LANDOVER, Md. — Sam Bradford finally showed he can air it out. He entered Week 4 with no completions thrown of 20-plus yards through the air and ended it with four.
Didn't matter.
The Eagles still started slowly. They still missed blocks, dropped passes, Bradford still missed a couple short throws. And again, the Eagles could not overcome a slow start, losing to the Redskins, 23-20, despite dominating the second half (see Instant Replay).
Left tackle Jason Peters summed it up pretty well.
"Sometimes we look great," he said (see story). "Sometimes we look like we don't know what we're doing."
Bradford did not complete a pass in the first quarter. He was harassed early and often, ending the first half with two more completions (five) than sacks taken (three).
He connected with rookie receiver Nelson Agholor on a momentum play in the second quarter, a 45-yarder down the middle of the field, but on the next play, that momentum was taken away by Bradford's own play-caller. Chip Kelly called for a reverse, but the toss from Ryan Mathews to Agholor was fumbled and recovered by the Redskins (more on the reverse here). Kelly said he liked the look, but the play really felt like a bit of unnecessary trickery Eagles fans remember all too well from the Andy Reid days.
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The early failures of Kelly, Bradford, the offensive line and the skill players were too much for the Eagles' defense to overcome (see 10 observations). The defense once again was on the field for a ridiculous number of plays. Washington possessed the ball for more than 41 minutes (see story). Through four games, the Eagles' defense has averaged more than 37 minutes on the field and it's barely their own fault.
How many games are you going to win playing that way?
"We've just got to keep our defense off the field," Peters said. "Help them out. Keep drives going for them. When it comes down to the fourth quarter, they've been on the field 30-40 minutes. We've just got to keep the ball more."
The Eagles couldn't keep the ball more because they again failed to establish a run game early (DeMarco Murray wants the ball). And while they clicked on three TD drives in the second half, the offense also went three-and-out on a drive it began from the 50-yard line, up four points, with 7:32 to play. If they gain even 20 yards on that drive, they can set up for a field goal that put them ahead by a touchdown. (Whether Caleb Sturgis would have made that hypothetical field goal is another story of its own.)
"Very disappointing," Bradford said of that drive. "We felt like at that time we had all the momentum. We felt like we could go down, score and put the game away. Just didn't do it."
The Eagles had the momentum at that point because they had struck gold attacking the Redskins with deep posts. Despite losing Peters to an aggravation of his quad injury, the Eagles' offensive line protected Bradford in the second half and he was much better. Bradford completed 7 of his first 13 passes after halftime for 161 yards and three touchdowns. He finished the afternoon 15 for 28 for 270 yards. Same number of attempts as last Sunday, but 9.6 yards per attempt against the 'Skins compared to 4.2 vs. the Jets.
In addition to the 45-yarder to Agholor, Bradford also completed a 31-yard heave to Jordan Matthews, and he hit Riley Cooper for a 62-yard touchdown and Miles Austin for a 39-yard TD.
That was a positive takeaway from this loss: Bradford and the Eagles finally opened up in the passing game. There would have been plenty of cause for concern if they didn't, because Washington's depleted secondary is one of the worst in the league.
"Any time you can get big plays like that, they're kind of game-changers, momentum-changers," Bradford said. "I think the one to Coop in the third quarter kind of got us going. It brought some energy to that sideline.
"You guys act like we don't want to throw the ball downfield. I think it was just we saw something we could take advantage of this week and we called a couple plays trying to get those posts this week."
But, because the Eagles lost, it all circles back to that ugly first half. If the defense wasn't out there for 79 plays, maybe it has the extra juice to come up with one final stop in the fourth quarter.
"I think everyone is a little frustrated right now," Bradford said. "I don't think this is where we wanted or expected to be after Week 4.
"If we knew what the answer was, we'd get it fixed. Somehow, we do have to find out what the answer is. It'd be great to play four quarters. I think we could really do some damage if we played for four quarters."
Coaches and players often divide the season itself into four quarters. So there's another first quarter the Eagles' offense failed to show up for.