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Heading into Week 4 of the 2026 NFL season, few fans expected to see a Philadelphia Eagles win when they welcomed the Los Angeles Rams to Lincoln Financial Field.
The Birds were coming off a brutal Week 3 loss on Monday Night Football, Sean McVay’s squad was desperate, and Howie Roseman had to sift through so many injuries that he couldn’t even field a full 46-man game-day roster, even with both Tanner McKee and Andy Dalton active, plus Zach Ertz and Josiah Deguara called up from the practice squad.
And yet, heading into the fourth quarter, they had a legitimate chance, even after losing even more players, Saquon Barkley, Quinyon Mitchell, and eventually Tank Bigsby along the way.
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Up 20-10 after some key plays by Andrew Mukuba, Cooper DeJean, and Britain Covey, the Birds did everything in their power to run down the clock and come up out on top, but McVay’s squad simply made more plays when it counts, scoring 14 unanswered points to close things out while the Eagles couldn’t generate a single yard of passing offense.
While the team is understandably looking to move forward and focus on the Jacksonville Jaguars, especially after Lane Johnson announced his retirement mid-week, there are three members of the Eagles who didn’t do Philadelphia any favors in Week 5 and have to make some adjustments if things are going to get back on track a quarter of the way through the season.
Sean Mannion
To say Sean Mannion’s time running the Eagles’ offense has gone as planned would be a major overstatement.
Widely expected to come into town and completely overhaul what Philadelphia does on offense, Mannion was given a pretty long lease to craft the offense in his image, from changing up the team’s primary run scheme, to bringing in multiple assistant coaches he’d worked with in the past, and, most crucially of all, recrafting the offensive game from Sirianni’s bread and butter to a more West Coast-themed attack.
And yet, so far, the Eagles’ offense doesn’t exactly look like the Los Angeles Rams or the Green Bay Packers, with under center play action a rare occurrence and attempts to get ball carriers in space on the outside often resulting in fruitless efforts.
Asked about Philadelphia’s recent struggles on offense and whether or not Hurts is even able to run the scheme Mannion has tried to implement, the first-year coordinator affirmed his belief in his QB1, noting that the lack of West Coast principles has largely come down to how opposing teams are playing the Birds.
“No, he absolutely can do it. Like I said, each week you’re attacking a different opponent. Sometimes that calls on a different strategy in terms of how you’re going to align your formations, the layering of plays that you have up in the plan. So, yeah, he absolutely can do it,” Mannion explained.
“We believe in it. And like I said, you know, I think some of the things that maybe referring to are more week to week and how you attack a specific opponent and how we build the plan that week so that everything layers off one another.”
After months of anticipation for something new, the Eagles’ offense looks like it kept many of the worst elements from last season, like an extensive diet of outside passes and low-probability deep balls without having a strong zone run game between the tackles to force defenses to play them honestly. Factor in a complete lack of preparation on blitz pickups and the Eagles’ offense doesn’t look cohesive from snap to snap, let alone game to game, signaling that maybe Mannion isn’t running things as autonomously as fans hoped… or that his play calling simply hasn’t been good enough.
We haven’t seen much of the new elements that were supposed to make the Eagles offense look a lot different than last year.
Sean Mannion was asked about his philosophy on Tuesday following a Week 4 loss. pic.twitter.com/rt7CBoNr18
— NBC Sports Philadelphia (@NBCSPhilly) October 6, 2026
Nick Sirianni
Is Nick Sirianni refusing to let Mannion run his offense as he so chooses? It’s impossible to say, but one thing is for sure: there hasn’t been a game this season where the Eagles looked more prepared than their opponent, and that ultimately comes down to their head coach.
Now sure, many have fiercely debated some of the calls Sirianni had a hand in over the past few weeks, like not calling a timeout to give Hurts time to return at the goal line against the Bears – leading to a brutal Andy Dalton interception – or going for it on fourth and goal at the Rams’ two-yard line in Week 4, but those are split-second decisions.
But having 10 penalties for the second week in a row? That signals a team that simply isn’t disciplined.
For better or worse – in the eyes of fans, mostly worse – Sirianni is the CEO of the Eagles. He no longer calls plays on offense and never called them on defense, but is supposed to be the manager at the top of the organization who makes sure everyone is prepared, makes sure his players are in the best position to succeed, and makes sure his assistant coaches feel empowered to do their best. Thus far in 2026, Sirianni’s squad has rarely been the most prepared team on the field, his clock management and overall decisions with down and distance have been suspect, and he seems to help dictate the strategy on both sides of the ball before kickoff, like with Vic Fangio’s uncharacteristic strategy against the Bears on Monday Night Football.
At the end of the day, the Eagles’ successes and failures are on Sirianni, and he needs to do a better job if his team is going to get back on track.
Cam Jurgens
And last but not least, while hindsight is 20-20 and Jurgens has since been placed in concussion protocol after self-reporting symptoms on Monday, his play in Week 4 was downright bad and led to questions about benching even before it became a medical possibility.
Ranking second-to-last in overall grade among 74 qualifying guards, according to Pro Football Focus, Jurgens routinely made mistakes against the Rams on Sunday, including one particularly egregious play on third-and-goal where he ran into Hurts on an under center run play and set up the highly debated fourth-and-2.
Before the injury news broke, Sirianni commented on Jurgens’ play but wasn’t too concerned about his recent lapses in judgment, noting that, like everyone else on the team, he had plays he would like back but did good things too.
“No, I’m pleased with where Cam is. Again, with everybody, obviously we didn’t put out there the product that we want to put out there offensively yesterday, and then also combine that with a loss. There’s going to be plays he wants back, but there’s good moments also. I think that’s the consistency of everybody, from our coaches to our players, has to be the thing that continues to rise. That’s Cam, that’s everybody. But Cam is definitely doing good things and like us all, got to be more consistent at times as well.”
Had Jurgens been healthy enough to play in Week 5, would he have earned the start against the Jaguars, either at left guard or back at center with Lampkin getting a shot at left guard? It’s impossible to say, but with his status for London doubtful at best, fans will get to see the young duo share the field between Jordan Mailata and Tyler Steen. Will it serve as a glimpse of the future at the position, or signal that the Eagles really are in a soft rebuild, as Dan Orlovsky suggested? Fans will find out on Sunday.
Related: Jason Kelce sends powerful tribute to Lane Johnson after retirement from Eagles
