The Scary Similarities Between Eagles' 2023 Collapse And What We're Seeing Now

The scary similarities between Eagles' 2023 collapse and what we're seeing now originally appeared on NBC Sports Philadelphia

It’s not just the losses that make this feel like 2023 all over again. It’s the way they’ve lost.

What really lingers about the Eagles’ 2023 collapse is that for the last month and a half of the season, the Eagles didn’t just lose, they were literally non-competitive. 

They lost in bizarre, hapless, embarrassing fashion. Week after week. And that 10-1 start just crumbled to pieces in the span of a few weeks.

The Eagles had everything in front of them and it started slipping away and nobody in the organization had any clue how to stop it.

It started with a 42-19 loss to the 49ers. At home. Still the Eagles’ 5^th-worst loss ever at the Linc and worst since Chip Kelly’s nightmarish final season.

A week later, it was the Cowboys’ turn to blow out the Eagles, and they won 33-13 in a game the Eagles didn’t score an offensive touchdown.

Only the third time in the last 50 years the Eagles lost consecutive games by 20 or more points and still the only time an Eagles team with a winning record did that. Ever.

Then it was off to Seattle to face a Seahawks team that had lost four straight games by an average of 9 ½ points in a Monday night game with a chance to get to 11-3 and end the skid. And all looked good when the Eagles took a quick 10-0 lead. Whew. They were back. And they still led with half a minute left. Then Drew Lock threw a game-winning 29-yard TD pass to rookie Jaxon Smith-Njigba on a 3^rd-and-10 to drop the Eagles to 10-4. Drew Lock. One of his 10 wins in 28 career starts.

After nearly blowing a 17-point lead and squeezing out a win at the Linc over a last-place Giants team – despite Adoree’ Jackson’s 76-yard pick-6 off Jalen Hurts – the Eagles still had a chance to recover.

But then Jonathan Gannon brought the 3-12 Cards to town and the Eagles – 12-point favorites – found a way to blow a 21-6 lead to the worst team in football in their own stadium. That remains the Eagles’ 4^th-largest blown lead at the Linc. Ever.

And then that dreadful 32-9 wild-card loss to the Bucs, who scored three times before the Eagles recorded their second first down. It was the Eagles’ 2^nd-worst postseason loss ever, their worst since a 34-10 Donovan McNabb meltdown against the Cowboys at Texas Stadium 31 years earlier. 

And we could all see it coming.

These weren’t just losses, they were catastrophes. Any one of them taken alone would be cause for alarm. Taken as a group, they made up one of the worst collapses in NFL history. 

They were the best team in football. Six weeks later they were the worst.

That’s why it’s impossible not to make comparisons between this team and that team. 

Not because they’re losing. But because of how they’re losing.

They lost to the Cowboys and Bears in such horrific fashion in the span of six days. Blowing a 21-point lead in Dallas and then barely functioning on either side of the ball in a lifeless home loss to a Bears team that was a touchdown underdog.

The biggest similarity between the 2023 and 2025 Eagles is that the Eagles are virtually non-functional on one side of the ball.

That 2023 defense allowed an average of 31 points in its last seven games. Only the Commanders were worse.

This offense is averaging 15.5 points in four games since the bye week, which is somehow not the worst in the league but is 3^rd-worst.

Another similarity is that even when the 2023 Eagles raced out to that 10-1 record, they weren’t able to bury teams. Every week, they were barely hanging on and praying for the clock to run down to zero. Seven of those 10 wins were by one possession and sometimes when you say, “They know how to win,” it really means, “They don’t know how to put teams away.”

This year has been so similar. 

Seven of their eight wins have been by one possession and more often than not those wins raised as many questions as they answered. 

In 2023, we kept looking at the upcoming schedule and saying, “OK, Seattle’s a win, Arizona’s a win, the Giants is a win.”

Just like this year. “Raiders is a win, Washington twice, those are wins.”

Maybe. Maybe not.

There’s something missing here.

And I don’t want to say the Eagles have no heart because you don’t go 8-2 with wins over the Bucs, Packers, Vikings and Chiefs on the road and Lions, Rams and Cowboys at home without heart. The Eagles and Rams are the only teams with a winning record against winning teams, and the Eagles beat the Rams. 

The Eagles navigated the NFL’s most challenging schedule and were the Super Bowl favorites one week ago.

How can the Eagles avoid another collapse?

I don’t know. Which doesn’t matter. But I don’t think anybody in the NovaCare Complex knows either. Which is a problem.

How does a team fall apart like this two out of three years? 

How does a team coming off a Super Bowl just forget how to play football two out of three years?

How does a team that has enough talent to go 10-1 and 8-2 suddenly start looking over-matched against less-talented teams almost overnight?

And the biggest question is when this happens, how do you stop it?

Nick Sirianni had no answers in 2023. So far no answers in 2025, although there’s plenty of season left.

Despite everything, only four NFL teams have more wins than the Eagles, and the Cowboys look scary but they still need to almost win out to win the division. Wins over the Chargers and Raiders would have the Eagles right back where they need to be. 

And as bad as 2023 was, we have to remember that a year later the Eagles won the Super Bowl.

So there’s still time to turn this around. The Eagles have good players, a proven coaching staff and the best G.M. in the business.

Which is exactly what we were all saying right about this time in 2023.