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The Eagles lost to the Seahawks 26-15 in a game that wasn’t as close as the score would indicate.
After a respectable start, it got ugly. As always, let’s take a look at the winners and losers.
Winners
The Seahawks
Seattle didn’t just win, they beat the Eagles. They spent the whole season struggling with running the ball, but today they ran all over the Eagles. If there was one play that encapsulated the game it was that Russell Wilson caught a TD. That’s just insulting.
People who think Carson Wentz is bad
Wentz didn’t have a good game, his two interceptions were bad plays. On the first, he stared down the receiver, his delivery was slow and he didn’t see Kam Chancellor. On the second, he’s got to know better than thinking any of his WRs could get that kind of separation on Seattle’s secondary.
But to watch the rest of this game and think Wentz was the problem would be ignorant. That, or that people who actually evaluate football for a living are extremely high on Wentz won’t stop the amateur scouts from trying to tell you that Wentz, who has the worst group of skill position players in the league, is actually bad.
Losers
tl;dr everyone
Nelson Agholor
What more is there to say than this:
Carson Wentz only has 86 passing yards. But Nelson Agholor also cost him ~100 yards and 1 TD on two plays (penalty and drop) alone.
— Josh Paunil (@JoshPaunil) November 20, 2016
Agholor will cost more to get rid of than to keep for next year but the Eagles need to bite the bullet and move on from him.
The defense
Every level of the defense had a bad game. Russell Wilson isn’t the easiest QB to sack, but the pass rush, against two rookies no less, was almost non-existent. The secondary was no better, allowing big passing plays to Jimmy Graham, Doug Baldwin, Tyler Lockett and Russell Wilson and having a big hand in CJ Prosise’s 72 yard touchdown run. And the linebackers were of no help either. The Seahawks ran for 5.1 yards per carry, 10 different players caught a pass, six of them had plays of 15+ yards. On one drive they had the Seahawks in a 2nd and 20 and a 3rd and 16 and Seattle scored.
Offensive adjustments
Doug Pederson and his staff have had a pretty good season in terms of making in-game adjustments. Against the Seahawks, they had miserable game. Agholor had a disastrous 2nd quarter and continued to play. Brent Celek a good catch and run for a first down to the 9 yard line, he was never targeted again. Trey Burton moved the sticks on the Eagles first play of the game but was targeted just two more times after that. Darren Sproles got only three touches.
Pederson had a good game plan and called a fine game in the first half, but the second half improvements that have been with him in wins and loses wasn’t there.
Playoff chances
The Eagles had an outside shot at making the playoffs if everything went right on Sunday, but they didn’t. Coupled with their loss, the Giants, Cowboys, Lions and Vikings won, putting a playoff spot another game out of reach and all but ending their chances at a postseason spot. On the bright side, to have been in the playoff hunt (and they’re still technically in it) in mid/late November with a rookie QB and head coach isn’t bad at all.