Philadelphia spent the first 15 weeks of the NFL season stacking wins and preparing for home-field advantage, but injuries at key positions and poor play on both sides of the football now have this team fighting for the top spot.
NFL seasons can fall apart in a hurry and the Eagles are now facing a must-win scenario in Week 18 after a disastrous 20-10 loss to the Saints on Sunday.
Returning home to Lincoln Financial Field for the first time in three weeks, quarterback Gardner Minshew was sacked six times on the afternoon, and went 18-32 passing for 274 yards, one touchdown, and one interception that was returned for a touchdown in the loss.
Minshew looked out of sorts at times and made several costly errors while trying to bring Philadelphia back from a 13-0 first-half deficit.
The scenario has been simple since the end of Week 15, with Philadelphia needing to win one of their final three games to win the NFC East and clinch home-field advantage in the NFC.
With preparation for the Giants set to begin, here’s what the Eagles are saying after the disastrous loss.
Gardner Minshew
Eagles QB Gardner Minshew: "We ran the same play earlier against the same coverage & they made a great adjustment to it, jumped the route. I should have seen that leverage when we made the motion. I assumed since it was the same coverage, he was going to play it the same." https://t.co/DMegDESzZL
— Jori Epstein (@JoriEpstein) January 1, 2023
Gardner Minshew
Eagles QB Gardner Minshew says this was a frustrating loss to Saints
“We just couldn’t get rolling… kept just shooting ourselves in the foot, getting in our own way” pic.twitter.com/hTUDw2MIiy
— Jeff Skversky (@JeffSkversky) January 1, 2023
Dallas Goedert
Dallas Goedert: “Everything we want is still in front of us. Everything that we set out at the beginning of the year is still in front of us – An opportunity to clinch the division and NFC in Week 18.” pic.twitter.com/KbGAJ27wup
— Josh Tolentino (@JCTSports) January 1, 2023
A.J. Brown
AJ Brown on the final INT play: pic.twitter.com/75PvHs7UHn
— Eliot Shorr-Parks (@EliotShorrParks) January 1, 2023
Jordan Mailata
Jordan Mailata said that he thought the holding call was on him and that the officials mixed up his number with Landon Dickerson. But the penalty was meant to be assessed to the #Eagles LG.
Looked like a classic pancake block. Took a TD off the board. https://t.co/pT5xlsFTmU
— Jeff McLane (@Jeff_McLane) January 1, 2023
Nick Sirianni
Sirianni: "We played a really bad game today offensively. We'll just have to look and get better from it. Again, I'm not ever going to be somebody that is going to hit a panic button. We're going to double down on the things we think are true and that we know are true."
— Zach Berman (@ZBerm) January 1, 2023
Nick Sirianni on Jalen Hurts
Sirianni on Jalen Hurts: "He was close this week. …I mean, for me to say right now and today that, yeah, Jalen is playing or, no, he is not playing I don't think is fair to anybody, because so many things can happen in a week. …Obviously if he's ready to go, he'll play."
— Zach Berman (@ZBerm) January 1, 2023
Jason Kelce
“I’m not focused on that right now. I could give two f**** about clinching first place or seeding. We’ve got to get a lot of things fixed. I’ve got to get a lot of things fixed.”
-Jason Kelce says he is pissed off about today & isn’t thinking about clinching top seed
(NSFW) pic.twitter.com/bFuT7WdabE— John Clark (@JClarkNBCS) January 1, 2023
Josh Sweat
Thank you for your prayers and support 🙏🏾 I’ll be back this season! #GoBirds
— Josh Sweat (@SweatyJ_9) January 2, 2023
Nick Sirianni
Let's get to work#FlyEaglesFly pic.twitter.com/g3kSDkOAGC
— Philadelphia Eagles (@Eagles) January 1, 2023
Nick Sirianni
Double down and get to work#FlyEaglesFly pic.twitter.com/OHfD1qbv3T
— Philadelphia Eagles (@Eagles) January 1, 2023
Nick Sirianni
Still got an opportunity#FlyEaglesFly pic.twitter.com/fvRExja7Eo
— Philadelphia Eagles (@Eagles) January 1, 2023
Gardner Mishew
We have everything in front of us#FlyEaglesFly pic.twitter.com/MIr6nSi0WW
— Philadelphia Eagles (@Eagles) January 1, 2023
Nick Sirianni on Eagles poor offensive performance
The Eagles’ coach credited the Saints’ defense.
I think you have to give credit to that defense. That’s a good, well-coached defense with good players. Obviously, we didn’t put the players in good enough positions to succeed. We didn’t execute well enough.
It’s always going to be those two things. I’m going to have to watch the tape and see what’s going on, but there was no — we didn’t really have a rhythm going in that first half. I think we had three, three-and-outs, however many three-and-outs there were.
In one of them we got way behind the sticks. When you’re not converting on third down, it’s hard to convert on the one that was third and forever, but when you’re not converting on third down and not getting drives sustained, it’s hard to get in a rhythm, and that’s exactly what happened when we didn’t get a first down.
Why did that happen? Again, it’s always going to be coaching, always going to be execution; and then obviously give them credit as well.
A.J. Brown
Brown talked about Hurts being out the past two games.
“Jalen’s not on the field. We’re not thinking about what he would do or none of that. We’ve got to focus on who’s playing and try to win a game with the people playing.”
DeVonta Smith
“Like I said, find a way to stop the bleeding.”
“Come in everyday and get back to playing fundamental football because right now we’re not playing fundamentals.”
Fletcher Cox on Brandon Graham
“I mean it’s so good for BG. We talk about it all the time, obviously we’re locker mates and we always talk about goals and things you want to get done in your career and what’s important. I always told him it’s just going to take time and I get really emotional for him because I know how hard he’s been working and how hard so many people counted him out after coming back from that achilles injury, it’s really big for a guy that’s in his thirteenth season.”
Brandon Graham on Week 18 pressure
“There’s no pressure. I think you all [media] are going to make the most pressure about it, because at the end of the day if we have to keep rolling, maybe that’s okay too. Life has a way of showing you when you look back on it. Sometimes you say, ‘I’m happy that didn’t happen because if this didn’t happen, this wouldn’t have happened.’ It’s just how you look at it. I wanted to get the win today and that’s what we were aiming for, but at the end of the day our goal is to get to the postseason, win the division, and go win the championship. I’m just staying in the moment. Let’s just take care of this week and we’ll talk about the rest [later].”
