Sorry, Carson, now might actually be the time to panic

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Carson Wentz said it a few times on Sunday afternoon. Whether or not he truly believes it is another thing.

Because I’m not so sure I do.

“We’re not panicking,” Wentz said after the Eagles’ 37-19 loss to the Rams to drop them to 0-2 for the first time in his career. “The sky is not falling.”

But what if the sky is falling? Or what if it’s at least starting to?

Because the Eagles were again outplayed on Sunday. Their fifth-year quarterback is making way too many mental mistakes. Their coaching staff is getting out-coached. Their star players aren’t making big plays. Their defense lacks discipline, their offense lacks consistency.

The Eagles are 0-2 and they’ve earned every bit of that record.

So it’s just two games. I get that. I get that the Eagles shouldn’t panic nor should they give up. But they damn sure better have a sense of urgency. And this idea that they’re one or two plays away, just have to clean some stuff up, just isn’t true.

Does this team look like one that is thaaaaat close — holding index finger and thumb a millimeter apart — from turning this thing around?

Wentz thinks so. At least that’s what he’s saying.

“Turning the ball over is really killing us the last two weeks,” the quarterback said. “Those are the things we know we can clean up. But other than that, we truly feel that we’re right there. We’re just missing some things, timing of some things. We’re not panicking. We know what we have to clean up, and we will.”

They’re right there. Just some stuff to clean up. A few plays.

Rinse, repeat.

You know the typical spiel.

But the Eagles are 0-2 and after a game against the Bengals next week (and even that game isn’t a gimme), the Eagles play the 49ers, Steelers, Ravens and then three straight in the division. So maybe they’re just 0-2 right now but how far are they away from being a 1-5 team?

At this point, I’m not sure what’s more likely: That they do get all their issues cleaned up or that this season starts to spiral.

The Eagles have had their backs against the wall in recent seasons. They were 4-6 and made the playoffs in 2018, they were 5-7 and made the playoffs in 2019. Maybe this team has conditioned itself to think they can climb out of any hole … hey, maybe they can. But where does that really get you? Into the playoffs with a 9-7 record? That can’t be the goal.

And all the talk from players about panicking surely hasn’t helped Eagles fans from panicking themselves. I certainly understand why. Because through two games, this isn’t a very good football team.

“It’s very simple,” Miles Sanders said. “We just got to get back to being us and stop doing too much and just play Eagles football."

The scariest part about these two losses: What if this is Eagles football?

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