3 reasons why the Eagles couldn’t hang on, lost to Redskins Sunday

The Eagles dropped to 1-3 Sunday aftera devastating 23-20 loss to NFC East rivals the Redskins — but it didn’t have to be this way.

After a first half reflective of the Eagles ugly first 30 minutes in Atlanta (or their entire setback to the Cowboys), the Birds came to life, overcoming a 13-0 deficit to take a 20-16 lead late.

But 270 yards, three touchdowns and a handful of bombs from a reinvigorated Sam Bradford wasn’t nearly enough to overcome several shortcomings — the worst of which led to Washington’s90 yards march on 15 plays to take the lead for good with just 27 seconds left in the fourth quarter.

Here are the Eagles’ three worst offenses (of many) in Sunday’s loss.

Get off the field!

The Eagles’ defense was on the field for over 41 minutes Sunday. Meaning they had the ball for less than 19 minutes. The fact that they were able to score 20 points, and hold the Skins to just one offensive touchdown is remarkable.

There areseveral reasons for the Eagles failure to keep the defense off the field. With their break-neck pace, there is bound to be a deficiency in time of possession, regardless of whether the offense is playing well or not. But their slow start and continuous three and outs took a toll on the defense.

RELATED LINK: Union move on from Nick Sakiewicz

“We need to start faster,” guard Matt Tobin said after the game on WIP. “We haven’t really come out of the gates at all in any of these first four games. We need to come out and get at them right away we can’tbe waiting around.”

The Birds also failed to stop Washington on third down a ridiculous nine of 17 times. They hurt themselves and as a result failed to hang on for 79 plays — which took its toll by the final fateful drive.

Injuries

In addition to their injury problems coming into Sunday’s loss the Eagles lostJason Peters, Allen Barbre, Brandon Bair, Mychal Kendricks and Byron Maxwell in the Redskins game.

And though the replacements certainly played well enough to keep Philly in the game — even giving the team the lead for most of the fourth quarter, they are clearly hurting.

“We have good confidence in our backups,” Tobin, usually a backup himself, said.”Dennis [Kelly] and Josh [Andrews], Julien[Vandervelde], everybody can do it but we just have to go our jobs.”

Kicking game

Perhaps one of the biggest injury issues is at kicker. Without their Pro Bowler Cody Parkey, the Eagles were forced to put their fate in the foot of Caleb Sturgis.

Sturgis missed a field goal at the end of the first half and an extra point, costing the Eagles four big points. With their margin of defeat just three points, it’s hard not to wonder if the Eagles would have been able to hang on with a more competent kicker on the field.