Philadelphia Eagles: Even Matt Rhule couldn’t save the season

Thanks for trying to help the Philadelphia Eagles, Matt Rhule.

Everything was shaping up beautifully for the Philadelphia Eagles.

After days of anticipation, leaks, and injury report trickery, Alex Smith was officially declared out for Washington’s game against the Carolina Panthers, making way for Dwayne Haskins to make his sixth start of the season.

Now granted, Haskins playing over Smith wasn’t a guaranteed win, as the former first-round pick out of Ohio State has won three games over his three career starts, but after suffering through a tumultuous week capped off with having his captainship revoked, let’s just say things weren’t really shaping up for a massive comeback win galvanized by the team’s fearless leader.

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Fortunately, the Eagles got a major favor from their former stadium mate to keep their playoff hopes alive.

That’s right, before he was the head coach of the Panthers or leading the rebuild of the Baylor Bears; Matt Rhule was roaming the sidelines of the Linc as the head honcho of the Temple Owls, where he helped transform a middling program into one of the gems of the AAC. An adoptive son of Pennsylvania who played his college ball at Penn State and got his first coordinatorship position at Temple, Rhule’s passion, personality, and poise instantly made him a fan favorite in the City of Brotherly Love, with some hoping he’d succeed Chip Kelly as the Eagles’ head coach one day.

In theory, that may still happen one day, but after torching Washington by a score of 20-13 off the back of a clutch performance by Teddy Bridgewater, it’s pretty safe to assume his seat is much cooler than his counterparts in Philly.

With the Panthers game effectively a locked-in W by halftime, the Eagles’ destiny was suddenly in their hands. If they could come out of half time firing on all cylinders after watching their 14-3 lead against the Dallas Cowboys shrink down to a 17-20 deficit at half time, maybe the Eagles would become the rare 6-10-1 team to make it to the Wildcard round for an assured trouncing by a team with a much better record.

*sigh*

With an offensive gameplan nearly devoid of planned runs, a decimated secondary featuring Michael Jacquet – who gave up the second-most yards (182) of any cornerback in the NFL this season – and a defensive front completely demoralized by the first-half loss of Fletcher Cox, the Eagles watched their playoff chances fade away like Hercules’ lifeforce in Disney’s seminal 1997 animated feature – only Jalen Hurts and company didn’t have an uncuttable golden thread to fall back on to emerge from the River Styx unscathed.

There’s no doubt about it, this loss stings. While the season as a whole has been nothing short of a major disappointment, filled with more interceptions, sacks, and offensive line changes than any team with an ounce of playoff promise could stomach, that little sliver of hope was enough to keep the last three games from being total bummers.

Heck, if anything, the excitement brought by Hurts may have given fans young and old some false hope that maybe the Eagles could shock the world, run the table, and maybe even win a playoff game to start 2021 on the right foot.

Irrational? Delusional? Hopelessly optimistic? Maybe a little of all three, but in the Year of our Lord 2020, why not?

Those dreams are now dashed.

With the 2020 season now extensively over, even if we still have to watch a meaningless Week 17 game against a nameless opponent, the franchise can turn its eyes to the offseason; an offseason as crucial as any in recent memory. Will the team hire on John Dorsey full time to will the player evaluation role that been absent since Joe Douglas jumped ship for the Jets? Will the Eagles fire Doug Pederson after his first losing season or hire him a legitimate offensive coordinator who will hold the head coach accountable to running a 50/50 run-pass ratio? And what about the quarterbacks? Will the Eagles continue to roll with Hurts, return to Carson Wentz, or pull a wildcard and draft a quarterback like Justin Fields if their pick lands third overall like our friend EJ Smith suggested on Twitter?

There will be plenty of time to run all of those questions into the ground – and being that this is Philadelphia, you know we collectively will ad nauseam. Today is a day to mourn what could have been, even if that false hope was always irrational.

So Matt Rhule, our mutual Twitter follow, thank you for doing everything you could to give the City of Brotherly Love one final gift as you continue on with your promising coaching career in Carolina. It’s just a shame the Philadelphia Eagles couldn’t finish the job.