The Eagles' 10th straight home loss on Sunday was brutal. For the second straight week, Philadelphia went a whole game without scoring an offensive touchdown. The home team only managed 200 total yards against a lowly Giants defense in a 15-7 loss to New York.
One significant reason for the lack of offensive success is due to a specific area: quarterback.
[When] you're unsettled at that position in this league, it's real difficult. [...] When you're not settled at that position in this league, you better have a quarterback. And right now we're unstable at the quarterback spot and we are not playing well at the quarterback spot, and we lost our last two games because of it.
Kelly highlights the two main issues at QB for the Eagles right now. The first issue is the injuries. Michael Vick missed two games with a hamstring injury and then didn't look 100% when he tried to return on Sunday at home vs. New York. Nick Foles suffered a concussion last week vs. the Cowboys and still hasn't been cleared to return.
The second issue is poor quarterback play. In the past two weeks, Eagles QBs haven't played well at all. Nick Foles was 11/29 for 80 yards against the Cowboys before Barkley came in and threw 3 interceptions. Michael Vick threw 6/9 for 30 yards and 1 INT before he left the game with a re-injured hamstring. Barkley finished the day 17/26 for 158 yards, 1 INT, and a 65.9 QB Rating.
Kelly himself isn't without blame for these lackluster offensive performances. He accepted his fair share of responsibility.
I think we've had some instability at the quarterback position. I think we've also got to step up. And it starts with me. I'm the play caller. I'm the guy calling plays. In the last two weeks I haven't done a very good job of it. Until we can get that straightened out, the disappointing thing is I think our defense played a really, really good football game again today. They've really come along. But offensively we haven't done what we need to do to win two football games and we need to get that fixed.
It's no surprise to see the Eagles struggle while lacking premium, or even merely average, performance from the most important position in the game. That the head coach hasn't done his best job either only makes matters worse.
Kelly wouldn't commit yet to Barkley starting against the Raiders in Oakland next week, but did say "it could look that way" depending on the health status of Vick and Foles.