By Nick Tricome
Copyright phillyvoice
Jason Kelce may be retired now, but he still knows plenty about the Eagles. He knows how talented they are and how good they can be. But, he knows how fragile an undefeated start can be, too.
The Eagles are 4-0. They’re one of only two undefeated teams left in the NFL to begin the 2025 season, although they had to survive a near stalling out and late rally from the Bucs down in Tampa to get by this past Sunday, 31-25.
And that brought a lot of scrutiny and questioning to the team in the couple of days since: What happened to the offense in the second half? What’s keeping Saquon Barkley and the run game from breaking out again? And why are they seemingly forgetting that A.J. Brown and DeVonta Smith are even there?
They’re 4-0, yet frustratingly so, and no one really knows yet if it’s just a matter of the team waiting to click like last season or a collapse waiting to happen like in 2023.
Ahead of Monday night’s doubleheader of games, Kelce spoke to those frustrations, and particularly Brown and Barkley’s early lack of production, on ESPN’s countdown show, along with the outside noise.
Here’s a bit of what the longtime center said:
“To the Philadelphia Eagles, I don’t think the chatterness really matters. I do think it’s human nature, and guys want to play, they want to be productive, they want to be on a team – winning hides everything, right? As long as everybody’s winning, everybody’s happy – well, happy enough, right? You’re still together, and I think that right now, those guys are not being productive to the level that they should be. These are two of the most talented players in the NFL [Brown and Barkley], and they’re dealing with – first of all, they played four really good teams, including some really good defenses in there with the Chiefs and then this past weekend – so it’s not like they’re getting the easiest road to start. “Then on top of that, I think that they’re dealing with an entire offseason where everybody is looking to stop them, what they did well, to try and stop Jalen Hurts, A.J. Brown, and Saquon Barkley. We’re seeing what everybody is trying to do through the first quarter of the season to mitigate them as playmakers. Now it’s on the Eagles to make adjustments and find ways to get these guys open, and make them have plays.” [ESPN]
The segment on the whole was considerably generous to the Eagles from the panel of Kelce, host Scott Van Pelt, and analysts Ryan Clark and Marcus Spears.
They praised the Eagles’ ability to regularly find different ways of winning, and gave Nick Sirianni his due as one of the league’s best coaches.
But when it came to Brown’s quietness within the offense, Clark did zero in on offensive coordinator Kevin Patullo and a lack of creativity on his part to get his best receiver more easily open, whereas so far, Brown has mostly had to beat his defender 1-on-1 for the ball.
You can check out the full segment below:
A couple of other notes on the Eagles…
Q’d up to get locked down
An indisputable positive from Sunday’s win, however: Quinyon Mitchell is rapidly becoming an elite corner, if he isn’t there already.
Heading toward Week 4 in Tampa, one of the key questions heading in was how much and how well he would shadow Bucs’ breakout rookie receiver Emeka Egbuka.
Mitchell answered that one pretty quickly and thoroughly.
He put the clamps on him.
It’s a bit more manageable, though – definitely not ideal, but manageable – to figure that part out when Mitchell has his half of the field locked up (and with Cooper DeJean around, too).
Downhill Denver
The Broncos pummeled the Cincinnati Bengals on Monday night, 28-3.
Now, the Bengals are not a good team, or organization, and have only been propped up by Joe Burrow, who they’ve done nothing to try to protect and are paying the consequences for it now, but that’s a whole rant for another day…
But Denver, though, right…
Bo Nix threw some impressive passes, J.K. Dobbins and RJ Harvey picked the Bengals apart on the ground for 159 combined rushing yards, and Jake Browning dropped back only to have Nick Bonitto immediately there to meet him.
There’s a thought that the Eagles have survived the tough part of their schedule, and will have it a bit easier now with Denver on deck this Sunday at home, then the Vikings and the Giants twice.
That sentiment is echoed both HERE and HERE, but maybe the upcoming stretch can’t be dismissed so easily, at least now with the way the Eagles have played to this point.
The Broncos are 2-2, but they hung in there with the Chargers and were a flag away against the Colts from being 3-1. Likewise, the Eagles were two miracle blocked field goals and one more successful Baker Mayfield dice roll on extending the play from being 2-2.
Denver can get the Eagles if they don’t get their act together.
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