The ball ended up falling incomplete, and Byron Maxwell, as cornerbacks tend to do when that happens, celebrated. For some reason, that image sticks out to me today after the Philadelphia Eagles were embarrassed yet again, this time in a 45-14 loss to the Detroit Lions on national television.
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The context is important. At that time, the Eagles were losing 31-7 to the Lions, who were marching in the red zone. A couple of plays later, the score would be 38-7 midway through the third quarter. On the play, Maxwell got away with a blatant holding penalty on Calvin Johnson, who hauled in three touchdowns. Matthew Stafford and the Lions’ terrible offense (28th in DVOA coming into the day), racked up 430 yards against a defense that has fallen off a cliff over the last month. In all honesty, it felt like 550.
On a holiday, the rest of Philadelphia is not in a celebratory mood.
For the second straight game, there isn’t really much to observe outside of the Philadelphia Eagles embarrassing themselves again. For instance, it’s unclear why the team’s unproven second-round pick consistently found himself in single coverage against Megatron. The top pick seemingly spent the entire second half boiling over from frustration.
The Eagles have five more games left. After that, the future seems completely up in the air. Even if you still believe in Chip Kelly, his first season with total power has turned out almost as bad as one could possibly expect. The only certainty is that the constant noise about Kelly won’t stop anytime soon.
Follow Rich on Twitter: @rich_hofmann