Roob observations as Rams take advantage of Eagles injuries – NBC Sports Philadelphia

It was fun while it lasted. With seemingly half the team injured, the Eagles’ backup team held a 10-point lead late in the fourth quarter against the Rams on Sunday at Linc.

But the Eagles’ second-half woes continued and the Rams outscored them 14-0 after halftime — all 14 points in the final four minutes — and rallied for a 24-20 victory that cut the Eagles to 2-2.

The Eagles have now been outscored 54-20 in the second half this year, including 31-0 in losses to the Bears and Rams over the past two weeks.

Here are our 10 snapshot observations about a crushing loss.

1. Total collapse in the last minutes. Just a complete collapse in every aspect. Overcoached, outclassed, overadapted. Once again, the Eagles defense, so good throughout the game, collapsed in the fourth quarter, allowing two long touchdowns while collapsing on offense. It’s partly about coaching and partly about execution, but the Eagles are just a bad team in the second half, and they’ve now been outscored 47-20 this year after halftime and 31-0 the last two weeks, which is inexcusable. Maybe it was just a matter of all the injuries catching up with the Eagles. But you can’t use that as an excuse. You’re up 10 at home with 4 and a half minutes left, you can’t lose this football game. It doesn’t matter how many players are missing. But they did it and this team has a lot to figure out. Just to put this loss in context, the Eagles were 95-3 in their last 98 games when they led by 10 points early in the fourth quarter. Yes, 95-3. This is truly excusable.

2. How putrid was Sunday’s offense? They scored a couple touchdowns, but both were on short fields, 17 yards after a long Britain Covey punt return and 35 yards after Cooper DeJean’s interception. They only scored 172 yards, they averaged 3.0 yards per play, they went 0 for 12 on third down, they averaged less than four yards per carry, they only had 75 net passing yards and 12 first downs and they didn’t have a first down in the second half. I mean, how do you go 0 for 12 on third down? Even Kevin Patullo didn’t do that. And since the NFL started tracking third downs, the Eagles have never been 0 for 12. They haven’t scored a point in the 2nd half since the Titans game. You don’t want to blame everything on Sean Mannion. There were a ton of injuries, Saquon Barkley left early, the offensive line was down to two guys at the same position on opening day, Dallas Goedert is still out. Still, this offense just isn’t competitive for long stretches of each game, especially in the second half, and we’re now a quarter of the way through the season, and he’s no longer the new kid on the block. Mannion needs to be better at in-game adjustments. And everything else. He has a lot to understand.

3. Second half. Again. Lord. The Eagles have now been outscored 54-20 in the second half of this year, 31-0 the last two weeks and have been outscored by an average of 202-103. It’s crazy. The Cowboys scored more points in the second half today (28) than the Eagles did all year. The Rams outscored them 260-72 on Sunday. How does an NFL team not understand that you have to play 60 minutes to beat a good team? How can an entire team collapse when the game is on the line? How can so many players simply stop playing at the critical moment? On Sunday, the Eagles had four first downs in the second half and the Rams had 16. Seriously? Come on. And I place the blame directly on the technical staff, Nick Sirianni in particular. He is responsible for everything we see on the football field. And what we see after halftime is an inept, unprepared, outplayed and embarrassed football team every week. Pathetic.

4. Once again, the Eagles reached double digits in penalties, the second straight game they have done so. And they canceled a number of potentially important games. It seems like every time there’s a big play on either side of the ball, every time the Eagles gain a little momentum, there’s a defensive holding, an illegal formation, an offside, something. This is the first time since 2016 that they’ve committed 10 or more penalties in consecutive games, and right now, this team isn’t good enough to make those kinds of mistakes. If you’re the Rams, you can make mistakes, and they did on Sunday. They had eight penalties and two turnovers and still found a way to win. The Eagles aren’t good enough to do that.

5. I thought some of the Eagles’ backups did some good things. With DeVonta Smith, Zack Baun, Lane Johnson and Marcus Epps inactive, Landon Dickerson and Dallas Goedert already injured and Saquon Barkley leaving the game in the first quarter with a hamstring injury, then Quinyon Mitchell leaving early in the third quarter, then Jonathan Greenard following him to the sideline later in the third quarter, the Eagles were lacking quite a bit of star power. Darius Cooper caught two touchdowns, including a miracle TD on a deflected pass, Jeremiah Trotter was all over the field, finishing with 15 tackles, although he badly missed the game-winning touchdown. Michael Carter made a lot of plays at safety and Tank Bigsby got going a bit in the fourth quarter. Dickerson, Johnson, Mitchell, Greenard and Baun are all Pro Bowlers and Smith and Goedert are Pro Bowl caliber guys. It took the Rams a while to figure out how to take advantage of the missing Eagles, but once they did, it was game over.

6. Jalen Hurts threw the first two touchdowns and didn’t have an interception, but it was a very tough game for him with just 12 of 27 passing for 44 percent, four sacks and a miserable second half going 2 of 9 for 10 yards and two sacks for 10 yards. That’s zero net passing yards in the half. Hurts has really struggled against the Rams’ constant blitzes and part of that problem is missing Goedert, his favorite receiver. And he was also missing Barkley, another option against the blitz. The Rams knew he had no comfort zone against the blitz and they just brought blitz after blitz and the Eagles, with their makeshift offensive line, just couldn’t deal with it. Until the o-line starts playing better and Hurts gets some of his weapons back and gets better at recognizing blitzes, opposing defenses are just going to continue to blitz Hurts. Until he makes them pay, why would they stop doing it?

7. There was a period during training camp this summer where, for about two weeks, Darius Cooper made at least one ridiculous circus highlight capture every day. Dive, dash, jump, you name it. It was fun to watch, but you wondered if he would be able to make these plays when they counted. Guess what. Yeah. He can. Cooper’s 2nd quarter touchdown was a masterpiece of instinct, determination, focus and concentration. Just a remarkable play from anyone, let alone a 24-year-old undrafted free agent. The Eagles had 2nd and 11 from the Rams’ 18 and Hurts’ throw into the end zone looked like it might be recovered by safety Quentin Lake. But Lake could only tip the ball, and Cooper jumped up, controlled the loose ball in the air and fell to the ground, turning his body upward so the ball was above him. Cooper added a second touchdown later in the second quarter and now has three touchdowns in his first 17 career games. Not written. Unreal. Not many positives in this match, but Cooper’s performance was one.

8. OK, a positive sign for the defense. After failing to record a result in their first three games for the first time in franchise history, the Eagles got two on Sunday with Drew Mukuba and Cooper DeJean both beating Matt Stafford. First regular season game with two interceptions since the Vikings in Week 7 last year, when Mukuba and Jalyx Hunt picked off Carson Wentz at US Bank Stadium, with Hunt dropping back for a pick-6. On the Rams’ first drive, Mukuba picked off Matt Stafford at the Rams’ 49th and had a nice 24-yard return. The Eagles drove down to the Rams 7-yard line but only managed a short field goal. As for Mukuba, he didn’t play well the first three games of the season, so it was good to see him make a big play. He is the first player drafted by the Eagles to make three INTs in his first 15 career games since Jordan Hicks in 2015. Nice INT, welcome back. Mukuba needs to continue to make this kind of play because that’s why they drafted him in the second round last year. Because of his potential as a big-time playmaker. More would be needed, but it was encouraging.

9. What is this offense? What is their identity? Person? I just don’t understand what they are trying to achieve. What do they rely on when there is a critical game? What do they believe in? What do they want to do? What do they want it to look like? What is the program each week? I just don’t understand what it’s supposed to look like, and when you don’t have an identity, you don’t have anything. Sometimes it seems like they want everything to be about the passing game, but that has been inconsistent and the pass protection has been shaky. Sometimes it seems like they want to be a running team, but they haven’t run the ball consistently and Saquon Barkley hasn’t been able to stay healthy. A few years ago, every time the Eagles offense took the field, it felt like we were going to see something special. When they started training, they were expected to score and it was surprising that they didn’t. Now it’s almost shocking when they score. When you don’t really know what you want to be, it’s hard to be great. I don’t know what it is about, but I know it’s very difficult to watch right now.

10. Jake Elliott has been the worst kicker in the NFL over the past two years, but he looks like a different guy so far this year. In addition to his 58 yards against the Titans, he had a 56-yarder on Sunday and is now 4-for-4 so far this year. His two field goals of at least 56 yards match his total total for 2024 and 2025 combined, when he was 2-for-8 from at least 56 yards. Elliott now has 11 career field goals of at least 56 yards, the 6th most in NFL history. More importantly, he looks like the Jake Elliott of 2017 to 2023. Good for Howie Roseman for sticking with him when he made just 48 of 63 shots for 76 percent over the past two seasons and became the first kicker since Josh Scobee in 2008 and 2009 to make less than 78 percent in consecutive years. It would have been easy to replace it, but it seems like that would have been a mistake.