Toward the bitter end, a season that couldn’t have been worse
Having trafficked in it for most of the last 60 years, the Eagles long had established a standard for unfulfilling football seasons. Then came the most disturbing and least productive flop of them all.
Then came 2020.
Given $200 million in payroll, splendid training facilities and 17 weeks to achieve, it would be a challenge for any team to leave a season without one fresh source of pride and optimism. Surely, there would be a meaningful, telling victory. Or growth among young contributors. Or a scent of stability. Or a demonstrated team spirit. Or a new leader. Or coaching wisdom. Or fan confidence. Or enlightened front-office guidance. Or a breakthrough player with a replica jersey sure to spike in popularity.
Yet there were the Eagles, who mopped up another pip of a season late Sunday night, having achieved none of that.
Worse, they shattered the No. 1 requirement of any program: Don’t spend the year making things worse.
If there were a boxing-style scale for scoring an NFL season, the Eagles would have lost every round, 10-8. Not one reasonable requirement did they meet as a team, a coaching staff or a franchise. Not only couldn’t they find a way to win often enough, but they proved they couldn’t even tie in a popular fashion.
At the top of the affidavit of their incompetence is an industry standard: They did not make it into the offseason without a quarterback controversy. While the sizzle of competition in the quarterback room might have occasional value, this was not one of those cases. That’s because the over-arching question involving Carson Wentz and Jalen Hurts heading into the final week was not who was closer to leading the Eagles back to contention, but who was the least likely to commit a damaging turnover.
Even if Wentz was an over-valued first-round draft choice and Hurts arrived in the second round, neither was so spectacular that the Eagles could remain semi-confident that they had the right quarterback for any burst of excellence. That meant one of the quarterbacks would have to go. Since Wentz nicely leaked that he was not content to remain in Howie Roseman’s “quarterback factory,” he will be freed, traded to a team aware of the Eagles’ desperate straits.
The exchange will cost the Eagles about $35 million. It will also thrust the inexperienced Hurts into a full season where defensive coordinators will have more time to identify his weaknesses, all while he is being supplemented by Miles Sanders and a crowd of less-than-ordinary offensive players.
With the skills to be another Wilbert Montgomery or LeSean McCoy, Sanders could have been considered a 2020 achievement. Yet Pederson wasted another season with him by never making a reasonable commitment to the run. Zach Ertz, his franchise Ring of Honor plaque on pre-order, will not be back next season. There was a moment when Travis Fulgham mounted a quiet Pro Bowl candidacy with a Terrell Owens-like playing style, but the coaching staff could not stop him from fading. Predictably, DeSean Jackson was an injury-prone, selfish distraction. Ditto, Alshon Jeffery. Or was that all just a function of the Eagles’ bizarre decision to trust an entire season to by-committee offensive coordination? What could have gone wrong there?
Only a derecho of incompetence, out-of-position players, wasted freeagent cash, injuries, sloppiness and indecision could inspire a 54-year-old defensive coordinator to voluntarily go into unforced retirement just three seasons after helping to win a world championship. Jim Schwartz will get another job in 2022. But he knew that would have been more unlikely had he decided to hang around through 2021.
Now, that’s a sign of one seriously troubled football program.
It takes an especially inept team to roll into Week 17 in last place in one of the worst divisions in NFL history. But that could soon become, as Pederson once said, the new normal. The three other NFC East teams all had first-year coaches, and all were in playoff contention into the final weekend.
Their uninspiring records aside, Washington, Dallas and the Giants will enter the offseason with some strain of optimism. As for the Eagles, whose old players are stale and young players are unproven, they are heading into a chilly darkness.
“This season has been tough for myself personally as the head coach here,” Pederson said. “Really, this is just not what we expected. It’s not what I expected back in training camp and the early part of the season.
“I know in my heart that this is a great place to play, a great place to coach. We do have the best fans. When we win, it’s unbelievable. It’s exciting. I know we can get back to that level. It is unfortunate, but I know we can get it turned around and get it fixed.”
Pederson had 17 weeks to fix things this year, yet wound up with a sinking quarterback situation, rickety receivers and a defense so broken that his top assistant Schwartz screeched out of the parking lot, leaving tire tracks. He wound up with only a modestly productive firstround draft choice, an inconsistent kicker and decaying special teams. And he wound up with a losing record and no sturdy argument why it should have been a winning record.
The NFL will reward the Eagles with valuable draft positioning and a softer 2021 schedule. The league is forgiving that way. So, by design, next year could be better. Yet there is only one reason for that: It cannot be worse.