Ray Lewis Was Sick To His Stomach Watching How Abysmally Pathetic The Eagles Defense Is At Literally Everything
You can count on one Jason Pierre-Paul hand how many defensive players in the history of the game were better and more feared in football than Ray Lewis. Dick Butkus probably? Either way, he's one of the baddest dudes to ever step out on a field and lay the everliving shit out of opposing players. When you're that good at something, you tend to have a more critical eye for anyone else doing the same thing. Anybody in America could watch that Eagles defense last night and be disgusted with it, but one of the best ever?
I can't imagine how infuriating it must be for him to watch that. Just an absolute joke of a defense the Eagles have trotted out on the field with for the majority of this season, but especially over the past 6 weeks, and ESPECIALLY last night. Ray Lewis has to be sick to his stomach knowing that guys like James Bradberry get to go around saying he's an NFL player when Ray Lewis was the same thing. It's like a Michelin starred chef watching the kid heat up some breadsticks at the Pizza Hut inside of Target. It's unfathomable to him that people doing his same job could have such little talent (or desire) to be perform at a high level.
Hell, they can't even perform at a medium level out there. You heard Ray. These guys can't even get the fundamentals down, let alone try to make a big play.
And obviously Troy Aikman is right, too. It's not just on the defensive side of the ball. It's on offense, it's the coaching, it's the general manager. This entire team either lost the ability to do all the little things they can at least control to try to turn this season around, or they just decided not to. I honestly don't know which option is worse right now. Quitting on the season and just throwing in the towel once Sean Desai got replaced by Matt Patricia could at least give us an explanation for how awful this defense has been. Matt Patricia is an asshole and I can see the defense wanting to stick it to Howie and Lurie for bringing him to Philly in the first place. But if they just quit on the season because they were upset about a coach, well then they also just quit on an all-time Philly sports legend, and made what was his final image in an Eagles uniform being brought to tears.
Don't get me wrong, Jason Kelce wasn't great down the stretch either. But if the team quit on the coaches, then they quit on him as well. I don't want anyone who would do that to ever be allowed to wear an Eagles uniform again.
Or maybe they just truly lost the ability. Maybe they were just truly awful football players who were afraid to make a play. They shouldn't be wearing an Eagles uniform either.
The fact of the matter is that there are too many people on this team right now who need to go. The Eagles are going to be in a really tough spot for the next few years in order to get all of them out of here. The majority of the defense, all of the coaches, half of the offensive line, probably a problematic receiver, and who really knows with the quarterback right now. I'm still willing to hold out hope on Jalen Hurts considering this is the shit he had to deal with all season.
2 receivers going to the same spot, a free runner in his face, and absolutely nowhere to go with the ball. That's been the whole year. Nick Sirianni and Brian Johnson couldn't come up with even the slightest wrinkle to fix this offense all season, and they deserve to be on the job hunt because of it. But again, that means this team is going to be in rough shape next year while Jalen has to learn somebody else's offense.
It's over this group. That's the unfortunate reality. There are way too many questions for this group, and they can't even figure out one of the answers. That Trey Palmer touchdown was just a microcosm of the entire franchise crumbling to pieces. Thanks for the memories.