It's been the same old story with the Philadelphia Eagles for quite some time now.
It always feels like they take two steps back after going one step forward, and their loss to the New York Giants was quite worrisome.
It's not that you can't lose on the road against a divisional rival or that your offense can't have a bad day every now and then. But the Giants just gave the rest of the NFL a blueprint on how to stop Jalen Hurts and completely clamp their offense.
The Giants dared Jalen Hurts to pass the ball all day long and the results were quite disappointing. Moreover, Giants safety Julian Love openly said that it was their game plan all along:
"Obviously he's pretty dangerous at running the ball, and they're finding that in their offense. We just tried to play physical and play straight up and kind of make him throw the ball, so to speak," Love said, per ESPN. "He's very talented, but we wanted him to beat us throwing."
Hurts finished the evening with 14 completions on 31 attempts, 129 yards, 0 touchdowns, 3 interceptions, and a passer rating of 17.5.
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Even so, the Eagles were in a position to win this game until the very last drive but Hurts and Jalen Reagor just couldn't connect.
More specifically, Reagor dropped two passes that would've been game-winning touchdowns.
Needless to say, fans were livid at the young wideout and even called for him to be benched going forward:
"They were drops. You’ve got to take the heat," Reagor said, per Josh Tolentino of The Philadelphia Inquirer. "Whatever is going to be said is going to be said regardless.”
Even so, Hurts doesn't want to point the fingers at anybody else but him. Reagor may have dropped two passes but he was far from efficient all day long:
"I put us in a bad situation with those turnovers I had in the first half," the QB said. "It's something that we'll have to overcome. And we will. I never question this team's fight. I never question this team's want-to or effort. It simply was one of those days, and we'll learn from it as we have before. "
When asked about the drops, he said that he told Reagor to just keep his head up and focus on what's to come:
"Keep your head up, see it through, keep working," Hurts said of his teammate. "It's the same message I'm giving myself. Not pointing figures. It's not on Jalen Reagor, it's not on anybody else late in the game. Put it on me."
The Eagles had a two-game winning streak snapped with that 13-7 loss but still have a big shot at clinching a Wild Card spot.
They'll visit the New York Jets next week before heading to a BYE Week. Then, they'll have four straight divisional games to close out the year with the Washington Football Team (twice), Giants again, and the Cowboys for the season finale.
They have a 5-7 record and trail Dallas by a couple of games but their schedule is the easiest in the NFC so there's no room for excuses.
