CHICAGO — Nick Sirianni stood at the postgame podium and acknowledged the call he’d like to have back.
The Eagles 27-7 loss to the Chicago Bears was full of emotion on the sideline from Sirianni, Jalen Hurts, and several other Eagles players and coaches. By the time Sirianni unpacked three hours’ worth of decisions after the final whistle, the heat of battle had cooled enough for him to concede he’d like to have another stab at one of the main turning points of the evening.
The call in question came with just over three minutes remaining in the third quarter while the Eagles trailed, 20-7 and faced fourth-and-1 from their own 49-yard line. Sirianni kept the offense on the field, but with no play called other than the instruction to take a delay of game penalty in an effort to draw the defense offside or, ultimately, punt.
And even though the defense forced a three-and-out to get the offense the ball back in just 39 seconds, Sirianni conceded that waving the white flag on a chance to sustain the drive was the wrong one, a point compounded by his decision to go for it facing fourth-and-5 from nearly the same spot on the field three minutes later.
“As I look back at that, I probably should have went for it there,” Sirianni said. “I didn’t like that decision. The thought process was right there. We were down two scores. I didn’t want to give them a short field. But again, it was a long one [yard.] It was all of one, one-plus, but right there we had a good situation to be able to get it. … In hindsight, I feel like I should have went for it.”
The analytics favored being aggressive in each scenario, although it’s important to point out Sirianni has often weighed his gut feeling as much or more than what the numbers say.
None of this is to say that Sirianni’s decision alone lost the Eagles the game at Soldier Field. Sirianni aptly characterized it as a “true team loss,” underscored by both the Eagles defense and offense turning in one of the worst performances each group has had over the last several seasons.
“We all have to own that loss right there,” Sirianni said. “I don’t think anybody coached well. I don’t think anyone played well. It was a true team loss. And when it’s a true team loss, I have to look at myself first. We weren’t ready to coach, we weren’t ready to play. And that ultimately starts and ends with me.”
Offensively, this was the worst game the Eagles have had since the 2024 season in terms of EPA/drive and ranks 40th out of the last 42 games in success rate. The former metric is heavily weighted down by three costly turnovers: a lost fumble from Tank Bigsby early in the game, a costly red-zone interception from Andy Dalton with Jalen Hurts watching from the medical tent while impatiently waiting for the NFL concussion spotter to officially clear him to return to the game, and a confounding miscue from Hurts on the aforementioned fourth-and-5 at the end of the third quarter.
After the game, Hurts said he respected the process that resulted in the spotter pulling him from the game due to a hard, illegal hit near the sideline from Bears linebacker D’Marco Jackson. He was visibly frustrated by the time it took for the spotter to clear him, though, and I noticed the league official left the medical tent a few plays before Dalton threw his one and only pass attempt into the hands of Bears safety Dillon Thieneman.
“I was just waiting for the thumbs up,” Hurts said. “I felt fine. They had already checked me. I don’t know the extent of the process. Obviously wish we could have expedited things. I know I felt fine.”
Hurts returned and finished 16-for-25 for 153 yards and one interception. The Eagles offense in general settled back into its worrying habit of second-half stagnation, managing just one first down in the entire third quarter and three in the second half.
The defensive performance may somehow be more worrying.
Facing the 38-year-old third-string signal caller Case Keenum, Monday night ranked 38th out of the 42 Eagles games with Vic Fangio at the helm as defensive coordinator in EPA/drive. It ranked 35th in success rate, four spots lower than the blowout loss to Chicago on Black Friday last season. And it’s worth remembering, last year’s group at least had the context of a prolonged stretch of games with a heavy workload on account of the Eagles offense going three-and-out at an alarming rate. This year’s group is healthier and, at least in theory, fresher.
It didn’t look that way on Monday night. The Bears had 375 yards with a balanced approach between run and pass. Chicago head coach Ben Johnson schemed receivers open downfield with regularity and “threw the whole book” at the Eagles defensive front in the run game according to Jonathan Greenard.
“They came out and had a hell of a game plan,” Greenard said. “They executed and were fired up. We just have to be better. … They got the ball out quick, stuck to their run game and mixed up a lot of things. They had tons of toss crack, reverses, stretch, wham, they threw the whole book at us. It was just a well-executed game plan. We didn’t get enough negative plays to get them off track, so they were on rhythm pretty much the entire night. It just can’t happen.”
Greenard made his Eagles debut after missing the first two games with a pectoral injury that held him out of training camp. He played 17 snaps, but didn’t give the Eagles pass rush the jolt it needed after two lackluster games without the star edge rusher. Through three games now, the group ranks 31st in quarterback hits with just eight and is tied for 28th with three sacks. They are also the only team in the NFL not to force a turnover through three games.
Add the lack of pass rush to the busted coverage call that resulted in Kalif Raymond getting free for a 41-yard touchdown, and you get the picture of an Eagles defense that has woefully underperformed the level of talent they have at all three levels.
Perhaps it was just a bad matchup against one of the league’s best offensive coaches, but it’s a worrying sight with a short week against the Los Angeles Rams now looming large.
