Heading into the Week 5 game, the Philadelphia Eagles had never lost outside the United States and were facing the Jacksonville Jaguars, the NFL’s winningest team, in London. The Jaguars ended the Eagles’ streak with a 19-17 loss on a last-second field goal, dropping Philly’s record to 2-3. After the heartbreaking loss, Eagles HC Nick Sirianni offered no excuses, taking the blame on himself.
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“I didn’t make the right decision. I lost us that game,” Sirianni told the media following the game, per ESPN’s Mike Garafolo.
While it wasn’t a slow, game-long meltdown, the Eagles fought back with a heavily depleted roster to take a 17-16 lead with just 8 seconds remaining with a 48-yard Jake Elliott field goal. But the way they lost has been scrutinized as an absolute blunder.
In the final play, instead of kicking the ball out of the back of the end zone to force the Jaguars to go 70+ yards with no timeouts, the Eagles left the ball in play.
Jaguars returner Ameer Abdullah exploited a breakdown in the Eagles’ coverage unit, breaking free for a 53-yard return that advanced Jacksonville into Philadelphia territory at the 39-yard line with exactly 1 second left on the clock.
With a thin chance to win before the kickoff, the Jaguars were able to trot out kicker Cam Little, who drilled a miraculous 57-yard game-winning field goal as time expired to steal the 19-17 win.
This disaster capped off a brutal month for Nick Sirianni as the Eagles HC. He was already under fire for aggressive fourth-down failures in Week 4 against the Los Angeles Rams and back-to-back weeks of scoreless second halves, and the latest defeat only intensified the scrutiny.
Following the collapse in London, the Philadelphia Eagles return home to host the Carolina Panthers at Lincoln Financial Field for a crucial Week 6 matchup on October 18.
The long flight home from London will double as a recovery period as the Eagles desperately need some changes to their heavily depleted roster. They will likely spend the week monitoring the health of star players Saquon Barkley and DeVonta Smith.
That said, it will be interesting to see what changes Sirianni & Co. will make to break their losing streak.