Maybe the bleeding stops here, Monday night in Los Angeles against the Chargers. That begins and ends with the Eagles corralling Chargers’ quarterback Justin Herbert on Monday Night Football, before a national TV audience, half of which will hope the Eagles’ collapse continues, and the other half hoping that this is the game the Eagles turn their slide around.
Herbert suffered a fractured left (non-throwing) hand, and it appears he will be able to play against the Eagles. He injured his hand during
the Chargers’ 31-14 victory over the Las Vegas Raiders in Week 13, and actually returned to the game with a soft cast on. He underwent surgery on Monday to insert a plate and multiple screws in his hand, and by Thursday was a limited practice participant.
“I’m doing everything I can to be out there,” Herbert said Thursday. “I’d fight through anything for those guys. But at the end of the day, you’ve got to be realistic and listen to the doctors, because they know best. We’ll see how it goes.”
The Eagles need this game. Even though the Detroit Lions’ Thursday night 44-30 victory over the Dallas Cowboys all but guarantees the Eagles will be the first repeat winner of the NFC East in 21 years, when the Eagles won the last of their four-straight NFC East titles, this is a team with repeat Super Bowl aspirations.
It is also a team with the No. 24 offense in the league. The Eagles have floundered—and floundered miserably—in their previous two games, losing to Dallas (24-21) and the Chicago Bears (24-15).
The Eagles blew a 21-0 lead in Dallas with 11:32 left in the first half, only to implode under a
season-high 14 penalties, outgained 473 to 339, and served up 24 unanswered points in the Cowboys’ comeback. Against Chicago on Black Friday, the Eagles were manhandled by the Bears, giving up a season-high 281 yards rushing. It was the most yards rushing against the Eagles since a 31-10 loss in Dallas on Nov. 18, 1973, when the Cowboys ran for 286 yards.
In the losses to Dallas and Chicago, the Eagles were outscored 24-6 in the fourth quarter, and have been outscored by a total of almost 30 points in the fourth quarter this year, 84-56.
This season, Herbert has thrown for 2,842 yards and 21 touchdowns against 10 interceptions. If he plays, and it looks like he is, the Chargers (8-4) also playing for the playoff lives, and it makes them a far more dangerous team.
The Eagles may be the more desperate team. They are playing with the ghost of the 2023 collapse quickly approaching in their rearview mirror.
“Some of these answers, when you are trying to fix things — it is hard — they aren’t clear,” Eagles’ coach Nick Sirianni said this week. “I never feel like when we’ve had a lead, we’ve been conservative. Obviously, we’re on a two-game losing streak right now. It’s just about getting back to that confidence and that consistency.” Sirianni stressed that offensive coordinator Kevin Patullo will continue to call the offense. It factors in here, because long, sustained drives would keep Herbert and the Chargers offense, which is ranked No. 10 in the league, which is averaging 346.8 yards a game, off the field.
