By Evan Macy

Copyright phillyvoice

The Eagles played a perfect football game back on Feb. 9th. It happened to also be Super Bowl LIX.

Since then, fans have expected perfect football and even though they were undefeated going into Sunday and the NFC betting favorites to get back to Super Bowl LX, they have been about as far from perfect as a perfect team can be.

For whatever reason, the 4-1 Eagles — after blowing a two score fourth quarter lead to the Broncos — just can’t seem to play 60 minutes of winning football.

Last year it took about a month to find a groove, too. Perhaps they’ll get there, but a 21-17 loss at home Sunday was far from perfect and gave the Eagles their first blemish of the year.

Here’s a look at an aspect of the Eagles that is finally seeing its stock price rise, and one that’s a little less exciting from Week 5’s devastating loss at The Linc:

Stock up: The skill guys 📈

There had been a lot of chatter, despite the Eagles being undefeated, about the superstar skill players basically not getting the ball at all to start the season.

A.J. Brown, who averages 76.4 yards per game over his career, entered Week 5 at 37.8. DeVonta Smith was down to 39.5 from 64.2. over his career. And Saquon Barkley, who had the most rushing yards in the history of the NFL over the 2024 regular and postseasons, was averaging 3.1 yards per carry through four games.

Jalen Hurts was not shy to throw the deep ball, uncorking several attempts down the field to both keep the defense honest and give the wideouts opportunities to make big plays.

Brown trailed Smith by one target to lead the Eagles with eight, including a key third down conversion and — not in the stat sheet — drawing a pass interference call against Patrick Surtain II at the goal line leading to Dallas Goedert’s fourth receiving score of the year.

That drive score was set up by an incredible DeVonta Smith monster 52-yard basket catch down the sideline on third and 16.

Smith gained 114 yards on eight catches.

Barkley also looked more spry and added his longest run of the season, 17 yards, but his highlight play came on a wheel route deep ball that Barkley tracked down on a 47-yard touchdown catch.

When’s the last time you can remember all of the Eagles’ key players being included in the offense?

Stock down: “Why’s the run gone?” 📉

Reigning rushing champion Barkley averaged six yards per carry over his first five carries in the first half Sunday afternoon. He didn’t get his sixth until the Eagles had blown a 14 point lead inside seven minutes to play in the fourth quarter. That’s quite a long time between hand-offs.

For whatever reason, the Eagles decided to make themselves one-dimensional, as even Hurts decided not to spin his legs, running just two times for three yards.

With Landon Dickerson out and a clearly less than 100% Lane Johnson blocking up front, a downtick makes sense. And with a handful of penalties that put the Eagles in passing situations — like a first-down false start on a toss to Barkley that set the Birds back to a first-and-15 and three passes and out — it did make sense that the Eagles were more pass happy.

But the ground game issues are nothing new this season. Even when the line was healthy it couldn’t block well for Barkley.

The Eagles entered play this week with the fourth-worst yards per rush in the NFL (3.1) and the 15th-most yards per game (113.5). The Broncos ran 29 times for 130 yards (4.5 ypc), riding their tandem of RJ Harvey and J.K. Dobbins to a near comeback effort in the fourth quarter. As a result, they won the time of possession battle 34:17. Philly ran just 11 times for 45 yards.

It’s hard to feel good about the offense even after a banner day through the air. It seems like no matter what they do well, it comes with some other part of the team playing badly — as if it’s a zero-sum game.

It’s a long season but the weaknesses are varied and changing every single week. Will a short week and trip up I-95 to face the lackluster Giants put them back on track?

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