play caller. Maybe things will get better when they get Landon Dickerson and Drew Kendall back and maybe Saquon will be back next week, although who really knows. This is all just such a mess right now. They got off to a decent start the first two weeks and has just spiraled downhill ever since. There’s so much to fix and I don’t even know how you go about starting. It just may be unfixable. 2. Tanner McKee did what you’d expect from Tanner McKee. Made the most of a difficult situation in a game where the Eagles couldn’t run the ball, didn’t protect very well once again and had poor field position much of the day. But he battled and kept fighting and made this a game with his sweet 19-yard touchdown pass to DeVonta Smith to make it 19-14 three minutes into the fourth quarter before the defense had its weekly 4th-quarter collapse. The final numbers weren’t overwhelming – 26-for-45 for 215 yards with the one TD and no interceptions. But considering he only got two practices this week, he wasn’t getting a ton of help out there and it was the first meaningful start of his four-year NFL career I’m not sure what else you could ask from McKee. I still think he’s one of the better backups in the NFL, and I expect him to play better each week that he’s out there. 3. It’s hard to really assess where the defense is because they’re being asked to play too many snaps and too many minutes because the offense can’t stay on the field, especially in the second half. Since the Bears disaster, we’ve seen some good things from the defense for much of each game, only to watch them wear down and give up late yards and late points. The last three weeks they’ve allowed 33 points through three quarters, which is terrific, and 38 in the fourth quarter, which is atrocious. Chuba Hubbard ran for 120 yards after going 8-for-24 in the first half. So he was 20-for-96 after halftime. And the Panthers took a knee inside the Eagles’ 5-yard-line to end the game so they could have scored again if they wanted to. And the defense is near full strength, missing only Jalyx Hunt and for the second half Sunday Nolan Smith. I’d like to say a few nice things about the defense because they’ve been keeping the Eagles in games. But you can’t keep falling apart in the fourth quarter and call yourself a good defense, and that’s what we’re seeing. 4. It looked for a while like the Eagles might have Landon Dickerson back at left guard and Drew Kendall at center, which certainly would have helped. Both practiced this week, so it looked possible. But the Eagles kept Dickerson on IR even though he thinks he’s ready to play, and Kendall, who was cleared after dealing with a knee injury, dressed but didn’t play. Which I don’t understand. If they’re both healthy enough to practice, and you’ve got a game you have to win, get them out there. But instead we got Willie Lampkin at left guard and Jake Majors again at center and while both are going to battle every game and give everything they have, this o-line just isn’t very good without a healthy Dickerson and Kendall (or Lane Johnson, obviously). Tanner McKee was sacked three times and hit 11 times. Way too much. Go back to early in the fourth quarter. Eagles had closed to 19-14 on the McKee touchdown to Smith, the defense holds the Panthers to a 3-and-out, and the Eagles get the ball down five points 1st-and-10 on their own 48. First play, Majors skips an unfieldable snap toward McKee, who dives on the ball for a 12-yard loss and they end up punting. The Panthers then go down and score. Ballgame. The Eagles’ first eight offensive plays included an 11-yard sack, a near interception, a three-yard loss on a completed pass when the receiver fell down, a false start and a fourth injury to a running back. Six of their first 18 plays lost yards. O-line has to be better and Dickerson and Kendall could have made that happen. 5. The Eagles desperately need a healthy Saquon Barkley back. He still hasn’t practiced so no idea if that can happen Monday night against the Cowboys, but with Tank Bigsby and Will Shipley out indefinitely they have to get Barkley back because they simply don’t have a running game right now. The Panthers arrived in town allowing the 30th-most rushing yards per game and 32nd-most yards per carry, and the Eagles managed just 35 rushing yards on 13 carries, a 2.7 average. That’s on top of an 18-for-22 against the Jaguars Sunday. So that’s 31-for-57 the last two weeks. I wouldn’t have minded seeing Jaydon Blue mixed in there a little bit, but that didn’t happen. You can’t have a functional offense if you can’t run the ball, and you can’t run the ball with a poor offensive line and a 4th-string running back. I get that injuries are part of the equation, but they are so far from being a decent running team right now and that’s just another thing they have to figure out. Good luck with that. 6. This was the third game during the four-game losing streak the Eagles have committed 10 or more penalties. In all, they’ve committed 37 penalties during the losing streak, their most penalties in any four-game span since Nick Sirianni’s first four games as an NFL head coach back in 2021, when they had 44. You can’t be a bad team and also be undisciplined, but that’s where we are. And the penalties have been a little bit of everything – some on offense, some on defense, some on special teams. This is just not a smart, disciplined football team right now, and they’re not good enough to overcome these sorts of mistakes. 7. The Eagles were 2-5 in 2021 and made the playoffs so why can’t they do the same thing this year? I guess it’s possible, but when I look back at that 2021 team I saw a young, talented, hungry group that had so much potential. Jalen Hurts was in his first year as a starter and he was just getting better every week. Nick Sirianni seemed to have all the answers back then as a 1st-year coach. They had a running game they could fall back on with Miles Sanders and Jordan Howard and back then Hurts was an elite runner too. DeVonta Smith was a talented young WR. They had defensive playmakers on defense with Darius Slay, Rodney McLeod, Javon Hargrave, Josh Sweat and Fletcher Cox and an elite offensive line with guys like Kelce, Lane, Mailata and Dickerson. It seemed like a talented young team that was inevitably going to get better. And they did, winning six of seven to make the playoffs. I don’t feel any of that with this team. I don’t feel like they’re close to anything. I don’t feel like they have any answers. Don’t feel like there’s any roots growing underground this time around. 8. One thing about McKee. I don’t think the Eagles did him any favors the way they handled the No. 2 quarterback competition all summer. By rotating McKee and Andy Dalton as No. 2 and No. 3 in a seemingly random fashion, sometimes by day and sometimes by series, they didn’t give either one enough reps. If they really believed Dalton was better than McKee – and I don’t know how that’s possible but they obviously did – he should have been No. 2 all summer. If they felt McKee was a better option to back up Jalen Hurts, then he should have been No. 2 all summer. By rotating these guys throughout all of training camp, they did both a disservice because neither one got a full compliment of reps. Then they decide Dalton is No. 2, then demote him after one terrible interception against the Bears, then cut him a few days later. They had so much conviction about Dalton it took only one pass to get rid of him. So McKee becomes No. 2 but without the usual workload that a backup quarterback should get. Then he’s got to go out there and play against a pretty good Panthers team not completely prepared. That’s on Nick Sirianni and the weird way he handled the QBs all summer. 9. Let’s look at some numbers. The Eagles’ 58 points during the four-game losing streak are their fewest in any four-game span in 19 years, and it’s the first time they’ve gone 0-4 scoring 58 points during that span since 1999, Andy Reid’s first year as head coach.Their 874 total yards the last four games – 218.5 per game – is their worst since 1999 and 3rd-worst since 1978. Their 67 rushing yards per game during the losing streak is their 2nd-fewest since 2005. Their 3.9 yards per play during the losing streak is their fewest per game since 2005, and this is the first time they’ve gone three straight games averaging less than 4 yards per play since the first three games of 1999, Big Red’s first three games as an NFL head coach. The numbers back up everything we’re seeing. This is one of the worst offenses in recent Eagles history. 10. One big concern Sunday was the lack of communication really on both sides of the ball. We saw communication breakdowns numerous times on offense between McKee and his receivers, especially on out-breaking routes where there just wasn’t a receiver where the ball was going but also on defense where we saw breakdowns in communication on defense on a bunch of those long pass plays the Panthers hit – nine plays of 19 yards or more. I don’t care how much talent you have, if your players aren’t communicating you’re going to lose football games. Again, I’m sure the injuries are a part of this. When you’re forced to keep rotating new guys in and you have guys playing alongside guys they’ve never played or even practiced with, it’s very tough to play at a high level. But every team has injuries and other teams find ways to get their guys playing together. It just hasn’t happened here. That’s coaching. Click here to watch the latest Eagle Eye podcast, presented by Nissan. ...read more read less