Huge decisions loom for Eagles, Jeffrey Lurie

There is an episode from early in the run of TV’s “Modern Family” in which the Dunphy family prepares to sell its old station wagon. Everyone piles in for a last, nostalgic jaunt. Stuff happens and the group has to exit the car in a hurry. Phil, the dad, forgets to set the parking brake, and the car lurches toward a ravine.

Phil throws himself onto the hood of the station wagon, which, of course, does nothing to stop the car, and only adds to the mayhem. His wife, Clare, then asks, in an exasperated tone familiar to many a husband, “WHAT’S THE PLAN, PHIL???”

This is roughly how i imagine second-floor interactions at NovaCare right now, between Eagles coach Nick Sirianni (Phil) and owner Jeffrey Lurie (Clare). The station wagon almost certainly hits the edge of the ravine in two weeks, when the Eagles are likely to open the playoffs on the road, probably in Tampa.

On “Modern Family,” Phil had no real plan, but he did hop down to safety before the station wagon took its final plunge. I’m not sure Nick can manage that feat.

This is a long way of saying that if you think Sirianni can’t possibly be fired the year after taking the team to the Super Bowl, you don’t know Jeffrey Lurie, and you don’t really understand team sports.

It’s UNLIKELY that Sirianni gets fired after this season. But it absolutely could happen, and in fact, a Wild Card round loss would make it much less unlikely than it seems right now.

A playoff win, even a messy one over an unimpressive NFC South team, probably keeps Sirianni safe, even if it doesn’t mean much in terms of fixing everything that is wrong with the Eagles, long term. If you at least win a postseason game, you can point to how impossible it is to get back to the Super Bowl the next year for just about any team that doesn’t have Tom Brady, the schedule was a killer, injuries were ill-timed, you can sign or draft a linebacker or two, things will look better with a full complement of spring work this time around, and so forth. Maybe replace offensive coordinator Brian Johnson if Lurie really lays down the law.

But the image that sticks in my mind from the Eagles’ 35-31 Sunday loss to the visiting, previously 3-12 Arizona Cardinals, is that of A.J. Brown shaking his head, over and over, as he walked off the field following the third-and-19 bubble screen that gained 4 yards and set up a Jake Elliott field goal.

Brown and everyone else involved knew what was about to happen. Elliott would make the 43-yard field goal, with 2:33 remaining, giving the Eagles a 31-28 lead. Then the Cardinals, who scored a touchdown on every second-half possession, would eat up almost all the remaining time while driving for the inevitable game-winning TD.

Arizona even strategized the endgame setup, going for an onside kick that handed the Eagles the ball at Arizona’s 39 with 5:26 remaining. Nobody recovers onside kicks anymore since they changed the running start/offside rule a few years back, and Cards coach Jonathan Gannon, the former Eagles defensive coordinator, didn’t expect to recover this one. He expected to hold the Eagles to a field goal, then get the ball back with plenty of time left. And that is exactly how it unfolded.

Sirianni could have jumped into the runaway car and slammed on the brakes at this point, by killing a few more minutes while engineering a touchdown drive. Make the Cardinals score a touchdown just to tie, leave them maybe a minute and a half or less, instead of 2:33. You probably win if you can do that.

But after a lasered Jalen Hurts pass to Brown over the middle took the Eagles to the Cards’ 20, Sirianni threw himself on the hood of the station wagon.

First there was an inexcusable holding penalty on left tackle Jordan Mailata on a run that gained no yards even with the aid of the hold, which indicated it was not a playcall that fooled the Cards. Worse, confusion reigned — Julio Jones drifted toward the sideline with his hands upraised, trying to find out if he was going off the field. For some reason, this wasn’t a question the sideline was prepared to answer. Finally, Jones was motioned off and extra tight end Jack Stoll sprinted to the huddle.

The first-and-20 play was a Hurts run (???) for 4 yards. Ok, that was weird, but second-and-16, what’s the call now? Brown’s catch was his first target of the second half. DeVonta Smith also had only one second-half target, a long ball down the right side two possessions earlier that might have changed everything, had Smith caught it. (That drop was a big inflection point, but it doesn’t have much to do with this column’s narrative, so I’ll note it and move on.) Maybe you get the ball to one of those guys.

Dallas Goedert? D’Andre Swift?

Nah. ANOTHER HURTS RUN TO THE RIGHT, of course, back-to-back, Arizona all over this one, causing a three-yard loss. Hurts, clearly under orders not to injure himself, just sits down instead of trying to throw the ball away or putting his shoulder down to see if he can get back to the line.

Third-and-19 now, somehow, unbelievably. Do the Eagles have a play? No, they do not. Hurts is forced to waste a timeout with 2:46 remaining.

OK, that was a clown show, but hey, maybe the timeout gave them time to figure something out to keep the drive going, let’s see here, they are snapping the ball and it’s … another goddamn bubble screen to Kenny Gainwell for 4 yards.

Yikes.

Sirianni was asked about all this afterward, of course. His answer was a lot of doublespeak about gaps, which seemed to boil down to, “the QB runs would have worked if the Cardinals had done what we thought they were going to do.” Next summer I eagerly await the day when a Phillies pitcher gives up a grand slam on a fastball over the middle, and explains that it happened because the batter, it turned out, was looking for a fastball. If he had been looking for a curveball, see, the fastball would have worked.

The next day, Sirianni acknowledged that just maybe he could have been a bit more aggressive there.

Anyhow, back to those facial expressions, not just from Brown, as the Eagles trudged off the field. This is where coach-firing kindling is stacked. Coaching is about getting the players to buy into what you’re selling, convincing them that you know what to do. That confidence goes away, it doesn’t matter if you went to the Super Bowl last year, climbed the Matterhorn, and were blessed by the Pope. You’re done.

I am not an X and O sportswriter. I can’t pretend to be. I’m a storyteller type of sportswriter. But I’m really alarmed when I see X and O people, like the Honest NFL Twitter (X) account, or Brian Baldinger, or even ex-Eagle Emmanuel Acho, say that the three levels of the Eagles’ defense seem to be playing three different schemes, that Matt Patricia’s five-man-front with one linebacker is unsound and nonsensical, that the Eagles’ offense is basic and easy to defend.

These are not “oh, it’s just the year after the Super Bowl hangover” problems, these are “do the coaches know what they’re doing?” problems.

After the season, Sirianni will meet with Lurie. I don’t know what will happen, but I do know that Sirianni had better have a detailed plan. One that makes sense. Lurie isn’t a knee-jerk decision maker, but he wants his team to be on the cutting edge, schematically. The 2023 Eagles are nowhere near that.