It is ridiculous to think that the Eagles might consider benching their Super Bowl MVP quarterback with four games left in the season and a division title all but assured.
Yet, Sirianni and his coaching staff have a long list of equally ridiculous things they must consider.
It is ridiculous to think that an offense with the defending Super Bowl MVP at quarterback could go five straight games failing to score more than 21 points.
It is ridiculous to think said offense could score the fifth-fewest points in the NFL during that five-game stretch.
It is ridiculous to think that the four teams that have scored fewer points than the Eagles since Week 9 are all teams that have either A) benched their quarterback (Saints, Vikings), B) played with a backup quarterback (Washington), C) or continued to start Geno Smith at quarterback rather than benching him.
It is ridiculous to think that the Jets have outscored the Eagles by seven points over the last five games while shuffling Tyrod Taylor and Justin Fields at quarterback.
In his weekly interview on Eagles flagship station 94.1 WIP after the team’s 22-19 loss to the Chargers on Monday, Sirianni dismissed the notion that he might make a change at quarterback.
“No, I think that’s ridiculous,” Sirianni said. “I know every time I go out on that field with Jalen Hurts as our quarterback, we have a chance to win the game. That’s something that’s been proven. We’ve won a lot of football games.”
But you know what’s really, truly, magnificently ridiculous to think? That any quarterback could play as poorly as Hurts has played in back-to-back losses to the Bears and the Chargers without prompting some level of discussion about whether or not he should continue to start. As good as Hurts has played in his two Super Bowl appearances, that’s how bad he has played over the last couple of weeks.
Eagles offensive coordinator Kevin Patullo is shown with A.J. Brown and Jalen Hurts against the Chargers on Monday night.
In the Eagles’ loss to the Chargers on Monday, Hurts did something that only 10 other quarterbacks have done over the last 10 seasons. Here’s the list of names of quarterbacks who have thrown four interceptions on 40 or fewer pass attempts with no touchdowns while averaging six or fewer yards per attempt:
Max Brosmer (2025)
Sam Howell (2023)
Trevor Lawrence (2021)
Davis Mills (2021)
Jake Luton (2020)
Sam Darnold (2018 and 2019)
Nathan Peterman (2017)
Andy Dalton (2017)
Apart from Lawrence, all of those guys eventually either lost their job as starter or never really had it to begin with. It took a couple of years for Darnold and Dalton. But it certainly wouldn’t sound ridiculous now to know that people were talking about benching them at the time. In fact, the two words that might best describe all eight of those players are, “Eminently benchable.”
The rebuttal from Sirianni, et. al. is as follows. None of those eight players have been to two Super Bowls, and they’ve certainly never won one. None of those eight players have ever come close to factoring into an NFL MVP discussion. With the possible exceptions of Lawrence and Darnold, none of those players have ever come close to the quarterback Hurts was in the first nine weeks of the season, let alone at his peak.
If you are going to ding Hurts for throwing four interceptions in his most recent start, you have to credit him for throwing only one in his first nine starts of the season. The Eagles offense didn’t set the world on fire in those first nine games, but it was the kind of unit that plenty of NFL teams would be thrilled to have. They scored 30 points three times, twice against potential playoff opponents (Rams, Bucs). We’ve seen this offense be plenty good enough with Hurts under center this season.
Nobody was talking about benching Patrick Mahomes in 2023 when the Chiefs lost five of eight games and averaged under 20 points per game between Weeks 8-16. It’s a good thing, too. Mahomes recovered to win his last five starts, four of them in the postseason, the last three of them on the road, including a 25-22 victory over the 49ers in the Super Bowl.
Again, so the argument goes.
Sirianni’s head is in the right place. No team in modern NFL history has benched a quarterback this late into a season and gone on to win a Super Bowl. Nick Foles and Jeff Hostetler caught lightning in a bottle, but they were injury-related replacements. It’s absolutely ridiculous to think that the Eagles’ Super Bowl odds would improve with Tanner McKee at quarterback. That’s true even if you limit the discussion to the aptitude of each player. When you broaden the scope to include the ramifications within the locker room and the organization of benching a player of Hurts’ caliber, the discussion does seem more than a tad silly.
What isn’t silly is the thought process of those fans and media members who have floated the prospect of a switch to McKee. The Eagles aren’t going to win a Super Bowl with Hurts playing as he has in recent weeks. Something is broken, and Sirianni and his coaching staff need to figure out a way to fix it. Hurts doesn’t need to be a world-beater to be a quarterback who can lead these Eagles to a second straight title. But he needs to be functional.
Eagles coach Nick Sirianni defended his quarterback this week when asked about the possibility of benching Jalen Hurts.
“You always praise the things that they do well, and you correct the things that you want them to improve,” Sirianni said on Wednesday when asked about his approach to coaching Hurts. “That’s our job as coaches. The tone or the energy or whatever you do, won’t get too much into that. You may not coach everything exactly the same as far as demeanor. There’s a time to yell, there’s a time to bring [it] up, but it always goes back to, and I think there’s an art to this, it always goes back to the standard. Did you meet the standard, or did you not meet the standard? Then there’s an art to how you correct it in the sense of that. But it always goes back to the standard. Did you meet it? Great, and you’re going to praise that. Did you not? Then you correct it.”
They need to correct it fast. The Raiders and Commanders are two opponents who won’t offer an opportunity for any excuses. These next two games are an opportunity for Hurts to quiet the noise and get himself back into a rhythm that can carry over into the postseason. If that doesn’t happen, you’ll only need one word to characterize the thought of the Eagles in another Super Bowl.
Very few things about this Eagles season have made much sense, so what happened Monday is in some ways was just par for the course in what has been a wacky post-Super Bowl campaign.
The offense looked the best it has during what is now a five-game slump of sorts. The Eagles racked up 365 yards against the Chargers, finally had a balance of run and pass, yet Jalen Hurts threw four interceptions, more than he ever has in a game, and the Eagles suffered their third consecutive defeat after one final turnover in the red zone in overtime.
Two days later, as calls for his benching outside the NovaCare Complex — both from radio talking heads and some fans — increase, Hurts said he plans to lean on the things that he always does, but taking it all to “another level.”
“I take the approach I’ve taken for a while, and it’s seemed to work,” Hurts said Wednesday. “I think right now it’s just a matter of being more detailed, more focused.
“When you put forth the work, put forth the effort, good things happen when you need them to happen. That’s my mentality. That’s how I’ve gotten to where I am today.”
Jalen Hurts throws the ball to A.J. Brown in the second quarter Monday.
Regarding any benching, Hurts’ coach put that notion to rest, at least for now, during his weekly interview with 94 WIP, calling the idea “ridiculous” Wednesday morning.
The offense, Nick Sirianni said later in the day, did “a lot of good things,” a sentiment left tackle Jordan Mailata later expressed in the locker room after the Eagles began their practice week with a walk-through. It was the turnovers, Mailata said, that made the difference. The turnovers, of course, put Hurts under the microscope. But of his four interceptions, A.J. Brown and DeVonta Smith took ownership of one apiece.
“[We’ve] got to make catches and I think it’s a different ballgame,” Mailata said.
The message this week, Mailata said, was to “pick ourselves up from off the floor and dominate your box.”
For Hurts, there is plenty to work on, even if two of the four interceptions weren’t entirely on him.
The Eagles added some new wrinkles to the offense Monday. They returned to the under-center looks that they found some success with earlier in the season. They had new schemes in the running game, and invited Hurts to be more aggressive throwing the ball over the middle of the field, something he hasn’t done much. The Eagles and Hurts value possessing the ball, and we learned Monday why they don’t take too many chances in the middle of the field and into tight windows. But there were still signs of life from an offense that has too often looked impotent and vanilla.
Eagles offensive coordinator Kevin Patullo with wide receiver A.J. Brown and quarterback Jalen Hurts during the game against the Los Angeles Chargers.
“I think that he did a good job of taking some of those opportunities that he was given, and I think he’s always done a good job of taking what the defense gives him,” Sirianni said of Hurts using the middle of the field. “Obviously, I never want the turnovers, but he did some really good things. I’m always going to look at the win-loss, the turnovers, and look at that and say that, but there were a lot of good things on offense. We were able to move the football against a really good defense.
“Now, we didn’t finish drives for multiple different reasons, and we turned the ball over for multiple different reasons, but there was a lot to be encouraged by, that we’re continuing to go into the right direction that we need to go.”
Hurts said there seems to be an “antagonist” every week.
“When we do something very well, then there’s another thing that comes up and kind of bites us,” he said. “This week, it was turnovers.” Hurts also had one interception a week earlier vs. Chicago, which doubled his count from one to two this season.
“We just have to find a way to put it all together,” Hurts said.
Last week, leading up to the Chargers game, Hurts revealed that he often returns to old film. It is well documented that Hurts has dealt with a lot of change. He’s had 10 coordinators in the last 10 years. But Hurts goes back deep into the archives, he said, to reflect on how things were and how things are now — the rhythm of the games, the structure of the offense.
What’s he learning right now, and how does one Monday Night Football game test what he knows about himself and what he can push for?
“I stick to the process and I just stay the course,” Hurts said. “I think a lot of the going back is trying to find ways we can improve, find ways that we can have new perspective or maybe think about some of the perspective we’ve lost. I’m doing all those things in the midst of change. It’s thinking about all the different perspectives that I’ve had to lean on from a coaching perspective.
As the Eagles’ losing streak stretched to three games, Jason Kelce chronicled what he called a “comedy of turnovers” on the latest episode of New Heights.
But Kelce found little to laugh about when it came to the heartbreak of a 22-19 overtime loss to the Chargers on Monday night. He also pointed to what he believes hurt the Eagles most: the lack of an offensive identity — and maybe a bunny.
Here’s what you may have missed from the podcast …
The not-so-positive rabbit
Last week, the Eagles debuted a holiday locker room decoration: an inflatable “positivity rabbit.”
The Eagles have installed the “positivity rabbit” into the locker room
It showed up today and the offensive line stressed to me they are not sad they just wanted a good vibes bunny 👍 pic.twitter.com/zJi0M93SEr
After NBC Sports Philadelphia reporter Ashlyn Sullivan attributed the rabbit to the Birds’ offensive line, podcast co-host Travis Kelce asked the former Eagles center if it had mysteriously appeared in the locker room before.
Jason Kelce replied that this was a first for the Eagles — and he was not a fan.
“There was a lot of negativity in Philadelphia before the game for an 8-4 team that’s first in their division and certainly looking like they’re going to be in the playoffs,” Kelce said. “I think the team was trying to make a statement that we’re all in on this together.
“To be honest, I don’t really like the rabbit. It’s a little hokey. … It didn’t work. You have to ditch the rabbit.”
The Eagles were on the precipice of a comeback win in overtime against the Chargers. And not even an inflatable bunny could save them, as quarterback Jalen Hurts threw an interception in field-goal range that handed the Birds another preventable loss.
Jason Kelce shared the fans’ disappointment in the costly turnover.
“It was just a very frustrating game that ended in a very frustrating fashion,” he said. “We’re putting together a great drive, playing outstanding ball in overtime, driving the length of the field, and then the interception to lose.
“It was just a gut-wrenching way to end that one. We needed to get some momentum back, and unfortunately, a very sloppy game again left the Eagles in another week of frustration.”
Eagles offensive coordinator Kevin Patullo (left) chats with Jason Kelce before the game against the Los Angeles Chargers.
Offense searches for answers
Much of the blame for the Eagles’ latest loss landed on Hurts, who committed an uncharacteristic five turnovers.
“It was a horrendous game of ball security,” Kelce said. “I know the last couple weeks have been rough for [Hurts]. This is one of the things he’s done well his whole career, taking care of the football. It’s unfortunately two out-of-character games from him and our team that have really cost us.”
Kelce also shifted the criticism away from Hurts alone, despite the quarterback’s five turnovers, including the second-quarter play in which he threw an interception, recovered a fumble, then lost a fumble himself. Rather than a lack of talent, Kelce suggested the Birds offense is missing the strong team identity that helped it succeed in past years.
“This offense has been so stagnant and struggled to get anything going the last couple weeks. … Offensively, [the Eagles] are looking for who they are,” Kelce said. “They’re looking for that identity. There’s so many good pieces … Throughout Jalen’s tenure, what lends itself to the best for this team is that we’ve got to attack the line of scrimmage with [Saquon Barkley], one of the best running backs in the game, and then take our shots down the field.”
If the Eagles are still searching for an identity with just four games left in the season, they’re running out of time to find it.
It doesn’t get much worse than a prime-time loss headlined by a five-turnover performance from your starting quarterback. Especially when Hard Knocks is there to film it.
The HBO documentary series released its second episode on the NFC East on Tuesday, bringing a behind-the-scenes look at each team’s preparation for Week 14 of the NFL season.
The latest episode looked into the Eagles’ wide receiver room, Zach Ertz’s unfortunate injury, and what players were saying on the sideline during Monday night’s deflating loss.
Here’s what you may have missed from Episode 2 of Hard Knocks …
Brown feels the love
If you have listened to sports radio throughout the season, you have likely heard about A.J. Brown.
Described by some as a diva receiver, the seventh year All-Pro wideout received a large amount of screen time from Hard Knocks this week, starting with some of his charity work at a local Acme.
“Shopping’s on you today?” one Philadelphia resident asked.
“It’s on me,” Brown responded. “Go get you another steak.”
“Just spreading holiday cheer and just paying for customers’ groceries,” Brown said in a later interview. “Trying to make someone’s day.”
Brown appeared to make one shopper’s day in more ways than one.
After he met a pair of customers and told them their groceries were on his foundation, one of the women thanked the Eagles wide receiver and finished by telling Brown, “You’re fine.”
In case Brown didn’t hear her, she leaned in and whispered in his ear, “I said, ‘You’re fine.’” Brown thanked her before the two shared a laugh.
“She kind of surprised me,” Brown said during an interview. “I read her lips perfectly fine the first time, but it just didn’t register in my brain. And then she leaned in and whispered it again, and I was just in shock. But that was a cool moment.”
A.J. Brown paid for fans' groceries to spread some holiday cheer ❤️ @Eagles
After checking in on DeVonta Smith’s Pilates workout, and reliving some of Nick Sirianni’s college highlights (more on that in a bit), the episode moved to the wide receiver room for a conversation between Smith and Brown about a fear you wouldn’t expect to hear out of an Eagle.
“If you get on a plane,” Smith said, “you [are] not afraid of heights.”
“It ain’t like we got a choice,” Brown responded. “What are you going to do, drive?”
Smith shared an interesting strategy for surviving a plane crash, which we wouldn’t recommend trying.
.@devontasmith has a plan if he ever needs to get off a plane 😂
The Washington Commanders’ portion of the show focused on Zach Ertz, the former Eagles tight end and Super Bowl LII champion.
Former Eagles tight end Zach Ertz scoring a touchdown against Washington in 2017.
The 35-year-old is second all-time in receptions for the Birds, and was candid with the documentary crew about not knowing how long he has left in the game.
“I try and exhaust myself in this career as much as I can,” Ertz said. “I don’t know how much longer I’m going to play in my whole career, it’s just been focused on the task at hand and how I can be better as a player.”
In meetings, coaches even poked fun at Ertz’s increasing age — comparing the tight end, who recently rose to top five all-time in career receptions for his position, to a clip of then 89-year-old Bryan Sperry scoring a touchdown in a 2015 Kansas football alumni scrimmage.
It was a hard watch, especially for those who knew what was coming next.
During the team’s 31-0 loss to the Minnesota Vikings, Ertz suffered a season-ending ACL injury — with Hard Knocks providing an up-close view of the ordeal, letting fans witness Ertz’s raw emotions leaving the field.
“I think it like hyperextended in the back,” Ertz said. “I don’t think I can get up by myself.”
The former Eagles star may have played his last down of football after leaving the field in tears.
A game to forget
The second episode ends with the Eagles’ overtime loss to the Chargers, the team’s third straight defeat in what some worry will be another end-of-season collapse.
In the week leading up to the game, Sirianni focused on motivation as the team looks to get back on track. But his own college highlights brought excitement to the team, especially Brown.
“You want to know his personality? Just watch these highlights,” Brown said as the episode showed Sirianni catching touchdown passes — and celebrating — at Mount Union College. “And that’s how he coaches and how he wants to be on the sideline, but he may have to calm down — like he is the coach.”
Eagles quarterback Jalen Hurts threw four interceptions against the Chargers on Monday night.
As for the actual game, one many Birds fans likely don’t wish to relive, Hard Knocks makes sure to cover every excruciating detail — starting with Hurts’ two turnovers on one play in the second quarter.
“Damn, man,” Smith said. “We can’t get all the way down there and do that.”
Later, in the fourth, following Saquon Barkley’s 52-yard touchdown on a fake Tush Push, the show shifts focus to a potential go-ahead touchdown Brown dropped in the back of the end zone, leading to overtime.
“I’m more than capable of making those plays,” Brown said after the game. “Jalen trusts me in any situation. I made some plays, but I wasn’t great when it mattered.”
Before the Eagles took the field on offense in OT — trailing by three and needing a field goal to tie it or a touchdown to end the game — Barkley had this to say to Brown and Smith.
“One of us three, all right?” Barkley said. “It’s that simple.”
After Smith’s huge third-and-16 conversion to get the Eagles across midfield, the hype built even further.
“We are about to score,” Brandon Graham said from the sidelines. “You hear me?”
Of course, the game ended on Hurts’ fourth interception of the night on a pass to Jahan Dotson, and the Eagles fell to 8-5.
The Eagles continue to spiral, losing their third consecutive game on Monday night in overtime against the Los Angeles Chargers behind an uncharacteristically bad performance from quarterback Jalen Hurts.
While it was once again a bad showing from the offense, it appears that offensive coordinator Kevin Patullo, the target of much criticism this season and even recent vandalism, is escaping the bulk of the blame — at least for one week — thanks to Hurts’ struggles in LA.
Here’s what the national media, including a few former Eagles, had to say about the team’s performance …
“If you were going to tell me going into last night that somebody was going to throw four interceptions, I would have thought it’d probably be the guy with only one hand,” ESPN’s Dan Graziano said on Get Up, referencing Chargers quarterback Justin Herbert’s broken non-throwing hand.
No one has defended Hurts more than former Eagle LeSean McCoy over the course of the season, but even he didn’t have much to say in Hurts’ defense after Monday night’s performance.
“Did he play bad?” McCoy said on Speakeasy. “Yes. Did he play horrible? Hell yeah, but he ain’t no four-pick-type quarterback. He had a bad game. A lot of quarterbacks have that.”
“You guys have been waiting for a moment like this,” McCoy said later in the show. “You talk about Jalen Hurts all the time and you try to bash him. The truth is, all he does is win. You can’t really bash him.”
His podcast cohost Emmanuel Acho wasn’t buying his defense of the Birds quarterback, especially after a third straight loss.
“Do your job,” Acho said. “… He’s been average all season, and he was atrocious today. He was the reason they lost today.”
Eagles quarterback Jalen Hurts on the sideline during the loss to the Chargers on Monday.
On First Take, Stephen A. Smith said the Eagles ultimately lost because Hurts and the offense once again failed to step up and deliver in a big moment. While not all of Hurts’ turnovers were his fault — one slipped right through A.J. Brown’s hands — his game-sealing pick was a bad mistake.
“You can’t make that throw,” Smith said. “You’re in field-goal range, in a position to tie. You know how much is on the line. Dallas has a tie on its record in your division and they’re tugging at your heels. …
“If you’re playing this game like Jalen Hurts has shown he’s capable of playing this game, that is a mistake at that particular moment in time that you simply cannot make. He made it, and once again we find ourselves sitting here talking about the Eagles offense, because the Eagles defense, outside of the 80-yard drive to open the game, put the Chargers pretty much on lock and key.”
"Jalen Hurts and that offense didn't answer the call, and that's why the [Eagles] lost this game." 👀@stephenasmith reacts to the Eagles' MNF loss to the Chargers 🏈 pic.twitter.com/Cwm756KM0g
So, is there hope that the Eagles can turn it around in time for the playoffs? Or is the offense doomed to repeat the collapse of 2023?
“I thought they would [turn it around] until last night,” Jeff Saturday said on Get Up. “When you look at the way that they’re moving, the only thing that feels different about this than a couple years ago, their defense can win games, and they’ve already beat the best teams.”
Despite the concerns, the First Take panel still believes the Eagles will ultimately win the NFC East and make the playoffs.
“The Philadelphia Eagles are going to win the NFC East, they are,” Chris Canty said. “When you look at the remaining schedule, they’re going to cruise to 11 wins.
“That’s not the conversation we should be having about the Philadelphia Eagles. The conversation we should be having about the Philadelphia Eagles is how can they position themselves to go back-to-back, because that’s all anybody was talking about after Super Bowl LIX. … We were ready to compare the Eagles to those modern-day dynasties. They are a far cry from that.”
"The Philadelphia Eagles are going to win the NFC East."@ChrisCanty99 believes the Eagles will win the NFC East despite their recent struggles 👀 pic.twitter.com/5ReiFyCS9G
Saturday said he thinks the Eagles listened too much to outside noise about the offense, and moved away from the more conservative style that won them games last year.
“I’m very concerned, because I don’t think they know who they are,” Saturday said on First Take. “… It was such a boring offense to watch, but they won that way. It was a very low-risk, high-reward profile that they were playing under. I understand their run game was struggling, their offensive line wasn’t the same, they’re not as dominant, I get all of that, but there is a style of play that translates to wins for the Philadelphia Eagles.”
Could that mean more Saquon Barkley moving forward? If so, it’s something LeGarrette Blount would endorse.
The former Eagles running back said on Good Morning Football that the Birds need to find a way to get Barkley more touches in order to improve the offense. Barkley showed off a bit of the explosiveness from last season with his fourth-quarter, 52-yard touchdown, but a struggling and injured offensive line has prevented the running game from reaching its full potential.
“You’ve got to get him more and more touches,” Blount said.
There’s this idea in the sports world that when your team wins a championship like the Super Bowl, fans can’t really complain about whatever happens in the next season or two. The author of that maxim has obviously never been to Philadelphia, which is experiencing a 1776-level revolt over the Eagles’ three-game losing streak and the increasingly erratic play of the Super Bowl MVP, quarterback Jalen Hurts. So much for brotherly love, pal.
No, the thing that finally caused the mainstream media to go all Watergate all the time on Donald Trump and his Pentagon chief was a lot more simple, if harder to stomach: the early September murder by drone strike of two men — their identities still unknown to the world, or most of it — clinging to a piece of ship-wreckage in the Caribbean Sea near Venezuela.
Flip on the favorite show of the Beltway set — MS Now’s Morning Joe — and there practically is no other story than the second attack on the seemingly helpless victims of an initial drone strike that killed their nine comrades. The media is demanding to learn what did self-proclaimed “Secretary of War” Pete Hegseth know about the strike, and when did he know it. Commentators are calling the killing a war crime at best, a murder at worst. An unnamed lawmaker who saw a video of the second strike told reporters that the film is nauseating.
Pressure on the Trump regime to release this 45 or so minutes of footage of the boat attack is intensifying, and it’s not hard to understand why. It’s a bit like 2020’s video of the excruciating cop murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis, which made a problem that activists had been talking about for decades — police brutality — so real for everyday folk that millions took to the streets.
Likewise, people have been calling Trump names — including the “f-word,” fascist — ever since the Manhattan real-estate mogul descended the escalator at Trump Tower to run for president in 2015. But somehow the mental image of men reportedly begging to be saved seconds before an admiral givesthe order to obliterate them has captured the angry imagination in a way that past Trump outrages did not. No wonder Trump has flip-flopped on releasing the video.
Look, I’m glad the media and Congress, including some Republicans, are finally taking seriously the idea that major felonies are being committed in Trump World. Still, the two men killed in what’s called the double-tap strike came after nine other people had already been blown up, in an attack against civilians of a nation America is not at war with, who were accused of committing a crime — drug trafficking — that is not a capital offense.
There is no legal, let alone moral, justification for this attack — and it was the first of a series of drone strikes that have killed at least 86 people. There’s a strong case that every one of these is a war crime. It’s just that the killing of the two men clinging to debris appears even more egregious.
This highlights an even weightier issue. From Day One of Trump’s second term, there has been a callous indifference to human life — a hallmark that the current U.S. government unfortunately shares with many other authoritarian regimes throughout history. But the media, and the watchdogs, have struggled to convey this reality with so many of the deaths taking place off camera.
So far, the worst crime has been the rash move back in the first weeks of the new administration by Trump’s billionaire then-ally Elon Musk and his so-called Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, to dismantle the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) — a once-thriving $34-billion-a-year agency that funded food, medicine, classrooms and other aid in developing nations.
The Musk team labelled USAID as inefficient and out of whack with Trump’s new priorities like curbing immigration. This despite the fact that experts saw the American agency as the best projector of “soft power” around the globe as it saved literally millions of lives, especially for children under age 5.
“We are now witnessing what the historian Richard Rhodes termed ‘public man-made death,’ which, he observed, has been perhaps the most overlooked cause of mortality in the last century,” Atul Gawande, a surgeon who worked with USAID in the Joe Biden years, wrote last month in the New Yorker. Gawande estimated that the wanton destruction of USAID programs that offered vaccines and fought AIDS and infectious disease outbreaks caused 600,000 needless deaths in the first 10 months of the Trump regime, with millions more to come.
This week, the philanthropic Gates Foundation reported that for the first time in the 21st century, mostly preventable deaths of children under age 5 are rising instead of falling, and the main culprit is cuts in development aid, led by the United States. “We could be the generation who had access to the most advanced science and innovation in human history,” the billionaire philanthropist Bill Gates said, “but couldn’t get the funding together to ensure it saved lives.”
The MAGA comebacks to cries that Trump is a fascist dictator often claim that innocent people aren’t getting slaughtered as happened under Adolf Hitler or Mao Zedong or other historic despots. The truth is that the regime’s cruelty-is-the-point demagoguery is inevitably becoming a death cult, epitomized by Musk’s chainsaw DOGE shtick. The murder happens in small batches, on boats off South America, and it also happens in big lots in places like famine-plagued South Sudan, as children die from aid cuts to badly needed health centers.
And increasingly, Trump’s death cult is taking root here at home, from the 25 humans, and counting, who’ve died in ICE’s overcrowded detention centers this year, to individuals like Roberto Carlos Montoya Valdez, who was struck by cars while running awayfrom immigration agents who raided a Home Depot parking lot in Southern California. This is before we know the full and likely lethal impact of alarming health policy changes from Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s Health and Human Services Department, and the toxic anti-vaccine culture he promotes.
We should be just as outraged by the deaths that take place out of sight, in dusty and remote places on the other side of the world, as by two premeditated murders captured in a MAGA snuff film. Understanding the nature of Trump’s cult of death is critical for folks to find the courage to rise up and stop this before it gets much, much worse.
Yo, do this!
The one thing that truly sets MS Now’s Rachel Maddow apart from her peers as an opinionated late-night cable-news host is her love for history, and her ability to put today’s crisis in the context of what came before. In her second life as a top podcaster, Maddow’s sweet spot has become America before, during, and immediately after World War II, and what memory-holed stories from that era tell us about today. Her new audio series, Burn Order, is about immigration, paranoia and demagoguery — not now, but in the unconscionable internment of Japanese-Americans in the 1940s. Two episodes in, it’s her best podcast yet.
I’ve never really kept my promise to include great restaurants and bars in this space, but here goes. During last week’s fairly frantic journalistic sojourn to New Orleans, I took one night off and grabbed a beer in what might be the greatest American dive bar, Jake and Snake’s Christmas Club Bar. This shotgun shack of a watering hole in the middle of an otherwise residential street has to be seen to be believed, both on the ramshackle outside and in the dark interior pumping 1950s rockabilly and lit only by — what else? — Christmas lights. There is no better way to kick off your holiday season.
Ask me anything
Question: All things considered, the U.S. has weathered this first year of the second Trump regime OK. But three more years of this? Any guesses as to what happens between now and then? — Shawn “Smith” Peirce (@silversmith1.bsky.social) via Bluesky
Answer: Weathered? Just barely. But I do exit 2025 slightly more optimistic than I began the year, thanks to the size of the No Kings protests and the growing resolve of citizen resistance to immigration raids. What happens in the next three years? I think 2026 will be pivotal. Trump will surely look at his sagging polls and double down on dictatorship, which could include misguided foreign wars, more aggressive use of troops at home, and efforts to somehow nullify next November’s midterms. I also think these will fail, which means a Democratic Congress in 2027 and 2028 that will certainly impeach Trump and restrain his worst impulses. If not, I may be writing this newsletter from my prison cell.
What you’re saying about…
The question I posed here two weeks ago about the John F. Kennedy assassination was a good, evergreen topic ahead of a long break. Maybe it was my boomer-heavy readership, but all but one respondent didn’t believe that Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone. “I also saw Jack Ruby shoot Oswald on live television, another searing memory,” wrote Laura Hardy, who was 8 in 1963. “Nothing ever added up in my mind. Still doesn’t. Was it the Russians? The CIA? The mob?” The one naysayer was Armen Pandola, who argues that “JFK was a fairly conservative Democrat at the time…Where is the motive?”
📮 This week’s question: This has been asked before, but it’s still the most important thing going. Trump is appearing in public with a bruised, bandaged hand, prone to weird digressions or outbursts. So what is the deal with his health? Please email me your answer and put the exact phrase “Trump’s health” in the subject line.
Backstory on an all-too fitting venue for Trump’s Pa. speech
The Mount Airy Casino Resort in Mount Pocono, Pa.
Donald Trump may be constitutionally ineligible to run again for president — no seriously, he can’t — but that factoid apparently isn’t stopping the 47th POTUS from campaigning in the critical swing states. Why else did Trump choose Pennsylvania — a state he visited a gazillion times as a candidate — as the location for a major speech on the economy, to convince citizens that what they are seeing in supermarket aisles is not what’s happening? I can’t even imagine what Trump will say Tuesday night, but I was stunned to learn the regime’s choice of venue: The Mount Airy Casino Resort, the former honeymoon haven in Mount Pocono.
It’s not just that Trump is touting economic security in a casino, which seems way too fitting in an America where so many folks have decided that the only way they’ll ever get rich is through gambling, whether that’s a get-rich-quick investment in crypto or meme stocks, or by an addiction to the betting sites like DraftKings that are devouring the sports world. Or that the backdrop might remind people that Trump was the rare entrepreneur who drove his own Atlantic City casinos — supposedly a license to print money — into bankruptcy.
The real problem is that the Mount Airy Lodge is the epitome of the real Trump economy: Public corruption. Like Trump’s real-estate empire, the original Mount Airy Lodge fell on hard times in the 1990s, and its longtime owner died from a self-inflicted gunshot wound in 1999. The supposed savior was the state’s headlong rush into casino gambling and northeastern Pennsylvania’s landfill magnate Louis DeNaples, long dogged by allegations of ties to Scranton’s organized crime family. In 2008, DeNaples was indicted on four counts of perjury tied to his casino permit application; ultimately the politically connected businessman turned over the casino to a trust chaired by his daughter and saw the charges dropped. But the Mount Airy Resort Casino remains dogged by controversy, including a recently proposed $2.3 million settlement with its table-games dealers who accused the owners of years of wage theft.
But Trump considers DeNaples “a close friend,” and the Mount Airy casino nabbed a $50 million federal bailout loan during the COVID-19 pandemic in the final year of Trump’s first term. Five years later, is there a positive story about the Trump economy that can be told from this stage of dropped felony charges, alleged wage theft, and government largesse for the well-connected? Don’t bet your nest egg on it.
What I wrote on this date in 2015
Ten years ago, I was fascinated by the decades-long political rise of Vermont senator and then-White House hopeful Bernie Sanders. This left-wing curmudgeon and relic of the 1960s didn’t capture the White House but changed America, for good. On Dec. 9, 2015, I touted my Amazon Kindle Single e-book about Sanders (The Bern Identity…it’s still available!) and offered highlights. I wrote: “Politics mattered then, before Chicago and Kent State and Watergate and all the cynicism, and the unvarnished, authentic voice of Bernie Sanders is bringing that feeling back for many.” Read the rest: “5 things I learned writing an e-book about Bernie Sanders.”
Recommended Inquirer reading
Did I mention that I went to New Orleans? I wrote two columns from the scene of Homeland Security’s immigration raid that the Trump regime has branded “Catahoula Crunch” in a gross homage to the Louisiana state dog. The first piece looked at Day One of the operation — the Big Lie behind the raids that claim to target criminals but instead go after day laborers, usually without criminal records — and the fear that pervaded the Latino community. The second column was a much more hopeful look inside the growing citizen resistance, as I profiled the everyday folks who are taking risks to blow whistles, chase cars, and generally impede Trump’s mass deportation agenda.
Last week — if you could somehow make it through the sickening bromance between Donald Trump and FIFA, the world governing body of soccer — we finally learned the key groupings and early-stage matches of the 2026 men’s World Cup finals across the United States as well as our now frenemies Canada and Mexico. You won’t be surprised to know that The Inquirer’s soccer writer extraordinaire Jonathan Tannenwald was all over the key developments. We learned who the U.S. team will play: Paraguay, a to-be-determined European qualifier, and Australia, in a June 19 Seattle match I still want to attend if I can start a GoFundMe (kidding…maybe) for the astronomical ticket prices. The Philadelphia matches include perennial contenders France and Brazil as well as a Curaçao-Ivory Coast showdown that I’m excited for because I might be able to afford it. The World Cup is going to be one of the biggest stories of 2026, and you know the Inquirer will cover this like an Italian center back. This alone will be worth the price of a subscription, so what are you waiting for?
By submitting your written, visual, and/or audio contributions, you agree to The Inquirer‘s Terms of Use, including the grant of rights in Section 10.
The Eagles lost to the Los Angeles Chargers, 22-19, in overtime on “Monday Night Football.” The loss, their third straight, drops them to 8-5 on the season.
The Birds remain in first place in the NFC East, but the path to a potential first-round bye just became a lot more difficult.
The Eagles next game is Sunday against the Raiders (1 p.m. at Lincoln Financial Field).
// Timestamp 12/09/25 5:17pm
Eagles waive long snapper Cal Adomitis
The Eagles waived long snapper Cal Adomitis on Tuesday, opening the door for the return of Charley Hughlett.
Hughlett, the free agent the Eagles signed in the offseason to replace longtime snapper Rick Lovato, has been on injured reserve since late September after suffering a core muscle injury that required surgery.
Hughlett, 35, also had a neck injury in camp.
But his potential return has the Eagles in line to have their initial specialists back together for the first time since Week 4.
Jake Elliott is going through a little bit of a rough patch. The kicker missed from 48 yards before halftime Monday night. He missed an extra point and an attempt from 52 yards during a windy Black Friday loss to Chicago, and also missed from 56 yards indoors the previous week vs. Dallas.
“They need to stop,” Elliott said of the misses. “I feel like I’m striking the ball well. Last week, obviously, windy conditions. But no excuses here indoors. It’s frustrating.”
Despite the offense’s struggles, the Eagles defense put up a bounce-back performance against the Chargers. Vic Fangio’s unit allowed just one total touchdown the entire game, and turned over Los Angeles quarterback Justin Herbert twice while sacking him seven times. Other than running back Kimani Vidal, who recorded a 60-yard reception on the Chargers’ third offensive snap, no L.A. pass catcher finished with over 25 yards.
The Eagles open as double-digit favorites on Sunday despite their current three-game losing streak. That likely has to do with their opponent, the Raiders. It has not been a good season for Las Vegas, which is riding a seven-game skid, including a 31-0 loss to the 6-7 Chiefs and a 24-10 loss to the 3-8 Browns. The Raiders have only scored 20 points once in their last seven games. Quarterback Geno Smith is also tied for the league lead in interceptions with 14. The Eagles enter the matchup as 11.5-point favorites.
According to multiple reports, grandfather — yes, you read that correctly — Philip Rivers, who last played in 2020, is coming out of retirement to sign with the Colts practice squad, presumably with the plan of starting for the team if backup Riley Leonard (knee) is unable to suit up.
The Colts (8-5) lost starter Daniel Jones (Achilles) in Sunday’s loss to the Jaguars, and Leonard, who came in to replace him, suffered a PCL sprain and is questionable for this weekend’s game against the Seahawks. Meanwhile, last year’s starter, Anthony Richardson, remains on injured reserve with an orbital injury.
Eagles quarterback Jalen Hurts threw twice as many interceptions Monday night (4) as he had the entire rest of the season (2).
The reigning Super Bowl MVP is not a top 10 quarterback in the NFL, according to ESPN analyst and Birds fan Ben Solak.
“He’s an incomplete quarterback. To me, he’s not a top 10 guy,” Solak said on the Up and Adams Show, when asked about what is fair to say about Hurt’s game the day after the Eagles extended their losing streak.
While offering Matthew Stafford, Jared Goff, Jordan Love, and Caleb Williams as examples of NFC quarterbacks that are playing better than Hurts, Solak also cautioned against overreacting to his poor showing on Monday Night Football.
“We can’t take a guy who is on a historic pace to avoid interceptions this year, by the way, and immediately just rip him down the rankings off of one four-interception game, two of which were batted balls,” he said.
"[Hurts is] not a top 10 guy… [Caleb Williams has] all the clubs in his golf bag in a way that Jalen Hurts doesn't"
But Solak said that recent games have shown Hurts’ limitations.
“Jalen has done such a wonderful job in the NFL working around his deficiencies, getting so much better in areas like situational management, he’s usually really good at avoiding turnovers, he is a great scrambler … But if you wanted to start a team right now and build a complete passing game, you have to do it with a guy like Caleb Williams’ arm and all the throws at his disposal,” he said.
A.J. Brown owns his drops: ‘I wasn’t great when it mattered’
Eagles wide receiver A.J. Brown attempts to catch the football during the first quarter against Los Angeles Chargers cornerback Tarheeb Still on Monday, December 8, 2025 at SoFi Stadium in Inglewood, Calif.
A.J. Brown believes he has the “best hands in the world.”
The Eagles’ star receiver, who has been open about the need for the passing game and the offense as a whole to meet its potential, and for the team to take advantage of his abilities, reached 100 yards for the third consecutive game.
He had six catches for 100 yards and made a few key plays. But inside the visitor’s locker room at SoFi Stadium late Monday night, it was the balls that hit his hands and landed elsewhere that stood out the most and had Brown looking inward.
The Eagles lost for a variety of reasons to extend their slump to three games. Jalen Hurts was nowhere near good enough. They had untimely penalties. Jake Elliott missed a field goal that proved pivotal. But Brown knows that his three drops changed the game.
Each one of them in isolation could have produced a different result Monday night. He wanted all of them back, he said, and was probably going to spend the long cross-country flight home thinking about them before he planned to “flush” the game when the plane touched down in Philadelphia.
Brown touched on all three drops.
“I’m more than capable of making those plays,” Brown said after the loss. “Jalen trusts me in any situation. I made some plays, but I wasn’t great when it mattered.”
Some are ‘very concerned’ about the Eagles; others think they’ll ‘cruise’ to the playoffs
Eagles quarterback Jalen Hurts turned the ball over five times, including twice on the same play, against the Chargers.
Ultimately, Stephen A. Smith said on First Take Tuesday, the Eagles lost to the Chargers because Jalen Hurts and the offense once again failed to step up and deliver in a big moment. While not all of Hurts’ five turnovers were his fault — one of his four interceptions slipped right through Brown’s hands — his game-sealing pick was a bad mistake.
“You can’t make that throw,” Smith said. “You’re in field-goal range, in a position to tie, you know how much is on the line. Dallas has a tie on its record in your division and they’re tugging at your heels. … If you’re playing this game like Jalen Hurts has shown he’s capable of playing this game, that is a mistake at that particular moment in time that you simply cannot make. He made it, and once again we find ourselves sitting here talking about the Eagles offense, because the Eagles’ defense, outside of the 80-yard drive to open the game put the Chargers pretty much on lock and key.”
Longtime former Colts center Jeff Saturday said he thinks the Eagles listened too much to outside noise about the offense, and moved away from the more conservative style that won them games last year.
“I’m very concerned, because I don’t think they know who they are,” Jeff Saturday said. “It was such a boring offense to watch, but they won that way. It was a very low-risk, high-reward profile that they were playing under. I understand their run game was struggling, their offensive line wasn’t the same, they’re not as dominant, I get all of that, but there is a style of play that translates to wins for the Philadelphia Eagles.”
Despite the concerns, Smith and the First Take panel still believe the Eagles will ultimately win the NFC East and make the playoffs.
“The Philadelphia Eagles are going to win the NFC East, they are,” Chris Canty said. “When you look at the remaining schedule, they’re going to cruise to 11 wins.
“That’s not the conversation we should be having about the Philadelphia Eagles. The conversation we should be having about the Philadelphia Eagles is how can they position themselves to go back to back, because that’s all anybody was talking about after Super Bowl LIX. … We were ready to compare the Eagles to those modern day dynasties. They are a far cry from that.”
Former Eagles debate Hurts’ performance: ‘He was the reason they lost today’
No one has defended Jalen Hurts more than former Eagle LeSean McCoy over the course of the season, but even he didn’t have much to say in Hurts’ defense after his performance on Monday.
“Did he play bad?” McCoy said. “Yes. Did he play horrible? Hell yeah, but he ain’t no four-pick-type quarterback. He had a bad game. A lot of quarterbacks have that.”
“You guys have been waiting for a moment like this,” McCoy said later in the show. “You talk about Jalen Hurts all the time and you try to bash him. The truth is, all he does is win. You can’t really bash him.”
His podcast co-host Emmanuel Acho wasn’t buying his defense.
“Do your job,” Acho said. “… He’s been average all season, and he was atrocious today. He was the reason they lost today.”
LeGarrette Blount thinks more Saquon Barkley is the answer for Eagles
Running back Saquon Barkley scored the Eagles’ only touchdown in their loss to the Chargers.
Eagles Super Bowl champion LeGarrette Blount believes that getting more touches for Saquon Barkley is the key to unlocking Philly’s stagnant offense. While Barkley finished the game with 122 rushing yards and a touchdown, Blount said the Eagles star needs the ball even more.
“You got to get him more and more touches,” he said on Good Morning Football, pointing out that while Barkley carried the ball 13 times in the first half against the Chargers, he only carried it 7 more times in the second half and in overtime. Barkley finished the game without a reception.
Blount advocated for the bell-cow approach, despite the Eagles’ struggle to get the running game going during points of the game. Removing his 52-yard breakaway rush in the fourth quarter, which broadcasters said could have been called back for a Jordan Mailata hold, Barkley averaged 3.7 yards per carry.
It appears the team is still desperately missing perhaps its most important player. Since Lane Johnson was drafted in 2013, the Eagles are 15-27 in games played without him.
Eagles defensive tackle Jordan Davis and linebacker Zack Baun sack Los Angeles Chargers quarterback Justin Herbert in the third quarter.
Lost in the offensive calamity Monday night was another outstanding performance from Vic Fangio’s defense, which came after its worst effort of the season last week.
Here are some highlights from the defense …
Justin Herbert was pressured on 68.3% of his drop backs, according to Next Gen Stats, the highest pressure rate of any defense this season and the sixth-highest since 2018. Eight Eagles tallied at least three pressures against a banged-up Chargers offensive line. Jaelan Phillips and Nolan Smith each had seven pressures apiece.
How did the Eagles replace Jalen Carter? By committee. Jordan Davis had an outstanding game, but he didn’t see a major uptick in snaps. Neither did Moro Ojomo. Instead, Byron Young saw increased work, Brandon Graham was used on the inside, and Ty Robinson was in for seven snaps. The defensive line dominated, too. Young was credited with 1½ sacks, the firsts of his career. The Eagles sacked Herbert seven times, with Jalyx Hunt’s 2½ sacks leading the way.
Cooper DeJean was excellent in pass coverage, especially in his ability to keep Ladd McConkey in check. DeJean had a few lockdown coverage reps against the talented inside-outside pass catcher. McConkey was targeted five times and caught one pass for 12 yards.
Nakobe Dean continues to excel as a blitzer. He rushed Herbert five times Monday and tallied four pressures and two quarterback hits, including one sack. Dean is up to 11 pressures on 26 pass rushes through seven games since returning from injury.
Marcus Epps started at safety after coming off injured reserve with a shoulder injury. It will be his job to lose for as long as Drew Mukuba is out — which will be a while. Fangio doesn’t seem to prefer Sydney Brown being on the field in most situations. Epps has a chance to stabilize the back end down the stretch.
The Eagles haven’t allowed more than 24 points in seven consecutive games and are allowing 18.3 points per game during that stretch.
One area where the defense struggled Monday was containing Herbert when the quarterback decided to run. Herbert ran 10 times for 66 yards, his most rushing yards in a game since Nov. 19, 2023.
“If you were going to tell me going into last night that somebody was going to throw four interceptions, I would have thought it’d probably be the guy with only one hand,” Dan Graziano said on ESPN’s Get Up, referencing Chargers’ quarterback Justin Herbert’s broken non-throwing hand.
So, is there hope that the Eagles can turn it around in time for the playoffs? Or is the offense doomed to repeat the collapse of 2023?
“I thought they would until last night,” Jeff Saturday said. “When you look at the way that they’re moving, the only thing that feels different about this than a couple years ago, their defense can win games, and they’ve already beat the best teams.”
Last time the Eagles offense was this bad, Terrell Owens was involved
Terrell Owens did sit-ups at his home in Moorestown, N.J., for the assembled media after he was banished from training camp for insubordination in 2005.
Seven months after he nearly played hero in the Super Bowl, Terrell Owens started the 2005 season by doing sit-ups in his driveway after being sent home from training camp in Lehigh University during a contract dispute with the team.
Every “next question” from Drew Rosenhaus should have foretold what was to come: a Super Bowl hangover, an offensive meltdown, and an eventual split between Owens and the Eagles.
Parallels to today? There are a few. The Eagles did something Monday for the first time since 2005: Had a fifth consecutive game come and go without scoring more than 21 points.
The streak in 2005 was eight games, from Week 5 to Week 13. The Eagles started 3-1 before losing six of their next eight.
Things aren’t quite that bad right now for the Eagles, but it’s not a season with which you want to have many touchpoints.
“Everything is still right in front of us,” A.J. Brown, the closest comparison there is to Owens, said Monday night after a game in which he had three crucial drops. “There’s still so much to be optimistic about. These tough losses, tough little stretch, I’m not going to say it’s humbling us but we are doing what we need to do, going back to work and taking pride into that and get this thing turned around at the right time.”
Despite the turnovers, missed throws, and maybe the worst four quarters of his NFL career, the quarterback had an opportunity to drive the Eagles to victory in overtime.
He did not.
Instead, Hurts tossed an interception — his career-high fourth of the game — that was deflected and caught at the 1-yard line and gave the Los Angeles Chargers a wild 22-19 win over the Eagles at SoFi Stadium on Monday night.
“As frustrating as the night was, we had an opportunity to win the game,” Hurts said. “In the end, I had the ball in my hands driving down the field, having everything on our terms to a sense, and I didn’t bring it home.”
The loss, by no means, was all on the sixth-year quarterback. … But Hurts’ imperfections as a dropback passer were again glaring. He threw over and behind his intended targets. He made the wrong reads and missed receivers either schemed open downfield or on check downs. He was in a fog and couldn’t see the field, especially over the middle.
There were some good moments, no doubt. But not close to enough. It seems unimaginable that Eagles coach Nick Sirianni would consider benching Hurts for backup Tanner McKee. Opening that can of worms may cause more harm than good — especially in the long-term — but the idea has some merit.
Eagles guard Landon Dickerson walks off the field in the second quarter after injuring his calf. He returned in the second half.
While the Eagles suffered a stinging defeat Monday night in California, they did escape relatively healthy, with the only in-game injury being sustained by guard Landon Dickerson (calf). The injury occurred in the first half, but Dickerson, who along with a few fellow offensive linemen has battled injury all season, returned to the game after the halftime break. With Lane Johnson already out with a Lisfranc injury, Dickerson’s health will be worth monitoring.
Coming into Monday’s game, the only two starters carrying injury designations were Johnson and defensive tackle Jalen Carter, who underwent a procedure on his shoulders earlier in the week. Both were listed as questionable, but were inactive as expected.
We’ll keep you posted if any other injury news emerges out of Monday’s loss.
Yes, the vibes remain bad, but despite three straight losses, the Birds remain on track to become the first team in 21 seasons to win the NFC East in back-to-back years. That would mean hosting at least one playoff game at the Linc.
Even if the Cowboys win their four remaining games — at home against the Chargers and Minnesota Vikings (5-8), on the road against the Washington Commanders (3-10) and New York Giants (2-11) — Dallas would still need the Eagles to lose two of their final four games to take the division.
NFC East standings
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The race for the No. 1 playoff spot in the NFC is another story.
In order for the Eagles to earn the No. 1 seed with a 12-5 record, they’ll have to win out and root for a lot of losses from a lot of teams at the top of the NFC. Wharton professor and Eagles analytics nerd Deniz Selman has a full breakdown if you’re curious:
#Eagles playoff scenarios updated after Sunday's games.
NFC East magic number is 3 (any combo of 3 wins / DAL losses out of 9 combined games left).
For NFC # 1 and # 2 seed, here are all scenarios with Eagles finishing 13-4 or 12-5 (excluding any further tie games): pic.twitter.com/JuoOkxyRRd
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Jalen Hurts does something that hasn’t been done in nearly 50 years
Eagles quarterback Jalen Hurts fumbles, his second turnover on the same play after throwing an interception and then recovering a fumble on the return.
When Eagles quarterback Jalen Hurts turned the ball over twice on the same play against the Los Angeles Chargers on Monday night, not even the fictional characters of Disney/Pixar’s Monsters, Inc. could keep up with one of the most bizarre sequences in recent NFL memory.
It also proved costly, giving away three valuable points in what would be a 22-19 overtime loss for the Eagles.
Hurts didn’t see defensive tackle Da’Shawn Hand dropping back into coverage over the middle on third down midway through the second quarter and threw it right to the 300-pounder. Hand started running but was stripped from behind by Eagles running back Will Shipley, sending the ball bouncing into Hurts’ hands, only for Chargers defensive tackle Jamaree Caldwell to force another fumble which was recovered by linebacker Troy Dye.
According to Elias Sports Bureau, it was the first time one player committed two turnovers on one play since at least 1978, which is as far back as available play-by-play data goes.
Da'Shawn Hand picks off Jalen Hurts. Da'Shawn Hand fumbles. Jalen Hurts recovers. Jalen Hurts fumbles. Troy Dye recovers. @Chargers ball.
A.J. Brown on how the Eagles can turn their season around
// Timestamp 12/09/25 8:56am
Sielski: This could be worse than 2023
Nick Sirianni and the Eagles have gone 4-5 since starting the season 4-0.
So we know what kind of team the Eagles are now. It took 13 games, and to watch most of them was to experience the same amount of pleasure as when you slam your fingers in a door. But they have revealed themselves, and there’s no use disputing the diagnosis.
The Eagles are an excellent defensive team, and that is all, and that is not enough, not even close. Not with an offense like this. Not with this team’s tendency to commit untimely and inexcusable penalties. Not with so many questions that don’t get answered and so many problems that don’t get solved.
They lost Monday night to the Los Angeles Chargers, 22-19 in overtime, and we know now that the most basic assessment of their status is deceiving. They still are 8-5, still in first place in the NFC East, still on track to make the playoffs and, in theory, have a shot at winning another Super Bowl in a conference without a dominant team. But no one who has watched them can see through that spin, that false representation of who they are and how the rest of this season could play out.
They have lost three straight games, and they are poised for a breakdown as bad or worse than their collapse in 2023. That was six losses in seven games and a franchise that faced an inflection point with its head coach. This is different. This disintegration, if it continues, will be harder and graver, because it will mean their season is transforming from an attempt to defend a championship into a referendum on the coach, the quarterback, and any number of players who were presumed to be part of a talented and tested team’s core.
“Who said it was going to be easy?” Brandon Graham said. “This year, coming off a Super Bowl, man, all we got to do is make sure we stay together.”
Eagles fall to Chargers in OT behind Hurts’ four interceptions
Jalen Hurts threw four interceptions — and lost a fumble — in the Eagles’ loss to the Chargers.
On Monday night, the Hollywood lights were too bright for Jalen Hurts.
The fifth-year starting quarterback tossed a single-game career-high four interceptions in the Eagles’ 22-19 overtime loss to the Los Angeles Chargers at SoFi Stadium. Backup safety Tony Jefferson called game, picking off Hurts near the end zone on a pass intended for Jahan Dotson.
The game went to overtime after Chargers kicker Cameron Dicker tied it, 19-19, with eight seconds remaining in regulation. The Eagles won the toss, and the Chargers had the first possession. Vic Fangio’s defense got gashed on the ground, but limited the Chargers to a field goal, giving the offense a chance to win the game with a touchdown.
On the first play of the drive, Justin Herbert kept the ball and rushed right for a 12-yard gain punctuated by a stiff-arm on Reed Blankenship with his injured left hand. Omarion Hampton followed it up with an 18-yard run to the same side.
Ultimately, the Chargers were forced to settle for a 54-yard field goal.
The Chargers and the Eagles scored one touchdown apiece. Los Angeles scored on its opening drive on a 4-yard pass to Hampton, while Saquon Barkley notched a 52-yard rushing touchdown in the fourth quarter off a Tush Push fake.
INGLEWOOD, Calif. — It was all there for Jalen Hurts.
Despite the turnovers, missed throws, and maybe the worst four quarters of his NFL career, the quarterback had an opportunity to drive the Eagles to victory in overtime.
He did not.
Instead, Hurts tossed an interception — his career-high fourth of the game — that was deflected and caught at the 1-yard line and gave the Los Angeles Chargers a wild 22-19 win over the Eagles on Monday night at SoFi Stadium.
“As frustrating as the night was, we had an opportunity to win the game,” Hurts said. “In the end, I had the ball in my hands driving down the field, having everything on our terms to a sense, and I didn’t bring it home.”
It probably was the best decision and throw of Hurts’ four picks. But Chargers cornerback Cam Hart somehow got his hand on a pass intended for wide receiver Jahan Dotson, and safety Tony Jefferson snagged the deflection to seal the outcome.
That Hurts would succumb seemed destined, however.
The loss, by no means, was all on the sixth-year quarterback. The offense was disjointed and produced just one touchdown, on a fake Tush Push. Receiver A.J. Brown had a pass bounce off his hands to a Chargers defender and two deep Hurts teardrops that he failed to pull in could have resulted in scores.
There were penalties that brought back successful plays. A missed field goal. And even the defense, which kept the Eagles alive with repeated stops and forced field goals, had the occasional breakdown.
But Hurts’ imperfections as a dropback passer again were glaring. He threw over and behind his intended targets. He made the wrong reads and missed receivers schemed open downfield or on check downs. He was in a fog and couldn’t see the field, especially over the middle.
There undoubtedly were some good moments. But not close to enough. It seems unimaginable that Eagles coach Nick Sirianni would consider benching Hurts for backup Tanner McKee. Opening that can of worms may cause more harm than good — especially in the long term — but the idea has some merit.
Eagles coach Nick Sirianni lamented the turnovers. “Tonight was a little uncharacteristic of us.”
Not just the quarterback
Hurts has been in a free fall since the Week 9 bye. Each week has seemingly been worse, with the quarterback uncharacteristically turning the ball over at a high rate. Sirianni can’t dismiss all that Hurts has accomplished. And he and offensive coordinator Kevin Patullo have to take ownership, as well.
But something likely has to change if the reeling 8-5 Eagles don’t want to repeat their collapse from just two years ago.
“It’s never just on execution,” Sirianni said when asked about Hurts. “We look at ourselves as coaches first to help them be in position to succeed and execute. Obviously, you never want to turn the ball over. We’re pretty good at that, and tonight was a little uncharacteristic of us.”
But turning the ball over has become more the norm during the Eagles’ three-game losing streak. They committed nine turnovers over that span after having just four in their first 10 games. Hurts wasn’t involved in two, but the other seven have come from five interceptions and two of his fumbles.
The fumble vs. the Chargers was fluky and came after his first pick. Hurts didn’t see defensive lineman Da’Shawn Hand drop into coverage on a simulated third-down pressure. He forced a throw to Brown when it appeared that Dotson was open over the top.
Eagles running back Will Shipley knocked the ball out of Hand’s grasp, and Hurts picked it up. But he, too, lost it for the rare double turnover. How rare? It had been at least 48 years since it last happened.
Eagles offensive coordinator Kevin Patullo with A.J. Brown and Jalen Hurts.
On the next series, Hurts was intercepted again when he threw behind DeVonta Smith. He settled down as the teams exchanged field goals until Saquon Barkley broke through on the fake Tush Push and scored a 52-yard touchdown early in the fourth quarter.
But with the Eagles finally ahead, 16-13, a high Hurts dart to Brown over the middle went off the receiver’s hands and into Hart’s.
“The ball over the middle — no, it wasn’t perfect,” Brown said, “but I’m more than capable to make that catch.”
Brown, who finished with six catches for a team-high 100 yards, said he also wanted back Hurts’ deep shot to him on the first play from scrimmage and a dime the quarterback dropped into his bucket in the end zone.
“I know there’s definitely some that he wants back,” Hurts said of Brown. “There’s some that we all want back.”
Hurts walked over to the receiver on the bench after the third interception and gave him a fist pump. Brown, whose chemistry with his quarterback on and off the field has come under question, defended Hurts after his rough night.
“You can’t just point a finger,” Brown said. “I think all of us have our hand in that pot and we’re trying to get better. Obviously, he’s the quarterback, he’s going to get a lot of stuff for it.
“But we in this thing together.”
Eagles quarterback Jalen Hurts tries to pick up a fumble after throwing an interception in the second quarter.
Still looking for answers
Sirianni, who got more involved in the offense after the Eagles’ mini-bye, has to find a formula that doesn’t require Hurts to drop back as often as he has the last three games. The run-pass ratio favored the latter 45 to 21. Hurts completed just 21 of 40 attempts.
The tinkering of the offense resulted in more motion and passing concepts in the middle of the field. Hurts had some impressive throws in those scenarios, but there were as many bad ones. Against a good defense, the odds weren’t in his favor.
“Nick stepped in, and I think he played a very good role this week, provided some structure and kind of organized some things for us,” Hurts said. “Obviously, we still have ways and room for improvement. But I look at myself first. I look at the man in the mirror first.”
After the Chargers settled for a 54-yard field goal on the opening possession of overtime, Hurts ripped a 28-yard pass to Smith on third-and-16 early in the next drive. Then he avoided a fourth-and-4 test when Chargers pass rusher Odafe Oweh jumped into the neutral zone.
But after two completions to tight end Dallas Goedert, Patullo dialed up a run-pass-run option play that had proved successful earlier in the game and a week ago vs. the Chicago Bears. Rather than have Smith as the read in a high-lo concept route, though, it was Dotson.
“I knew it was going to be a tight-window throw,” Hurts said. “I’d have to watch the film to see it from the film’s point of view. Ultimately, it’s a play that I didn’t make.”
This angle of Jalen Hurts' fourth INT that sealed the game for the Chargers 👀 pic.twitter.com/93F7sbxkkc
The Eagles locker room, when it finally opened to reporters, was full of players and coaches with blank stares. As Hurts sat silently on his stool, Smith was in the next stall over with his arms crossed and his head bowed for what seemed like eternity.
“It’s not nowhere close to 2023,” Smith said later when asked about this Eagles’ late-season swoon.
Brown was across the aisle, catty-corner to Hurts. He chatted with rookie Darius Cooper until receivers coach Aaron Moorehead came over and offered consolation.
There were no overt displays of anger for public consumption. The players who didn’t perform took accountability. No one pointed blame. But frustrations with Hurts behind the scenes have been mounting, according to team sources, and may have reached a precipice.
The lowly Las Vegas Raiders offer a chance for the quarterback to get right next week. It’s not all on Hurts. But he keeps showing that he can’t shoulder too much of the offense.
“It starts with me and how I play, how I lead, and how I go out there and do my job,” Hurts said. “So when I look at it at any point, it’s about how I respond to a test, and what level of resilience and resolve I have to push forward and figure things out.”
The division title and more are still there. Can Hurts get the job done?
The Eagles will be back in prime time as they try to stop a two-game skid from turning into three against the Los Angeles Chargers at SoFi Stadium on Monday Night Football.
Here’s everything you need to know about the team’s Week 14 matchup …
How to watch Eagles vs. Chargers
The Eagles kick off against the Chargers at 8:15 p.m. on ABC and ESPN, with Joe Buck and Troy Aikman on the call and Lisa Salters and Laura Rutledge on the sidelines. For fans looking for a more monstrous viewing experience, ESPN will be producing an animated Funday Football alternative cast on ESPN2, DisneyXD and Disney+ set in the Monsters, Inc. universe.
If you prefer Merrill Reese and Mike Quick on the call, the radio broadcast can be found on 94.1 WIP-FM. And if you want to watch the game with fellow Birds fans, here are a few spots to check out.
For the Chargers, quarterback Justin Herbert is questionable after undergoing surgery to repair a fracture in his left (non-throwing) hand earlier in the week. Here’s a look at the final injury report for both sides.
Eagles
Out
DT Jalen Carter, shoulders
T Lane Johnson, foot
Questionable
S Marcus Epps, shoulder
T Myles Hinton, back
Chargers
Out
TE Tucker Fisk, ankle
Questionable
RB Omarion Hampton, ankle
QB Justin Herbert, left hand
DT Otito Ogbonnia, elbow
Eagles vs. Chargers odds
As of Saturday afternoon, the Eagles were 2.5-point favorites at FanDuel and DraftKings. Both sportsbooks have set the projected point total at 41.5.
With their win over the Eagles on Black Friday, the Bears moved ahead of the Birds in the NFC standings.
Playoff picture
With five games remaining in the regular season, the 8-4 Eagles hold a two-game lead over the NFC East and hold the third seed in the NFC. At 2-11, the Giants are mathematically eliminated from the playoffs, and the 3-9 Commanders can be eliminated from the divisional race with a loss or an Eagles win this week. The Cowboys, at 6-6-1, stand the best chance of taking the division lead from the Eagles, though Dallas’ loss to the Lions on Thursday night gave the Birds a bit of extra cushion.
NFC East standings
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The Bears and the Rams, both at 9-3, sit ahead of the Eagles in the NFC’s playoff seeding. The Birds have a tiebreak advantage over the Rams thanks to their 33-26 win over Los Angeles in Week 3, but the Bears hold the head-to-head advantage over the Eagles after last week’s loss.
NFC Standings
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Police confirmed earlier this week that offensive coordinator Kevin Patullo’s Moorestown home was vandalized after the Eagles’ loss to the Bears on Black Friday.
But the Birds’ defense also struggled in the team’s 24-15 loss to Chicago at Lincoln Financial Field last Friday, giving up 281 rushing yards. After holding opponents to fewer than 400 yards of offense in each of its first 10 games, Vic Fangio’s defense allowed both the Cowboys and the Bears to eclipse 400 yards of total offense in back-to-back games. Can the defense recover from back-to-back poor performances and contain the Chargers without Carter?
Injuries will also play a part in Monday night’s game for the Chargers. Jim Harbaugh’s team is preparing for Herbert to be their starting quarterback against the Eagles after he had surgery on his fractured left hand on Monday, though his status was listed as questionable on Saturday’s injury report. Herbert’s right throwing hand is healthy, but will a recovering left hand impact Herbert’s abilities on the field? Or will the Eagles see backup Trey Lance on Monday night?
75.9% – The rate of trips to the red zone that have resulted in touchdowns for the Eagles this season.
While the Eagles’ offensive struggles have been well documented, the Birds are leading the league in efficiency when they get inside the opponents’ 20-yard line. They have converted 22 of their 29 red-zone trips into touchdowns this season.
Our writers are split on their predictions for Monday night. Here’s a snippet of each of what they’re thinking — but you can click their names for a more in-depth breakdown …
Jeff McLane: I’m sure fans hate whenever I pick the Eagles. I get the joke. But I like their chances against a limited quarterback, and definitely if Lance starts. I don’t think the offense will rise from the near-dead, but I anticipate noticeable changes off the mini-bye that will aid their chances. I also like Hurts indoors. | Prediction: Eagles 25, Chargers 19
Jeff Neiburg: Justin Herbert is wearing a cast on his left hand, and the Chargers have a passing attack that should play into the Eagles’ hands, as long as they’re able to stop the run and get Herbert into third-and-longs. That may seem like a big ask without Carter, and it is, but the Eagles have had a solid enough run defense for most of the season to think Vic Fangio and Co. will make sure the last performance was just a one-game blip. | Prediction: Eagles 23, Chargers 20
Olivia Reiner: On one hand, I find it hard to believe that this Eagles team, with all of its talent, will lose three straight games for the first time since 2023. On the other, these matchups aren’t exactly favorable for the Eagles, even with an injured Herbert factored into the equation. | Prediction: Chargers 27, Eagles 24
Matt Breen: Omarion Hampton is trending to play Monday night, giving the Chargers a two-headed rushing attack against the Eagles. Does that remind you of anything? … This seems like a tough spot. | Prediction: Chargers 27, Eagles 17
Jalen Hurts and the Eagles have lost four of their last eight games.
What we’re saying about the Eagles
Here’s what our columnists are saying about the Eagles this week, starting with Marcus Hayes, who argues that Jalen Carter’s injury will intensify the pressure on Jalen Hurts …
Marcus Hayes: “The Eagles can win three of their remaining games, four if they win Monday night. That would give them 12 wins and a chance at the No. 1 seed in the NFC, since they’ve beaten the Rams and Lions, and since the Bears have a much more challenging schedule left to play. But no longer can the Eagles expect their defense to win games for them, as Hurts squeezes the football and stares, mystified, into opposing secondaries.” Read more.
David Murphy: “The reality of the NFL is that good teams struggle. It is a counterpunchers league, led by a bunch of maniac coaches who won’t rest until they figure out what you are doing and how to beat it. Andy Reid did not suddenly become a worse offensive coach over the last three seasons. Patrick Mahomes is still the same Patrick Mahomes who threw for 5,250 yards in 2022. Nobody in Kansas City or elsewhere is seriously questioning whether one of them is the problem. The Eagles made it look easy last year. But last year was an anomaly. The competitive environment this season is much closer to the norm.” Read more.
Mike Sielski: “That narrative — that [A.J.] Brown is only about Brown and his selfishness damages the Eagles — has never held up under much scrutiny. Should he stay off social media more? Of course he should. But they have a 53-18 record (regular-season and postseason), have won a Super Bowl, and reached another since acquiring him. At least 29 other teams in the NFL would sign up for that level of damage. Read more.
Los Angeles Chargers quarterback Justin Herbert broke a bone in his non-throwing hand last week against the Raiders.
What the Chargers are saying
At 8-4, the Chargers are in the current playoff picture in the AFC as the top wild-card team and trail the 10-2 Broncos for the lead in the AFC West. According to NFL.com’s playoff probabilities, a win against the Eagles would give the Chargers a 76% chance of making the playoffs, while a loss drops their postseason odds to 50%.
Herbert’s status under center is still in question, but the Chargers have prepared this week as if he will be the starting quarterback. Herbert had high praise for Vic Fangio’s defense as he prepared to face the Birds this week.
“He’s had a ton of success in this league,” Herbert said. “Back at his time with the Broncos, we saw him twice a year and we had a lot of respect for him then … The guys that they have on that side of the ball are game-wreckers and you have to be aware of those guys, and at the same time they are really well-coached, and it makes for a dangerous combination for a defense.”
Offensive coordinator Greg Roman on Fangio’s coverage schemes: “I was born at night, but not last night. Vic’s going to have different ways to leverage coverage to where it’s not one-on-one at all times … But as far as the matchup, I like Ladd [McConkey] against anybody.”
Wide receiver Quentin Johnston on Herbert’s injury: “I forgot he was dealing with something the way he’s playing. But that’s just the type of guy he is. Very, very tough guy. He was still at practice, throwing very accurate, so he honestly looked like he hasn’t lost his touch. So right now, just getting him through practice and getting him through the week and prepared for Sunday.”
Defensive end Khalil Mack on the Eagles’ offensive line without Lane Johnson: “Nameless, faceless objects. You understand who they are and what they’ve been able to accomplish and the level of football they play at, so it’s going to be a hell of a challenge.”
Guard Tyler Steen, center Cam Jurgens, and guard Landon Dickerson make up 60% of the Eagles starting offensive line.
What the national media is saying
Back-to-back losses from the Birds has placed them under the microscope of national network analysts and pundits, who are trying to diagnose what’s wrong with the reigning Super Bowl champs. On his New Heights podcast, former Eagles center Jason Kelce said the team will be in better shape once his former teammate Johnson returns from injury to his spot at right tackle.
“Lane Johnson coming back will be huge,” Jason said. “Even though [backup Fred Johnson] has done well, especially in pass [protection]. I think the run game is close, I know it hasn’t manifested yet. It’s frustrating watching because you know it can be so much better. I think with the health that is starting to come, it will only improve.”
Here’s what else the national media had to say about the Birds…
Travis Kelce on how pre-snap motions might help the Eagles offense: “You watch the Chiefs play, you see me moving around all the time. I move from one side of the line to the other side of the line, and what that does for the defense is it changes passing strength, it changes rules on how they’re going to pass off routes, it changes how they have to fill gaps.”
Dan Orlovsky on the Eagles’ first-down struggles: “If you struggle as an offense on first down, it makes second down much harder, and then therefore third down much harder. Until they play better as an offensive line and play better offensively on first down, that’s not going to get fixed.”
After losing back-to-back games to the Dallas Cowboys and Chicago Bears, the 8-4 Eagles have been under scrutiny from national media, including ESPN’s Dan Orlovsky, who thrashed the Eagles’ offense in advance of their Monday Night Football matchup with the 8-4 Los Angeles Chargers.
“They don’t do one thing well offensively,” Orlovsky said onThursday morning’s edition of Get Up. “If I had to use the words and give you adjectives to describe this offense over the course of the season: predictable, boring, stale, self-inflicting, uncreative, and unexplosive.”
Orlovsky has been studying the Eagles more closely this week, as he will be on the call of ESPN’s Monsters, Inc.-themed alternate broadcast, the network’s third animated Funday Football (ESPN2/Disney+). A few hours after ripping the Eagles on air, Orlovsky spoke with The Inquirer and raised many of the same concerns he did on Get Up about the Eagles’ offense, which has been struggling in Kevin Patullo’s first season as coordinator.
“They’re not what they were last year on offense,” Orlovsky said. “Last year, they were historically great when it came to running the football. That’s not reality. Their tailback was historically great. He just hasn’t had the same impact.”
The Eagles’ rushing attack, spearheaded by Saquon Barkley, ranks 22nd in rushing yards through the first 12 games of the season. Last year, the team ranked second in rushing yards and Barkley became the ninth NFL running back to record 2,000 yards in a season.
Dan Orlovsky, once a Jalen Hurts critic, says the Eagles offensive line has been one of the biggest reason’s behind the team’s offensive struggles.
Orlovsky says the key difference between last year’s offense and this year’s is the play of the offensive line.
“If you aren’t good up front, it’s really hard to consistently be good,” Orlovsky said. “Their offensive line has to play better.”
The Eagles have been without Lane Johnson for their last two games, as the two-time All-Pro tackle is recovering from a Lisfranc injury in his foot suffered in the team’s Week 11 win over Detroit.
But the Eagles’ struggles on the ground predate Johnson’s absence. The Eagles have rushed for more than 100 yards in five games this season and recorded more than 150 yards just twice. In 2024, the Eagles eclipsed 150-plus yards on the ground in 11 regular season games.
The inability to pick up yards on the ground on first down leads to longer yardage on second and third downs. The Eagles are converting 34.5% of their third-down plays, which is the fifth-worst conversion rate in the league.
“If you struggle as an offense on first down, it makes second down much harder, and then therefore third down much harder,” Orlovsky said. “Until they play better as an offensive line and play better offensively on first down, that’s not going to get fixed.”
Eagles guard Tyler Steen, left, center Cam Jurgens, middle, and guard Landon Dickerson make up 60% of the Eagles starting offensive line.
With five games left in the regular season, the Eagles hold a 1½ game lead over the 6-5-1 Cowboys in the NFC East. If the Eagles can hang onto their divisional lead and earn a playoff spot, Orlovsky says the team needs to be able to “control the game” to be considered as a contender to repeat as Super Bowl champions.
“[If] they can dictate to a defense what they want to do, then there’s no question,” Orlovsky said. “The group isn’t all that different than what it was last year.”
The struggles on offense, including down years from Barkley and Jalen Hurts, loom large over the final five games of the regular season. The talent remains largely the same, but 12 games into the season, Orlovsky doesn’t see the current version of the Eagles as a team with an identity.
“There’s a lot more question marks about their offense and why they’re struggling in comparison to what it was last year,” Orlovsky said. “But, they still are a talented group, and I think that they’re trying to figure out who they are.”
