Marcus Hayes: Nick Sirianni and coaches struggle again as Eagles lose second straight with poor focus and fundamentals

Marcus Hayes, The Philadelphia Inquirer on Nov 28, 2025

Published in Football

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PHILADELPHIA — Jalen Hurts gave up two third-quarter turnovers Friday against the Bears — first, a bad, deep throw, then a fumble during a Tush Push. Both inexcusable. Both plays that reek of poor fundamentals.

Poor fundamentals mean poor coaching.

Bears running backs D’Andre Swift and Kyle Monangai ran for 125 and 130 yards, respectively. It’s the first time since 1960 that two opposing runners gained more than 100 yards on Eagles home turf — astonishing, considering how awful some of the Eagles’ defenses have been. They surrendered a total of 281 rushing yards, the most they’ve allowed in a decade.

How did this happen?

Mainly, poor tackling. Poor tackling means poor fundamentals.

Poor fundamentals mean poor coaching.

As has so often happened this season, the offensive play calls took far too long to be communicated to Hurts, then from him to the team. First-time offensive coordinator Kevin Patullo is 12 games into his career as a play-caller. It’s not as if the offense is particularly complex. Crowd noise was no factor: It was a home game.

Maybe they couldn’t hear above the boos.

The Eagles’ Super Bowl hangover is getting worse as time grows short in the 2025 season. As was the case after Nick Sirianni and the Birds won the NFC title after the 2022 season, the coach and the team, who won Super Bowl LIX, have been unimaginative, ineffective and have appeared unmotivated for most of the season.

It took 11 games in 2023 for the malaise to collapse the season. It has taken only 10 games in 2025.

After the Eagles blew a 21-point lead and committed 14 penalties at Dallas on Sunday, Sirianni fell on the sword:

“Any time it’s penalties like that, or any time it’s ball security, or any time it’s the fundamentals, or something within [his mantra of] ‘tough, detailed, together,’ I’m always going to put that on myself. Point blank, I have to do a better job of coaching.”

Truer words have never been spoken.

Slice it any way you like, but the Eagles are now 8-4 after a 24-15 loss to the visiting Bears. Petulant receiver A.J. Brown caught 10 passes for 132 yards and two touchdowns, and had eight catches for 110 yards as Dallas in the previous game, so he’s been productive and presumably happy, but he’s an outlier.

The Eagles’ well-paid, pedigreed offense has managed just three solid drives in the last six quarters, and one came against a prevent defense in the fourth quarter Friday night.

The Eagles were unprepared for Dallas’ five-man front in their last game. They were unprepared to stop the Bears’ running attack Friday. They don’t seem to know what’s coming. On the other hand, they Eagles’ offense and defense both seem entirely predictable.

There might have been a play or two Friday that the officials didn’t see in the Eagles’ favor. But when you’re underthrowing passes and failing to cover backs out of the backfield, when you’re begging the refs to bail you out, well, that’s just kind of sad.

Speaking of sad, the Eagles’ final possession of the first half went like this:

— Weird, soft, 1-yard pass to Brown

— The Eagles wasted about 30 seconds when they could not get a play call in before the two-minute warning;

— Aborted route over the middle by Brown, who would have been hit hard by Jaylon Jones as he caught it.

— Offensive pass interference on Brown, who pushed off (softly) to negate a 12-yard completion.

— On third-and-19, an 11-yard pass to Will Shipley, who, with 1 minute, 43 seconds to play, foolishly ran out of bounds, saving the Bears about 30 seconds.

— Braden Mann then shanked a downwind punt 44 yards. He shanked another at the start of the fourth quarter that went 30 yards.

Needless to say, the Eagles left Lincoln Financial Field to a chorus of boos. They’d gained just 83 yards in the first half, their worst first-half production of the season.

It got worse.

On the first play of the second half, Hurts hit Barkley in the right shoulder pad with a pass. Barkley wasn’t ready. Hurts stared him down.

Even when things went right, they went wrong.

Midway through the third quarter, from the Bears’ 33, Hurts went deep. He underthrew Brown, who adjusted, ripped the ball away from Nahshon Wright, and walked into the end zone and cut it to 10-9.

A few seconds later, kicker Jake Elliott pulled the point-after attempt left.

Seriously.

The Eagles now have nine days to prepare for a West Coast road game against the Chargers, a 7-4 team that is likely to be 8-4 after Sunday’s home game against the Raiders.

That’s a lot of time for extra coaching.

That is, if Sirianni and his staff are up to it.