The sting of an embarrassing Monday night loss has mostly worn off at the Jefferson Health Complex, although some remnants of the 27-7 loss to the Chicago Bears could still be felt some in passing moments during news conferences with Nick Sirianni, Vic Fangio, and Jalen Hurts.

Here are six thoughts and takeaways about the Eagles with their Week 4 matchup against the Los Angeles Rams quickly approaching on the short week:

1. Cooper DeJean’s usage will be an interesting wrinkle to watch over the next few weeks because of his versatility and the recent struggles at safety, but I suspect he sticks at nickel for the time being.

The Eagles have a growing issue at safety with both Marcus Epps and Drew Mukuba struggling against the Chicago Bears and Epps in particular starting to rotate with Michael Carter II after a second week of shaky play. Watching the game back, the rotation between Epps and Carter seemed mostly sporadic but with a preference for Carter in obvious passing situations. Carter logged seven of his 20 snaps on third down, with Epps logging 27 snaps with just two coming on third down.

The adage that often applies to quarterbacks that if you have two, you have zero works here, too. Fangio conceded as much Wednesday, moments after saying the plan is to continue the rotation until someone separates themself.

“Those two guys are still going to man it,” Fangio said.

As my colleague Fran Duffy pointed out during his Monday film reivew, the worst version of the Eagles defense in recent years came in 2023 when then-defensive coordinator Sean Desai made line changes in the secondary depending on the situation. Fangio’s defenses have been at their best when they’ve been almost exactly the opposite with DeJean at nickel and the defense happy to match almost anything an offense could present with the same personnel package and pre-snap alignment.

That’s why I suspect DeJean stays at nickel, for now. The team signed Kenny Moore to the practice squad last week and then to the active roster on Tuesday, but it wouldn’t surprise me if he eventually factors in at safety rather than eating into DeJean’s nickel snaps.

2. Speaking of Moore, the veteran defensive back confirmed reports that he signed to the active roster amid interest from another team earlier in the week.

ESPN’s Jeremy Fowler reported the Dallas Cowboys explored signing Moore, who only joined the Eagles in Week 3 after missing all of the 2025 season with an Achilles injury and going unsigned in the offseason.

Moore said, despite him only being with the Eagles for a week, his comfort level with the staff and players was a driving factor in his decision to stay.

“After being here for a week, I felt very comfortable with my coaches,” Moore said. “I love it here. I do. And I want to see this opportunity through. I didn’t want to just pick up and go again.”

3. The next few weeks will be instructive ones for Nick Sirianni.

The aftermath of the ugly loss to the Chicago Bears brought about a conversation about the advantages Chicago head coach Ben Johnson created for his team and the lack of an edge Sirianni gave the Eagles by comparison. While criticism about Sirianni’s in-game management and the schematic shortcomings are entirely fair, I’d argue Sirianni’s strengths as a head coach have never been so focused on what he does in the game’s pivotal moments but rather how he influences them throughout the week.

How the team responds to such an ugly loss and, in particular, whether the offense can navigate a difficult stretch of games and get on track will reflect more singularly on Sirianni’s ability to play the hits we’ve heard before. His willingness to give up play-calling duties in 2021 set up the Super-Bowl run the following season. His willingness to listen to his players and change course offensively in 2024 set up another. Sirianni is often at his best when he empowers the coaches and players around him, but doing so often requires him and the team to navigate the intense scrutiny that comes from losing runs better than they did during the 2023 and 2025 seasons.

A note on that: The heightened emotion from Sirianni and Jalen Hurts on Monday night stood out to me. I’ve written before that the two often serve as balancing forces for each other because Hurts is often as stoic on the sideline as Sirianni is fiery. Against the Bears, they both had plenty of fire. I’m not sure the team benefitted from it.

Don’t get me wrong, this isn’t a criticism of Hurts. I was actually critical of Sirianni shouting vulgar insults toward Bears linebacker D’Marco Jackson and pointed out on Monday’s show that Eagles owner Jeffrey Lurie has been critical of Sirianni’s sideline outbursts in the past.

4. Looking at the Eagles’ second-half regressions, the numbers bring one question to the fore …

What the hell is going on with the Eagles’ run game in the second half?

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