PHILADELPHIA — When the Eagles were 10-1 last year, before everything fell apart, they were still a stressful watch. The offense frequently had to pull out late, heart-pounding victories.
Until it couldn’t anymore.
Through four games this season, the Birds have scored a total of zero points in the first quarter. Veteran right tackle Lane Johnson said Friday the team has tried to address the issue following the bye week.
“As an offense, when we’ve had a lot of success around here, we’ve done a good job of putting a lot of points up in the first half and done a good job of controlling the clock in the second half,” Johnson said. “Obviously, we struggled with that last year. We were more of a second-half team.
“It starts at practice,” he said. “We’ve got our players back now. It’s about getting on the ball, pushing tempo when we need to, and scoring points. We know what we’ve got to do, we’ve just got to go do it.”
In fairness, it’s not all on the players. The Birds moved the ball in the first half against Atlanta and New Orleans, for example, yet three times came away with nothing.
In some cases — separate from preparation and execution — it has been the head coach’s fault during games. Nick Sirianni has opted to forego field goals, despite having one of the best kickers in the league in Jake Elliot, and the haphazard decision-making has failed spectacularly.
“The only thing you’re ever trying to do is focus on, how do we improve?” Sirianni said. “How do we improve, how do we improve, how do we improve? So that takes discernment to say, ‘Hey, this may show as a problem, but is it?’ You’ve got to go through and you’ve got to study that and say, ‘This is an issue,’ but then you study it and you’re like, ‘Well, it’s not, maybe, as big an issue as we think,’ or this and that.”
Perhaps that’s some roundabout way of Sirianni pointing the finger at himself?
“You’ve just got to have wisdom of what truly needs — when we say improve, it’s not like, ‘Hey, just go get better.’ There are paths to it. So, you focus your time on what you think are the big things, just like you spend more time practicing first and second down — I’m trying to make an analogy here.
“You spend more time practicing first and second down, then third down, and then red zone because there are more opportunities there.”
• • •
Receivers DeVonta Smith (concussion) and A.J. Brown (hamstring) said they can’t wait to get back in action on Sunday against Cleveland. Smith was injured on a cheap hit in New Orleans, and Brown has been absent since Week 1.
“It feels good to just get back out here around the guys,” Smith said. “Just get back to playing football.”
For the first time this year, Friday’s injury report was blank. The Eagles (2-2) are in third place right now, behind Washington (4-1) and Dallas (3-2).
“I’m so excited,” Brown said. “I’m glad my first game back is back at the Linc. I know the place is going to be rockin’. And we’ll try to get this thing turned around.”
