Philadelphia Eagles top concerns ahead of Week 12

Admittedly, we’re torn. Maybe you can help us out. On one hand, the Philadelphia Eagles won again on Sunday, and in the process, they moved to 9-1 on the NFL’s regular season. Had you been able to promise us before Week 1 that the Birds would own nine wins after playing their first ten games (and that they’d own the NFC’s best record), we would have signed up for that arrangement in a heartbeat.

Unfortunately, there are two sides to every coin, and here’s where we called ‘heads’ and got ‘tails’. Sometimes, even in a win, it’s easy to find the chinks in a team’s armor. The NFL prides itself on parity, and you never know what you’ll get with these teams from one week to the next. The records don’t matter when two NFL franchises go to war, but if they don’t get in their own way, Philly can beat anyone.

Now, that doesn’t mean that they’re unbeatable. We can’t deny the fact that the Eagles are a flawed team, so if we only acknowledged the wins and ignored the snafus that we were witnessing, we’d be no better than those delusional Dallas Cowboys fans. With that being said, we’ll be transparent. As happy as we are, we can understand why others would be frustrated.

Here are a handful of issues that have been on our minds as the Philadelphia Eagles turn the page to Week 12.

Next up on the schedule is a game versus the Green Bay Packers on Sunday Night Football. We’ll celebrate the Eagles’ win over the Indianapolis Colts for a few more hours, but heading into Week 12, there are some concerns. After all, it’s a long season, and Aaron Rodgers, though struggling, is still Aaron Rodgers.

Replacing Dallas Goedert’s production might be tougher than we thought.

Before we say anything else, we have to mention that we still believe in Grant Calcaterra. He has the tools to be a good player in this league, but he isn’t Dallas Goedert and may never be. The same can be said about Tyree Jackson and Jack Stoll.

Someone has to step up. The question is this. Can they?

Jason Michael is this team’s tight ends coach. We’re about to learn if he’s got a little ‘Jeff Stoutland’ in him and can get more out of his guys than they thought was there.

No one wants to see Jalen Hurts carry the ball 16 times.

Jalen Hurts did what was asked of him. He put his team on his back and carried them to victory. He threw for 190 yards and a touchdown. He ran for another 86 yards and another score.

QB1 again proved that he’s grown by leaps and bounds, but we have to be honest. Every time he takes off, we feel a shortness of breath.

The offense isn’t functioning with nearly the same efficiency that it was earlier this season.

It was tough watching the Philadelphia Eagles’ offense operate for much of this one. Watching Jalen Hurts take a sack on 4th and ten was ugly. Watching him get stripped on the first play of the second half during a slow-developing play that required Miles Sanders to block Yannick Ngakoue was much worse.

It may not be time to panic yet, but we’re having a harder time trying to convince ourselves of that. This Eagles offense has quite a few things to fix, and they have to get it done quickly. These types of efforts versus better teams will only lead to losses.

The Philadelphia Eagles’ defense is probably going to take us on roller-coaster rides all season.

Jonathan Gannon gets crushed a lot. Some of the criticism is valid. Some of it is unwarranted, but whether you prescribe to the theory that he isn’t aggressive enough or just doesn’t have the horses, two things are certain.

One, you never know what you’ll get from his defense, and second, his unit will be plagued by big plays by the opposing offense all season.

Maybe the Philadelphia Eagles’ roster isn’t as deep as we thought.

We repeat! We don’t want to see Jalen Hurts take off and run 16 times weekly. If he goes down, this team has a problem, but that could be stated about the Eagles at a lot of the important positions. Maybe we overestimated their depth, even if we did so slightly.

We’ve already mentioned the void Dallas Goedert left, but it doesn’t end there. This team clearly misses Avonte Maddox and Jordan Davis, and if Darius Slay, C.J. Gardner-Johnson, James Bradberry, A.J. Brown, or DeVonta Smith are forced to miss time, this team goes from uber-talented to pedestrian in a flash.

Let’s end this on a high note: Ndamukong Suh and Linval Joseph answered a few questions, didn’t they?

Two guys off of the street, huh? They can’t play anymore, huh? Linval Joseph and Ndamukong Suh balled out all game long, combining for seven tackles and a sack, but their value can’t be calculated simply by reading stats. They gave this team’s defense a much-needed shot in the arm.

Kudos to defensive line coach Tracy Rocker for getting these guys up to speed so quickly. That doesn’t happen though if these guys can’t play. Now, we have to hope that they can keep this up for the remainder of the season. Conventional thinking would suggest they’d get in better shape and be more productive for the remainder of the season though, right? Let’s hope so.