The Eagles put up 31 points against the Cardinals on Sunday, but it wasn’t enough to win the game.
Arizona scored four touchdowns in the second half and controlled the ball for nearly 40 minutes as they came back from being down 15 points at halftime to win 35-31 at Lincoln Financial Field. The loss made the 49ers the top seed in the NFC playoffs and opened the door for the Cowboys to win the NFC East with a win over the Commanders next weekend.
That would leave the Eagles needing three road wins to return to the Super Bowl and that would require a far better defensive performance than the one they got on Sunday. That performance came after the Eagles took play-calling responsibilities from defensive coordinator Sean Desai and gave it to senior assistant Matt Patricia, which led to a question for head coach Nick Sirianni about what the team can do to fix the flailing unit.
“I do believe,” Sirianni said. “I still believe in the guys in that locker room, the players. I still believe in the coaches. I think we’ve got the guys in this place to get turned in the right direction. We don’t have much time, obviously, right. We’ve got one more game before playoffs starts, and we’ve got to do everything we can do to get back on track this upcoming week. I think there’s been spurts, obviously, the last couple games where we played good ball on defense. Tonight wasn’t one of those times.”
The Eagles will close out the season against the Giants next weekend and they’ll need to play a lot better for anyone outside the organization to share Sirianni’s belief in what they can do.
