Everything that could have gone wrong went wrong for the Philadelphia Eagles on Monday night as they were beaten down by the rival Dallas Cowboys at Jerry World.
Jalen Hurts struggled, throwing a pair of interceptions. The run game was non-existent — a peculiar decision by head coach Nick Sirianni, who blamed his team’s early deficit as the reason why he completely abandoned it. Miles Sanders only ran the ball twice on Monday night.
Above all, though, was the Eagles’ inability to play within the rules, committing 13 penalties on the night to make a disadvantage morph into an insurmountable blowout.
Frustration boiled over for Sirianni on the sideline when defensive end Derek Barnett was flagged for offsides during the second quarter with the Eagles trailing 20-7.
“It’s always him,” Sirianni was seen saying on the ESPN broadcast.
“I was frustrated with the pre-snap penalties, regardless of if it was Derek or if it was anybody,” Sirianni said. “We had them on offense, and we had them on defense. I don’t think we had any pre-snap penalties on special teams. It was just my frustration with our team as a whole, and it starts with me. It’s my responsibility to get the penalty thing right. I don’t blame any player for that. We just got to get better at it.”
The Eagles’ pre-snap penalties have become a glaring issue early on this season. They’re tied for second in the NFL in both false start and offside penalties, per NFL Penalties. Their 35 total penalties as a team lead the league and is the most the team has committed in its first three games in franchise history.
At this rate, they’ll easily break the 2011 Raiders’ NFL record of 163 penalties considering they are on pace for 198 flags in 2021.
“We have to get that fixed. That’s just us being disciplined,” Sirianni said. “We have to go back to work and get better at that because it’s unacceptable. We’re all in this together. It starts with me and it’s unacceptable on my part because we have too many penalties.”
