Eagles have already wasted a game with Golden Tate

The Philadelphia Eagles have already wasted one of their eight games with the new veteran wide receiver, Golden Tate.

Why exactly did Howie Roseman make a big trade before the deadline? Weren’t the Philadelphia Eagles in win-now mode, or something? Let’s get this straight for a second. The Eagles traded a third-round pick for 2019 for a 30-year-old wide receiver named Golden Tate who is on the final year of his contract and set to be a free agent during the 2019 offseason.

The move indicated that the Eagles were trying to win now. Win this season and this season alone. Having Tate for the next eight games, and potentially more was supposed to give a boost to this offense and help out in areas that the team is severely lacking. That’s making big plays, and putting points on the board.

Tate had about two weeks to prepare for his debut with the Eagles. One full week of practice, and two weeks to study and learn the playbook. For a veteran that’s been around as long as Tate has, that should be more than enough time to come in and make a difference on the offense in the debut with your new team. Unfortunately, the Eagles coaching staff sees it differently.

Let’s look at the snap counts:

If you can see above, Golden Tate only managed to see 29-percent of the snaps in the Eagles offense on Sunday. Just 29-percent. He finished the game with two catches for 19 yards. I’m not saying that the lack of snaps for Tate was the reason that the Eagles lost because that’s far from the truth. But seriously, if the Eagles are going to run the offense like this because they are uncomfortable with what’s unfamiliar, then why trade for him in the first place?

Again, Golden Tate is an eight-game rental. There’s no guarantee he’s going to be back next year. If you trade for a veteran rental, you must use him right away, and all the time. The Eagles were in a must-win situation against the Dallas Cowboys, a team that Tate has gone off against earlier in the season. This time around, he didn’t even have an opportunity to get something going.

The Eagles coaching staff dropped the ball with this one during the first game. Sure, there’s plenty of football left to be played, but the Eagles are losing games that they apparently can, and should win. If they are not going to utilize their best weapons all the time, then what’s the point of having them? Something needs to change with the ‘rotations’ because this isn’t going to cut it.