PHILADELPHIA, PA - AUGUST 04: Philadelphia Eagles offensive coordinator Sean Mannion looks on during the Philadelphia Eagles training camp on August 4th, 2026 at Jefferson Health Training Center in Philadelphia, PA. (Photo by Terence Lewis/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images) | Icon Sportswire via Getty Images Jonny Page Mon, October 19, 2026 at 5:14 PM UTC · 20 min read About Our Ads Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement I'm completely done with this offense. I've been mad in the past, but never completely out on the whole offense so early into a season. I always try to seek positives. Those of you who have read my work for a while will know that I rarely call for a player to be benched or a coach to be fired. I would much rather explain what is going wrong and look for ways to fix it. But after watching the Eagles' offense against the Panthers, I think Sean Mannion (you can add more if you want) should probably go. This under-center, outside zone offense he brought in has been dreadful, and I don't see a coach who looks ready to solve the problems his own system is creating. With so little coaching experience, he looks completely out of his depth.
I know fans will rightly call for Nick Sirianni, too. I am not defending him at all. He is the head coach, and he is responsible for allowing this to continue. But replacing the offensive coordinator and handing the offense to Josh Grizzard, or even Sirianni himself, is a more straightforward immediate change than firing the head coach. If Sirianni has to take over, let him deal with it. He's the head coach. What I absolutely cannot get behind is giving Mannion even more responsibility. Or fire them both, whatever. I just can't keep watching the same thing every week! It's driving me crazy.
The injuries are real, but this was a Panthers defense with both of its top two cornerbacks on injured reserve and Jaelan Phillips playing only 28 snaps. There were matchups to exploit. There were opportunities to move the ball. Instead, the Eagles repeatedly put their players in positions where they had almost no chance. I didn't think Tanner McKee played well, but I am tired of trying to evaluate quarterbacks, running backs, and offensive linemen within an operation this dysfunctional. It isn't fair on the players.
The very first play tells you almost everything you need to know. The Eagles line up under center, run play action, and leave a defender unblocked. The Panthers have four potential blitzers to their left, and the protection ends up asking Dameon Pierce to account for two defenders. I assume Willie Lampkin is supposed to pull across and pick up the linebacker, but he looks confused and helps where he isn't needed. Without knowing the protection call, I can't tell you exactly where the communication breaks down. I can tell you that the result is hopeless.
This is the opening play. The staff has had all week to prepare it, and the protection still looks like this. We aren't talking about a defense unveiling something in the fourth quarter that the offense has never seen before. The Eagles start the game unable to sort out who is blocking whom. After weeks of the same issues, that is unacceptable. The opening possessions felt insulting to the fans who turned up to watch this team.
On the next drive, Elijah Moore runs straight past Akayleb Evans (29) at the top of the screen. I highlighted Evans as someone to attack in the preview, and the opportunity is right there. McKee doesn't have a chance to take advantage because the protection collapses again. The Panthers show a five-man front, but the Eagles appear to want their offensive linemen to block across a gap while leaving the edge defender to two tight ends. That requires Jake Majors to get across to No. 95, which leaves No. 92 for Tyler Steen. Steen can't get over in time.
Why are we making this so difficult? I understand that protections involve more than simply pointing five linemen at five defenders, but the Eagles keep creating problems for themselves with these assignments. They have seven players in protection against five rushers and still can't give the quarterback a chance to throw to an open receiver. Majors is struggling at center, but he is hanging in there, and I thought the individual offensive line play was better than the overall protection would suggest. The staff deserves serious scrutiny for the plan it is asking these players to execute.
The problems extend beyond blocking. The Eagles keep running this under-center play-action concept, often called "throttle," a staple of the Shanahan offense in which the receiver can settle rather than continue across the field. It can work as a changeup to crossing routes. But the Eagles barely have a functioning crossing-route game, so what exactly are they changing up? The Panthers' linebackers don't bite on the fake and get good depth. There is no short route in the middle to draw them forward, leaving very little space behind them for the throw.
The defense isn't being stretched horizontally or vertically. The Eagles are borrowing a concept without creating the conditions that make it effective. It looks like running the Shanahan offense on beginner mode without understanding why the actual offense works. Their under-center passing game was utterly hopeless here: three incompletions and two sacks on five under-center play-action snaps. That isn't helping a backup quarterback settle into a game.
I mean, seriously, come on, guys. This is laughable. This chart looks made up!
Believe it or not, the Eagles did have two successful under-center runs in a row. Both were outside zone to the right from 12 personnel, and Dallas Goedert did a good job blocking on that side. Derrick Brown wasn't on the field for the first one. On the second, the Eagles ran away from him, and the Panthers' slant took their defensive linemen away from the opening. There were huge gaps to exploit, which matched what I thought about the weaknesses in this run defense before the game.
These were good outcomes, and they gave the offense something to build on. After showing the same run successfully twice, the staff had an opportunity to make the defense pay for anticipating it. Change the direction. Run play action. Give the defense something else to consider. What do you think happened next?
They ran it again. Same personnel, same direction, essentially the same look. This time, the Panthers saw it coming and blew up the run in the backfield. The Eagles followed it with two incomplete passes from shotgun and punted.
This is why I keep coming back to sequencing and coaching. The under-center run game and shotgun passing game still feel like separate offenses. A couple of successful outside zone carries don't automatically help the next pass if the offense doesn't create a meaningful connection between them. The defense gets to react to each formation without being forced to worry about what might come off the previous play. We have been talking about this for weeks, and I am fed up with watching the same thing happen.
For a moment, we get a lovely route from Darius Cooper and an excellent throw from McKee. Under-center play action has finally produced something! Except Johnny Mundt holds the linebacker after getting beaten around the edge, and the play comes back. Mundt's hold buys McKee the extra moment he needs to make the throw, so you can't simply remove the penalty and pretend the protection worked.
The route and throw deserve credit. They also show that there are plays to be made against this secondary. But the Eagles can't keep calling an offense that needs its blockers to hold just to give the quarterback enough time to execute it. If the protection can't support the concept, the staff has to change what it is asking the players to do.
What are we doing here? How many times are we going to see the swing pass fail this year? The Eagles use three blockers to account for two defensive backs, leaving Devin Lloyd free to tackle Pierce. Pierce actually does well to make something of the situation, and he still loses a yard. This is the sort of play that makes me feel sorry for the running back. He can make a defender miss or fight through contact and still end up with a negative result because the blocking has given him so little chance.
Evans gets beaten again, but the Eagles don't exploit it. McKee is focused on Dontayvion Wicks running a corner route against a cornerback with outside leverage, and I am not sure why he chooses that side. However, the pocket is already collapsing, so he has no realistic opportunity to work back across the field anyway.
The Eagles kept asking Pierce to stay in and pass-protect, and he struggled badly. He was asked to pass-protect 19 times, the second-highest total for a running back in Week 6. And he's terrible in pass protection. He was essentially the only available option at running back, but that doesn't mean the offense had to keep giving him an assignment he couldn't execute. Split him wide and go empty, or use another receiver or tight end instead. Keeping a back in protection only helps if he can actually protect. The Eagles weren't getting that benefit, yet they kept building the passing game around it.
Let's enjoy a block for a moment. This isn't outside zone, and Lampkin does an excellent job here. You can see his wrestling background in the way he controls the defender. I thought he played well overall, and I am bored of discussing these games as if every offensive lineman has suddenly become incapable of blocking. Markel Bell looked decent, too, although he had some shakier moments.
PFF's grades are subjective, and I wouldn't use them to support my argument very often. But its pressure chart charged Lampkin, Bell, and Jordan Mailata with no pressures allowed. That doesn't absolve anyone of every mistake, and pressure assignments always involve interpretation. It supports the distinction the film keeps showing, though, that individual linemen can have reasonable games while the protection plan repeatedly falls apart around them.
McKee had two lovely throws over the middle on this drive, one to Goedert here and another to DeVonta Smith. Both came from shotgun. He could see the defense at the snap and get the ball out, which matters when the protection is unreliable. Even on this play, the Eagles ask Pierce to come across the quarterback to block the linebacker from the other side. Shotgun at least gives McKee a better opportunity to recognize the problem and release the ball before it reaches him.
The Eagles averaged minus-0.10 EPA per play from shotgun against the Panthers, compared with minus-0.57 from under center. Shotgun wasn't good enough either, but the difference is enormous.
Right now, I would bin the under-center package and spend the time making the shotgun offense functional. As I have been calling for a month.
After those two good shotgun throws, the Eagles go back under center and nearly ruin the drive. Cooper is asked to make a block that his pre-snap position gives him almost no chance of making. This wasn't the only time the staff put him in that situation, either.
A later pass interference penalty helps save the possession, but it doesn't make this play any better. The offense had just moved the ball with McKee seeing the field and throwing from shotgun. Instead of building on that, the staff returned to the package that had been creating problems all game. What was the benefit supposed to be? At some point, the commitment to an offensive identity has to give way to what the players can actually execute.
This one is maddening. The Eagles have six players protecting, excluding Goedert, who releases into a route, and the Panthers show seven potential rushers. The offense needs an answer if the defense brings more than the protection can handle. That can mean a hot throw, with the quarterback getting the ball out immediately to account for an unblocked defender. Here, the Eagles don't have an effective answer, and another linebacker gets a free path through the middle.
I don't understand why these protections keep securing the edge while allowing an interior blitzer to run untouched through the A-gap or B-gap. Look how wide the edge defender is. Leaving that player free gives the quarterback more distance to work with than allowing someone straight through the middle, provided the route and quarterback are ready for it. We don't know every protection rule, but we can see the result repeatedly. The defense gets immediate interior pressure, and the quarterback has nowhere useful to go. You can't operate an NFL passing game like this. I'm bored talking about it.
If the first four under-center play-action snaps don't work, perhaps the fifth will. Five rushers, seven players protecting, and McKee is sacked almost immediately. Mundt is involved in another protection breakdown, having already struggled earlier in the game. I don't know how many times the same assignments have to fail before the staff tries something else.
This is why the offensive line coach Chris Kuper deserves a serious look, too. The responsibility for protection extends beyond one position coach, and I am not pretending to know who sets every rule in the meeting room. But the unit's preparation and coordination are plainly part of the problem. Extra bodies in protection are supposed to help. It doesn't help this offense.
DeVonta Smith was the best player on offense by a mile, and he deserved his touchdown. For all the frustration in this review, I don't want to overlook that. He gave the Eagles quality receiving play in a game where so much else was making offense difficult. There was enough ability on the field to produce a competent performance against this defense.
Of course, this was the Eagles' best drive of the game. Every single play was from the shotgun. They ran a lot of no-huddle, too. This isn't hard. The Eagles play their best offensive football when they have to throw from the shotgun and use tempo. Why not, you know, just do it more? And stop doing the stuff that is a disaster every time you do it?
Finally, even with the Eagles needing to push the ball downfield late, the quarterback still needs something he can throw quickly against pressure. The protection has been failing all game. Calling routes that require time without giving McKee a usable immediate answer leaves him stuck again. The Panthers bring six, the Eagles have seven protecting, and Steen and Bell block the same defender while another rusher gets through untouched.
Last week, the Eagles had some success spreading the field from empty against the blitz. This week, they returned to keeping extra blockers in and still couldn't sort it out. The numbers are not pretty. The Eagles completed just 8 of 17 passes for 45 yards against the blitz, took three sacks, and averaged -0.58 EPA per play, compared with +0.01 EPA per play when the Panthers didn't blitz. That is mental. The Panthers had every reason to keep attacking a protection plan that wasn't making them pay. No quarterback can consistently succeed with this happening around him.
I don't think McKee played well. I'm not at all surprised. The Eagles have to give their players a functioning system before we can fairly judge how well they are executing it. Right now, too many possessions are being decided by problems the coaching staff should be solving.
I don't like calling coaches incompetent, because we don't know everything that goes on behind the scenes. But watching this offense every week, it increasingly feels like the message is, "My system is the best, and if we keep running it, you'll eventually see it work!" That is arrogance. Or incompetence. Or both! Whatever you want to call it, continuing to ask players to do things they have repeatedly shown they cannot execute is ridiculous. At some point, you have to coach the players you have and build an offense that gives them a chance.
For me, Mannion should probably be replaced, and Chris Kuper's job warrants serious examination. That does not excuse Sirianni. Fans are right to hold him responsible, and if he has to take over the offense himself, he should. Grizzard is another option to take over. What I cannot accept is another week of the same under-center operation, the same impossible blocking assignments, and the same explanation that the players simply need to execute better. I rarely reach the point of calling for coaches to go, but I am there now. Major changes have to happen. This is not fair on the players. There is a lot of the season left, and it can't stay this bad.
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