Why Eagles' offense isn't off the hook in crushing loss to 49ers

As we sift through the rubble of the Eagles’ 42-19 loss to the 49ers on Sunday, the defense clearly deserves most of the blame.

But that doesn’t mean the offense is off the hook.

Because despite controlling the game through the first quarter of action on Sunday, the Eagles sputtered twice early in the red zone. This was one of those games where field goals just simply weren’t going to be enough.

And touchdowns would have gone a long way in dictating the script of the game.

“It’s disappointing,” receiver A.J. Brown said. “When you drive down the field, you’re trying to put it in the end zone. We came up short.”

The Eagles moved the ball with ease in the first quarter. They sliced through the 49ers’ defense on back-to-back drives to start the game, getting down the 8-yard line and the 14-yard line before sputtering and settling for field goals.

After one quarter, the Eagles had actually out-gained the 49ers 124 to -6, holding the ball for nearly 13 minutes. But they had just a 6-0 lead to show for it.

It felt like that was going to come back to bite them. And it did.

“When you think about, you know, how important it is to start fast, and I feel like we started with good rhythm. Good tempo. Good execution for the most part,” Jalen Hurts said. “We just kind of weren’t able to connect and execute like we wanted to in the red zone. When you’re playing a good team like that, every little thing matters. That’s a credit to them and the way they played today and how they executed. 

“I think for us we just have to do a better job – a better job of controlling things we can and play cleaner. They played well and took advantage of their opportunities. That’s a really good football team. Really great players. They did a great job today.”

The Eagles’ first drive began at their own 25-yard line and after moving down the field they were set up with a 1st-and-10 from the 49ers’ 11-yard line. But then there was an incompletion and then a 3-yard run to set up a 3rd-and-7. That’s when Hurts tried to hit Brown on a back-shoulder pass but Charvarius Ward stepped in front of it for a pass breakup. Nice play from the Niners.

Jake Elliot hit a 26-yarder. 3-0.

After a quick 3-and-out from the 49ers, the Eagles got the ball back at their own 26-yard line and began to drive again. This time, they got down to the 14-yard line before Hurts slipped while trying to avoid pressure and took a 15-yard sack. That 15-yard loss is the biggest on any sack of Hurts’ career that wasn’t a fumble.

The Eagles weren’t able to dig out of that ensuing 3rd-and-21 hole, so they had to settle again.

Elliott hit a 39-yarder. 6-0.

“Field goals is cool but we really trying to go up as fast and capture that momentum,” veteran defensive end Brandon Graham said. “We didn’t do that today as a collective. We’re going to own that together. 

“I do respect that the 49ers game in and did they job. They came out and executed the game plan and stayed with it. Little things caught up with us today.”

The frustrating thing for the Eagles is that after some early-season woes in the red zone, they had really turned things around recently. Before this game, the Eagles had scored on their last 12 trips to the red zone and were perfect against the Bills, Chiefs and Cowboys in their last three games.

So this was a bad time for those red zone issues to pop up again.

The Eagles ended up scoring on their final two red zone possessions of the game, going 2-for-4 in the game. But the Eagles also managed just a total of 19 points.

“Again, credit to them,” head coach Nick Sirianni said. “That’s a good football team. We’re always going to want to play better when something like this happens and coach better.

“But they did a good job. They have good players and they had a good scheme and they stopped us.”

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