Chip Kelly, Eagles frustrated with missed opportunities in loss against Chargers

Missed opportunities. Wasted chances. Unfulfilled potential.

Along with a poor defensive performance from Philadelphia, these failures contributed to the Eagles 30-33 loss to the Chargers on Sunday afternoon.

A missed field goal. Dropped passes. A defense that could not force a punt. None of these things are uncommon in football. They are weekly issues to varying extents, but today they seemed to hurt the Eagles extra hard. Philadelphia was so close to winning. If that one extra opportunity had gone their way, it could have been a different game.

Even Eagles Head Coach Chip Kelly felt the Eagles left points on the field.

"Yeah, obviously.  We left points out there offensively.  You can't do that against a good team.  So when you play against a good quarterback, you have to be as sharp as you can.  I think offensively had a touchdown called back, had a drop.  Missed a field goal.  You can come down to ‑‑ in a game like this that is decided on a field goal at the end of the game, you can take a pick and look at every play, but to me, it's not nit‑picking.  One play is the difference in a game and we talked about it all the time.  You don't know when that play is going to impact the game.  And we have to understand how important it is to make plays when you have an opportunity to make them."

Michael Vick was asked about the three times he missed DeSean Jackson with the deep ball before finally connecting with Jackson on the fourth attempt.

"You are not going to hit all of them. You are lucky if you hit one. We are professionals so we try and capitalize on those opportunities, but you got to hit them, you’re not going to hit them all. We had our fair share of plays today, and I think we can get better."

LeSean McCoy called the Eagles' missed opportunities frustrating.

"I think it’s always frustrating, as an offense when you can’t really produce how you want to. It was always a play too short, or you don’t quite get it so it’s always frustrating. But it’s a long game, a long season so you keep fighting, keep battling. I think we did that today, I think today we kept fighting and fighting but we came up short today, we didn’t get it done."

...and DeSean Jackson expressed his frustrations as well.

"That’s very frustrating, honestly. The touchdown got called back, there was one I caught out of bounds when my right foot stepped out, and then the overthrown one that slipped off of my hands. But that’s part of the game. We just have to keep going and keep working. Overall, I felt I had a great game. We still lost the game, and there are things that we can do as an offense and as a team overall to help us win these type of games. I think [San Diego] did a great job, and that offense put a lot of pressure on our defense. Our defense came up with two turnovers, but there was something about that game. We just felt like we kept plugging away and plugging away. We knew we were going to have to score a touchdown on that last drive, and we just came up short. Hopefully it’s something that we can learn from. It’s a long season, and teams are going to do different things to try to take us away. Today they kind of stacked the box and tried to stop the run, but as you can see, our passing game can be just as effective as our running game."

Far from a polished product, the Eagles still have a lot of work to do. A positive outlook is that the Eagles are creating opportunities for themselves. Now they just need to find a way to refine their game and capitalize on these chances.