Philadelphia Eagles: 3 takeaways from a gutsy, drop-filled loss to Baltimore
By David Esser
Drops, drops, and more drops.
As Eagles fans, we’ve seen some pretty bad drops over the last couple of years. We all lived through the 2019 Agholor experience, and Alshon Jeffery’s playoff drop against the Saints likely cost the team a Super Bowl appearance in 2018.
With that said, it seemed like the Eagles were doing their best to set a new record for bad drops in a single game today.
Hightower had a completely mind-boggling drop early on in the game, where he was wide open streaking down the field. It was a walk-in touchdown for essentially any wide receiver in the NFL, and yet Hightower stumbled and let the ball slip through his hands.
Prior to his early departure, Miles Sanders saw a pass thrown to him in the back of the end zone where he had beaten LJ Fort pretty handily. Sanders got turned around, and flat out misplayed what would’ve been his first receiving TD of the 2020 season.
Prior to his own respective early departure, Zach Ertz dropped two passes as well. They weren’t picture perfect throws like the other two mentioned plays, but they were still passes one would expect someone of Ertz’ caliber to reign in.
Combine the two dropped TDs with Elliott’s missed field goal, and you’re looking at an extra 17 points that the Philadelphia Eagles should have scored. In general, it’s really hard to win football games when players can’t catch the ball.