7 losers and 3 winners from the Eagles loss to the Seahawks

The Eagles fell to the Seahawks 24-10 and fell out of the top seed in the NFC on Sunday Night Football. It was an ugly game all around. If you wanted the Eagles to face some adversity before the playoffs, you got it. Unfortunately, they didn’t rise to the challenge.

WINNERS

Russell Wilson

Wilson needs no additions to his resume, but this game was his MVP For Your Consideration reel. His offensive line was so overmatched that the Seahawks just had him immediately leave the pocket with a lot of bootlegs, and yet he had a great game. It’s a bit miraculous he has survived all season behind that line. The talk entering the game was how the Seahawks were a one man band on offense, and Wilson continued his tour, accounting for 82% of Seattle’s yardage and all of their TDs.

Nelson Agholor

6 catches, 131 yards and a TD. If only Wentz had hit him in stride all game.

Seattle’s penalty luck

The Seahawks entered the game with a league worst 3 penalties a game deficit, in the hole over a penalty more than the next worst team. They were due for a game where the other team’s ledger was red, and for only the second time all season, they got it. More on that later.

LOSERS

Doug Pederson

His worst game of the season, and of his young career. The game plan was awful to start, with just one target for Zach Ertz in the first half, and none for Alshon Jeffery. Torrey Smith was thrown at five times. Seattle’s secondary was missing nearly all its pieces, short passes to your third best receiver is not a winning formula in that situation. The offense was better in the second half, getting the ball to its playmakers, throwing deep, scoring a TD and nearly scoring another, but there were still poor decisions littered throughout the second half.

Pederson’s fourth down decisions in the first half were questionable, but not crippling. It’s not like the offense was executing at the time. Perhaps it could have jumped started the offense, or perhaps it could have dragged them into more quicksand. The decision to use Kenjon Barner on the fourth down was questionable, though the play call worked.

Second half defense

When it rains, it pours. Throughout the 10 game winning streak, the defense has been consistently dominant, keeping the offense in the game when they started poorly. For the first half, the defense mostly held serve. And when the offense improved put together a big time drive to cut the lead to 17-10, it looked like this could be another bad start/strong finish game for the Eagles. Instead, the defense took the air out of the game and let Seattle march right down the field and score again. Perhaps the drive should have ended on the Russell Wilson lateral, but they gave up ten yards on a 3rd and 7 prior to that play, and then 21 and 15 yard passes after it. A total team loss.

Whoever is in charge of challenges (again)

The challenge on Torrey Smith’s third down catch was a poor decision. Smith had the first down, but officials usually don’t reverse spot calls, challenging them is futile. This one was predictably upheld. The decision to not challenge Russell Wilson’s forward pass was just as bad. Perhaps they would have lost the challenge, but that’s the one to risk it on. That’s two games in row with poor decisions by whoever is in charge of viewing replays.

Carson Wentz

Carson Wentz did not have his revenge on Seattle.

The drive to make the game 17-10 Seattle was fantastic, and we got another in a growing list of “DID YOU SEE THAT” scrambles, but this was a bad game by Wentz.

His accuracy was off most of the night, over throwing a wide open Nelson Agholor in the first quarter for what could have been a TD, then under throwing him in the third for what could have been a TD. And in between, on the doorstep of a TD, he fumbled on the goal line. On reason the Eagles offense was pouring on the points was that they hadn’t turned the ball over in the red zone, they were always walking away with points. His worst game of the season.

Blaming the refs

Officials don’t lose teams games, they put teams in position to lose games. As bad as some of the calls against the Eagles were, and some of them were absolutely awful, they didn’t cost them a win. The Eagles came into the game with the 8th worst penalty per game deficit, it wasn’t costing them wins. The officials didn’t fumble the ball at the goal line, they didn’t target Zach Ertz and Alshon Jeffery a total of once in the first half, they didn’t stumble on a wide open 4th down pass, or leave Seattle receivers wide open for big gains.

The Eagles did. That’s why they lost.

Halapoulivaati Vaitai

Hope he exchanged jerseys with Frank Clark after the game, because Clark owned him all night, he ought to walk away owning his jersey too.

Cris Collinsworth

What the hell game were you watching Cris?