Eagles vs. Cardinals: Recent trends that can't extend into Week 17's Jonathan Gannon Bowl

The Eagles must start tying up those loose ends as they enter the home stretch of the regular season.

16 weeks of the regular season and 15 Philadelphia Eagles games are in our rearview mirror. Two remain. It's time for the Birds to begin playing their best football. You know, seeing as how they told us they haven't done so to this point of the season.

The next step in the journey is a home date versus the Arizona Cardinals. Yes, we mean the same Cardinals that are led by former Eagles defensive coordinator Jonathan Gannon.

Are you interested? Yeah, we thought you might be. Goal number one is tying up some of these loose ends as the postseason will arrive before we know it.

We've determined we're going to be positive, but that doesn't mean some of the red flags aren't on our minds.

The Eagles surrendered 25 points to the second-lowest scoring team in the NFL versus the Giants.

Yeah, a win is a win, but it's inexcusable to surrender 25 points to the lowly New York Giants. Who cares if NFC East games are always tight? That simply just can't happen.

The verdict here is this. We need to see this team get off of the field on third down and eliminate explosive plays from opposing offenses, especially if those offenses field average to below average quarterbacks.

The Eagles' defense is giving up a ton of points. That's one trend that we'd like to see extinguished. Here are four more we can also do without.