Falcons 22, Eagles 21: Why this heartbreaking loss was inexcusable, from Nick Sirianni's questionable decisions to multiple untimely blunders

The silence from nearly 70,000 Eagles fans after the Atlanta Falcons scored a go-ahead touchdown on Monday spoke volumes, and the disappointment and ire in the Eagles after a 22-21 loss should be deafening.

There was no excuse for the Eagles to lose this game, and they should look back at a combination of questionable decision-making from Nick Sirianni, an untimely blunder by Saquon Barkley, a putrid defensive effort on a decisive final drive, and the offense’s inability to even position Jake Elliott for a game-winning field goal as reasons why they suffered one of the more heartbreaking losses in recent franchise history.

Losing happens in the NFL. Losing the way they did not should not.

“They made a couple more plays than we did down the stretch. We made some plays; they made more,” Sirianni said. “And that’s on all of us. That starts with coaching and goes to the players. We are all responsible for the loss. That’s how close games are in this league, right? 22-21; sometimes it just comes down to a couple plays. It’s never just one play, it’s never just that play. All the plays equal up to the win or the loss.”

You saw the scenario: The Eagles held an 18-15 lead with 1:51 remaining and they had a third-and-3 at the Falcons’ 10-yard line. Atlanta burned all their timeouts.

A segment of the fan base was left up in arms about the Eagles’ third-down play call. But the third-down call made more sense than the fourth-down decision.

On third down, the Eagles eschewed a running play and instead threw a pass to a wide-open Saquon Barkley. The star running back let the ball slip from his grasp.

“Dropped the ball,” Barkley said. “Let my team down today.”

A convincing argument could be made for running the ball, letting the clock tick and if not gaining three yards, at least setting up a shorter fourth down. But Barkley must make that catch — the Eagles win the game if he does — and it was a high-percentage passing play with a play design that worked. (The Falcons were clogging the middle of the line and the Eagles thought they could get Barkley open on the outside.) It’s true that a running play would have kept the clock ticking, although if the pass was caught, the chains would undoubtedly move and the Eagles could kneel.

The pass was not caught. The game was not over.

So now what? Sirianni elected to kick the field goal. This was an unaggressive decision from a coach who went for fourth-and-3 earlier in the game. Even if Sirianni can confess to have confidence in his defense to keep the Falcons out of the end zone, they win the game if they convert the first down. What would you take: Three yards to ensure a win, or give the Falcons the ball back? And the rub is that even if the Eagles failed to convert, the defense would still be in a position to make a stop.

Sure, the Falcons could tie the game with a field goal in that case. But if you’re as aggressive as you claim to me — and as aggressive as the owner wants you to be — you keep your offense on the field. The data suggests as much. The Eagles’ win probability dropped from 94 percent to 85 percent, according to NFL Next Gen Stats.

“With it being fourth and three to go for it, I thought with them not having any timeouts I wanted them to be down a touchdown and see if they could drive the field and they did,” Sirianni said. “Hats off to them.”

Sirianni’s chief responsibility on gameday is managing the game. He’s supposed to give the Eagles an advantage with in-game decisions, which was why he ceded play-calling duties in 2021 and the reason he boasts about his obsession with situational football. (He’s earnest in this claim; Sirianni is maniacal about studying situations around the league.) But in a critical moment, Sirianni’s decision to kick a field goal gave the Falcons a reasonable chance to win the game. He was fixated on the idea that the Falcons did not have any timeouts and needed a touchdown, seemingly ignoring the reality that the Eagles offense needed only three yards and the Eagles defense hasn’t generated a consistent pass rush since Halloween of last year.  

“Any time it doesn’t work out…that’s why I’m sitting in this seat, the head coaching seat, I’ve got to be ready for the consequences of whether it works or doesn’t work, Sirianni said. “In that scenario, obviously didn’t work. Obviously, I’m going to second guess myself in those scenarios that it doesn’t. Same thing on the third-and-3. It was an incomplete pass. Sometimes that works; sometimes it doesn’t work. All I can do is go back and review those and say, ‘Did I like what we did here? Would we do it again or would we change directions next time?’ Everything is thought out of what we want to do, but that’s this game of football. Sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn’t. In those cases, it didn’t, so I got to rethink it.”

Once that decision is made, once the Eagles go up six, it’s then incumbent on the defense to validate the decision with a stop. Instead, they allowed the Falcons to drive 70 yards in 65 seconds. Kirk Cousins went 5 of 6 on the drive. Cousins was not even touched by the Eagles’ pass rushers, who had only one sack and two quarterback hits in the game.

“When we watch the film, we’re going to see little things that pop up — maybe this guy needs to rush inside instead of up the field so the quarterback doesn’t have a lane to throw,” Brandon Graham said. “We knew Kirk was going to be standing there It’s more about collapsing the pocket with him. …Not making it easy for him. We didn’t do it as good this game. …We have to have a cohesive rush. We’ve got to be together. One side has to do one thing, another side has to do another. …It’s a triangle you have to keep him in.”

On the decisive touchdown, Drake London beat Darius Slay and was left wide open in the side of the end zone. That’s when the silence overtook the stadium. It had been trending that direction all drive, but the Eagles clung to the hope that they had been stout in the red zone until then.

“That’s for sure my fault,” Slay said. “…I really just fucked that up. I got to be better on that. I should have made the play.”

The offense still had 34 seconds and two timeouts to get in position for a game-winning field goal. Jalen Hurts threw an interception to safety Jessie Bates on the second play from his 43-yard line when the Eagles would have needed about 15 yards in 27 seconds to get in range for a field goal within 60 yards.

“Just trying to make a play down the field,” Hurts said. “(Bates) made a good play after a little too long. Just have to continue to prepare in those situations and put ourselves in those positions so we can take advantage of it.  I think in the end, I felt very prepared going into those moments. In that moment, it just wasn’t our time.”   

Put it all together, and the Eagles had one of the most heartbreaking losses of the Sirianni era. They’ve lost to inferior teams and they’ve played worse than Monday, but they haven’t quite had a game with this type of win probability that left them on the losing side.

The coaches did not address the team after the game — Hurts wanted to do the talking, with Reed Blankenship explaining that the Eagles are a player-led team.

But this loss has many names on it, including Sirianni’s. And instead of entering a short week against the scorching New Orleans Saints with a 2-0 mark, they’re 1-1 and need to rebound — quickly — before the fury would turn to a volume that would make them yearn for the silence from Monday.