Welcome to The Linc, the daily Philadelphia Eagles links roundup at Bleeding Green Nation!
I happen to agree with BGN alumnus Jimmy Kempski’s assessment of the 2026 Eagles. This team is probably cooked. Sure, they’re not far off from being 4-1. And maybe they even win a bad NFC East. But they just haven’t played very well on the whole, especially relative to other teams. This isn’t their year. And that’s OK! They’ve been on one of the most successful runs, if not THE most, in franchise history. Although
it’s certainly disappointing, they’re allowed to have a bad year without it meaning doom and gloom for the franchise moving forward. I’m still pretty optimistic about the Eagles’ long-term future with Jeffrey Lurie and Howie Roseman at the helm. Expecting the Eagles to flat out tank isn’t realistic but the front office should absolutely be making decisions with more than the team’s 2026 outlook in mind. Taking a step back this year could position the Eagles very well in future seasons. It is indeed time for a reset.
Let’s get to the Philadelphia Eagles news and links …
The Eagles should punt on the 2026 season, trade still-valuable players for future assets – PhillyVoice
We’re only five weeks into the 2026 NFL season, but it is already crystal clear that it is not going to be a special one for the Philadelphia Eagles. More bluntly, if you’re a Birds fan, this season sucks. And, spoiler, it is only going to continue to suck. However, Howie Roseman and the Eagles are in a position to choose their suckage path the rest of the season. One is to try to compete for a division title in the craptastic NFC East, and if successful pretend that anything can happen in the playoffs. The other is to maximize the value on likely soon-to-be outgoing players, and reset the roster for another long-term run. One is to try to compete for a division title in the craptastic NFC East, and if successful pretend that anything can happen in the playoffs. The decision really shouldn’t be all that hard. They should choose the reset.
Seven things Solak thinks entering NFL Week 6: Time for Mendoza? Cowboys issues? – ESPN
I think … neither coach whose team committed end-of-game errors on Sunday will survive the season. […] Sirianni said after the game when asked about the touchback decision: “I didn’t make the right decision, and I lost us that game, and that’s what I said to our guys.” It echoes what he has said about the Eagles’ errant fourth-down decision-making over the past few games — passing on go-worthy fourth downs only to attempt more difficult ones later. The buck stops with him. He’s right, of course. And if the Eagles cannot hang the laurels of playcalling or coach development on Sirianni’s chest; if they can’t call him an elite mediator of disgruntled players; if they can’t expect him to maximize winning chances with fourth-down decisions or clock management … what do they ask of him? What does he bring to a team in transition — a team that’s wondering if it’s finally time to take its medicine and rebuild for a new era of contention?
Eagles vs. Jaguars: 8 winners, 8 losers, 6 IDKs – BGN
Sirianni is hardly the only coach who doesn’t ace game management. Look at Liam Coen! The Jags didn’t have a great day in that regard. But Coen provided value for his team with his contributions as an offensive mind. Sirianni isn’t bringing that to the table. Outside of player motivation, I’m not really sure what edge Sirianni is giving his team. Rather, he’s been a liability. And, make no mistake, he WILL be held accountable for the Eagles’ struggles if they continue. Especially as it relates to their offensive woes:
NFC East Mixtape Vol. 197: The NFC Least is back! – NFC East Mixtape
It only took five weeks into this NFL season, but the NFC Least is officially BACK! Despite two of the teams playing one another, not a single NFC East team won in Week 5. What’s more is that there were some particularly embarrassing moments. The Dallas Cowboys got destroyed by a winless Tampa Bay Buccaneers team while the Philadelphia Eagles blew a lead with 8 seconds in London against the Jacksonville Jaguars. The New York Giants might feel okay to have salvaged a tie, but they owe Jayden Daniels and Dan Quinn a huge thanks as that duo really let down the Washington Commanders. RJ Ochoa and Brandon Lee Gowton discuss it all! You can see that we have a BRAND NEW NFC East Mixtape YouTube Channel so make sure to subscribe as the show will live here exclusively in video format. AND you can also listen to the show! On Blogging The Boys and/or Bleeding Green Nation podcast feeds as well as the SB Nation NFL Show feed!
NFL winners and losers: The NFC East has become football’s saddest division – SB Nation
As a whole, the NFC East is a combined 8-10-2. Not the worst division on paper but it owns some of the most embarrassing losses in the NFL so far. Their collective schedules are only getting more difficult from here, and we could easily see three coaches get axed from the East before the season finishes — unless there’s some demonstrable improvement. This shouldn’t happen in the NFC East. Routinely, it’s one of the league’s better conferences, home to some of the richest rivalries, and with more trash talking than most of football combined. Instead of talking trash to each other, these teams can only point to how trash they have become.
Panthers vs. Eagles odds: Opening lines for Week 6 matchup – Cat Scratch Reader
Remember that home-field advantage is traditionally accounted for by spotting the home team—theEagles, in this case—three points on the spread. That would actually see the Panthers favored by less than a safety on a neutral field. It is clear that FanDuel doesn’t trust Bryce Young yet. Honestly, that’s kind of fair, but this still feels like a betting line weighted more on performance from past seasons for both teams than it is on the last four to five games of the 2026 season.
3 Numbers to Know From the Jaguars’ Win Over the Eagles – Big Cat Country
6%. That was Jacksonville’s win probability with eight seconds left in the game, per NFL Pro. Jake Elliot had just knocked through a 48-yard field goal to put the Eagles up by one point. If the Jaguars had any timeouts remaining, they might’ve been able to pick up a chunk completion before stopping the clock and attempting a lengthy walk-off field goal. But the Jaguars didn’t have any timeouts, and the Eagles made sure they’d have even less time by kicking off short of the endzone to prevent a touchback. Then Ameer Abdullah happened.
Some Good Signs – Iggles Blitz
Let’s move past the fact the Eagles lost to the Jags. That was a horrible outcome, but there are some real positives to take away from the game. There are absolutely some things to build upon moving forward. The defense started to look more like what we expected. Jalen Carter played his best game in a while, finishing with 5 tackles, 2 sacks, 2 FF, 1 TFL, and a PD. He also drew a holding call (finally!). Carter created at least one TFL for a teammate (Coop). He was a disruptive force. This defense is completely different when Carter plays like that.
‘It hasn’t been good enough:’ Sirianni searching for answers for woeful offense – NBCSP
No, they’re not the worst offense in the NFL. They’re just 28th in scoring, 31st in yards, 22nd on third down, 30th in yards per play, 28th in passing, 23rd in rushing and 26th in sacks allowed and 32nd in first downs. Five weeks into the 2026 season, the Eagles’ offense is among the worst in the league in every significant category. And it’s getting worse. Over the last three weeks, the Eagles are last in most of those categories. During their three-game losing streak, the Eagles have averaged 14.7 points and 217 yards per game, averaged 3.98 yards per play, recorded 39 first downs and converted 22.2 percent of their third downs. All worst or 2nd-worst in the league during that span. Last time the Eagles were that bad in all those categories in any three-game span was the first three games of 1999, Andy Reid’s first year as an NFL head coach with Doug Pederson as his quarterback. But that was a rebuilding team coming off a 3-13 season in 1998 with a first-time head coach and a rookie quarterback in Donovan McNabb who would soon take over. This is a team that came into the season with legit Super Bowl aspirations that’s made the playoffs five straight years and had a top-10 offense every year from 2022 through 2024.
Nick Sirianni defends Eagles’ late clock management, regrets kickoff decision vs. Jaguars – The Athletic
Sirianni had the wrong takeaway from the end of the game. Comparatively speaking, the kickoff decision was more defendable than the approach that left to leaving time on the clock.
Elliott came onto the field with 12 seconds remaining. Had the Eagles snapped the ball for Elliott’s field-goal attempt with two seconds remaining, a successful kick would have ended the game. But Sirianni stood by the way he handled that final sequence. “You’d love for the last play of the game to be your kick, but you’d also say, ‘Hey, if I can get that clock under 20 seconds, you’re accomplishing that as well,’” Sirianni said. “Leading into that last play, I said what I said yesterday. I stand by that. I did not make the decision that I wanted to make there in that particular case, and it cost us. There’s nothing else to be said about that.”
Nick Sirianni, Jalen Hurts seems to disagree on the management of Philly’s final drive – PFT
If Lemon had simply fallen down in bounds, it wouldn’t have been an issue. The Jaguars would have used their final timeout, and the Eagles could have run the ball, called a timeout with three or four seconds left, and kicked a walk-off field goal. Is that on Lemon? Is it on the coaching staff for calling a play that put the ball so close to the sideline? Is it on Hurts for throwing to a player who was near the sideline, when he had a man wide open on the thirty-two at the left hash? Regardless, Sirianni has no regrets as to how things played out before the final kickoff. Hurts apparently does. It’ll be interesting to monitor that dynamic if other questions regarding game management, play-calling, etc. emerge as the year moves forward.
Bowen: The Eagles went from ‘How did they win this?’ To ‘How did they lose this,’ and nothing good seems to last for this team – PHLY Eagles
As Nick Sirianni said, “I didn’t make the right decision, and I lost us that game.” You’ve probably heard that he said that by now, you don’t need me to tell you, but some quotes just have to make the column. It was rare for Sirianni to jettison the coachy cliches and speak from the heart. It also was impossible to disagree. His outmanned players lurched to the improbable edge of victory. And he couldn’t seal the deal. A team with an offensive line of Jordan Mailata, Willie Lampkin, Jake Majors, Tyler Steen and Markel Bell somehow mounted a 32-yard field goal drive in the final seconds against the NFL’s best defense, using nine plays to do so, with fourth-string running back Dameon Pierce. That Elliott field goal represented the Eagles’ first second-half points in three games. As painful as the game was to watch, it would have been one of the signature drives of Jalen Hurts’ career, a win that would bring all kinds of hope to a struggling team that still hopes to get a bunch of injured stars back and compete for the NFC East. Yes, the Jags played down to the Eagles’ level, taking 13 penalties, sometimes seeming to actively avoid scoring. But the win was right there. Eight seconds left. Instead, as one Eagle muttered in the locker room, “We’re 2-3. We should be 4-1.” (I’m not identifying him because although reporters were around, he was talking to a teammate.)
2026 NFL season, Week 5: What We Learned from Sunday’s games – NFL.com
Eagles’ nightmare month gets worse, but OL, DL hold up. Philly’s week from hell saw it lose three potential starting offensive linemen (Lane Johnson to retirement, Cam Jurgens to Baltimore, Drew Kendall to injury). The Eagles entered Sunday with Saquon Barkley and DeVonta Smith sidelined, too, to injury. It didn’t get any easier for Philadelphia against Jacksonville. The Eagles lost their RB3, Will Shipley, to a foot injury after he scored the game-opening TD, then lost emerging pass rusher Jalyx Hunt (ankle/knee) on the final play of the first half. And yet, for the majority of Sunday’s action, Philly held its own on the line of scrimmage. Jalen Carter led a resilient defensive effort, notching two strip-sacks of Trevor Lawrence in the first half, though Philly couldn’t cash in on either of those fumbles. Carter was one of five defenders with at least three pressures. The Eagles’ two goal-line stands were heroic and kept the game within reach. On the other side of the ball, Jacksonville logged pressures on 54.8% of Jalen Hurts’ dropbacks but notched just one sack against a MacGyvered offensive line. For a Philly team in disarray, its third straight loss and the manner in which it lost it will inspire panic in the city, but this is a roster, when healthy, that can compete with the best in the league and contend for the postseason. The Eagles’ resiliency showed on Sunday (that is, until the very end).
Eagles schedule could be changing after disappointing start – Inquirer
The Eagles, who have lost three straight, find themselves with a losing record for the first time under head coach Nick Sirianni. It also doesn’t help that the Birds have had an unwatchable second-half offense where the star has been punter Braden Mann. The Commanders are even worse, with just one win after an inexplicable collapse in overtime Sunday against the New York Giants (3-1-1). As a result, the NFL is considering whether to flex Eagles-Commanders off NBC and replace it with a better matchup. The league has until Oct. 20 to make a final decision, so it will depend what happens this weekend. The Eagles face the Carolina Panthers (2-2) at home in Week 6, while the Commanders face the undefeated San Francisco 49ers (5-0) Monday night on ESPN.
Spadaro: Nick Sirianni knows ‘our job is to get up and keep fighting’ – PhiladelphiaEagles.com
He also talked about the ensuing kickoff with eight seconds remaining on the clock, one that Jacksonville running back Ameer Abdullah returned 52 yards to set up Cam Little’s 57-yard field goal. Sirianni said he had “regret” not having Elliott kick off through the end zone, which would have given the Jaguars a first down at their 35-yard line with eight seconds remaining on the clock and no timeouts. “To give them back the ball with eight seconds left, I think we did what we needed to do as an offense, and you obviously saw the success of Jake’s (field goal) in that particular case,” Sirianni said. Sirianni and his coaching staff and players continue to work on improving all phases of the team, saying his coaching staff’s “job is to figure it out. We’ve got to find solutions. That’s our job. Plain and simple. Period.” That, Sirianni said, pertains to the offense, defense, special teams, and every aspect of the Philadelphia Eagles.
Browns add another former Broncos RB with Quinshon Judkins hurt, reportedly – Dawgs By Nature
The head coach reported that Dylan Sampson could be brought back from injured reserve soon but, according to multiple reports, the Browns are signing [former Eagles] RB Audric Estime to their active roster as well.
Jameis Winston is, and should be, the NY Giants quarterback – Big Blue View
Can we stop now with the breathless drum-banging for J.J. McCarthy to replace Jameis Winston as quarterback of the New York Giants sooner rather than later? The Giants unquestionably lose Sunday’s game against the Washington Commanders without Winston’s heroics — 254 yards passing and three touchdowns, two of those in the final eight minutes of regulation to erase a 14-point deficit, and the first 50+ pass game of his 12-year career without an interception. Albeit, the last fact comes with help from a questionable call. Winston, as he reminded reporters recently, is the Giants’ starting quarterback. With Jaxson Dart gone for the season, he deserves to be.
History says this Cowboys team is doomed – Blogging The Boys
Of the previous 2-3 instances where a Cowboys team was 2-3 or worse through the first five games, they have only made the playoffs twice. If we round up that is 9%. You’ll note that each of those two teams (1996 and 2018) saw the Cowboys reach the postseason as the NFC East winner. Some years it pays to be in a crummy division, and that certainly seems to be the case this year for Dallas. On the heels of what we saw in Week 5, 10 wins probably earns some hats and t-shirts for whoever gets there. Maybe it will be the Cowboys. But this does not bode well! If you look at the list of teams on this list and reference them against what you remember about each of them, you will realize that we are talking about some Cowboys teams that were not very good and who were actually particularly maddening.
Commanders vs. Giants (game one) – Studs and Duds – Hogs Haven
Dan Quinn (and David Blough) — Head coach Dan Quinn laid yet another egg, this time with the game hanging in the balance. The clock management, play calling and lack of decision-making has grown old. If Blough was the one who called a pass play in that situation, I don’t know why Quinn didn’t override that. At this point, Quinn is nothing more than an overpaid cheerleader.
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