Sure, most fans expected them to be a whole lot better than just fine, as they were widely ranked as one of the best teams in the NFC heading into the season and the clear favorites to win the NFC East versus three teams with legitimate question marks but at .500, they are still the best team in the division when everything is clicking on all cylinders.
The problem? The Eagles really haven’t been at 100 percent since Week 1, as their top players have been dropping like flies ever since AJ Brown came up awkwardly at practice ahead of Week 2, and their depth hasn’t been able to match their copasetic hum.
Fortunately, it isn’t time to panic just yet, as while the first month of the 2024 NFL season hasn’t quite gone as planned, there’s still plenty of time to get things back on track, as the Eagles have an extra week to figure things out as they take an early vacation in Week 5.
While many, if not most, fans of the Eagles expected the team to immanently put things together, right their wrongs from last season, and return to their contending ways, it’s easy to forget that Philadelphia changed both their offensive and defensive coordinators and are still learning new schemes that might have different verbiage, concepts, and responsibilities than what they are used to.
Take, for example, Fangio’s defensive scheme; yes, the Eagles have been running variations of Fangio’s scheme pretty much exclusively since they said goodbye to Jim Schwartz back in 2021, excluding whatever Matt Patricia was doing down the stretch last season, but is it exactly the same? Nope, Jonathan Gannon didn’t have edge rushers like Josh Sweat dropping into coverage – Nolan Smith was lined up over the slot receiver on one snap that went viral in Week 4 – and Sean Desi took as much inspiration from Seattle as he did Fangio during his mini-run in 2023.
While the offensive side of the ball has much more continuity, especially when Nick Sirianni decides to take control over the game plan and call the shots, Kellen Moore has still introduced new concepts to the gameplan for Hurts and company to execute, with the Eagles routinely getting called for self-inflicted blows like illegal man downfield on the RPO.
