Grayson’s Grades: Eagles vs. Bucs

PHILADELPHIA - The Philadelphia Eagles struggled mightily in every aspect of the game and lost to Tom Brady and the Tampa Bay Buccaneers 28-22.

Once again the Eagles failed to run the ball with their running backs very much. Their offense looks predictable and without pass interference penalties on deep balls, the offense would have had no chance to score. Defensively, the Eagles continue to give up big chunks of yardage on first down making it relatively easy for an offense to move the ball down the field.

The Eagles fall to 2-4 on the season. Obviously, this was not a good report card. Due to limited offensive plays, there was not too much to evaluate on that side of the ball. Here is the latest edition of Grayson's Grades.

A

Miles Sanders - Sanders is way underused. He is barely touching the ball half as many times as he should. That is a gross coaching mistake. Sanders has big play ability but can only break one or hit a 'home run' when given enough touches to do so. He broke several key runs in the fourth quarter helping the Eagles make it a one possession game. Sanders carried the ball nine times for 56 yards. That is an average of 6.2 yards per carry. Give him the ball more!

B

None

C

None

D

Jalen Hurts - Hurts can only run the plays that are called. In my opinion, he is not being put in position to find success very much. Some of the success he finds is created by him evacuating the pocket and looking downfield. All of that being said, he did throw off his back foot on the pass that was intercepted. He may have been able to get away with that in college, but not in the NFL. Hurts completed less than 50 percent of his passes which is awful. Hurts completed 12 of 26 passes for 115 yards including a touchdown and an interception. He also added 10 carries for 44 yards and two touchdowns.

Offensive Line - The offensive line got pushed around pretty good. Granted, it must be hard to be an offensive lineman in this offense which is becoming more and more predictable. Opposing defenses can rush the passer on almost every play and would guess correctly on that most of the time. The line did open some good holes in the fourth quarter for Miles Sanders. However, they also got beat off the line frequently forcing Jalen Hurts to get out of the pocket almost immediately after completing his drop back.

Defensive Line - The defensive line barely got any pressure on Tom Brady in this game. That is the one thing you have to have in order to beat Brady. You must make him uncomfortable in the pocket and get a few hits on him. The line also seemed to lose the battle up front in the running game. They allowed 102 rush yards in this one. They managed three hits on Brady, but not nearly enough to make him uncomfortable.

F

Nick Sirianni - I'm officially out on Nick Sirianni as the Offensive play caller. I gave it five weeks and continue to see no plan, no rhythm, no forward thinking and no creativity. This offense is predictable and the Bucs showed future opponents exactly how to stop the RPO. Everything seems to work horizontally with screen passes that opponents are now expecting. They take some deep shots but clearly hope to draw some penalties and were fortunate that happened in this game. There are weapons on this offense but they are not used properly.

Jonathan Gannon - Gannon's defense frequently loses first down. They give up chunk yardage on first down that leads to easy conversions on second and third down. Gannon also frequently has his secondary play with a big cushion. What happened to the days where bump and run was used to throw off timing on routes? Surely Darius Slay and Steven Nelson can cover their man with 3-5 yards of cushion, but Gannon has them playing at least 8 yards off the receiver. He did seem to call a few more blitzes in this game, especially in the second half. I would like to see more of that as it appeared to at least force Brady to make some bad throws. Finally, the Bucs had the ball twice as long as the Eagles. Time of possession for the Bucs was 39:56 compared to just 20:04 for the Eagles.

Linebackers - This group of linebackers is failing week in and week out. I enjoyed watching the 2020 version of Alex Singleton. But I am wondering what happened to him. The 2021 version is missing tackles and not making the plays he did a year ago. The linebackers frequently get run over or are late getting to the holes. Singleton did lead the team in tackles with 15.