A.J. Brown. Saquon Barkley. DeVonta Smith. Jalen Hurts. Dallas Goedert.
The Philadelphia Eagles offense has a ton of talent. In fact, they have entirely too much talent for how slowly they've been starting on that side of the ball through five games of the 2024 NFL season.
Eagles remain scoreless in the first quarter this season
You've probably heard, but in case you haven't, here's the terrifying truth: The Eagles have gone five straight games to start the current campaign without scoring a single point in the first quarter. Unsurprisingly, that's a franchise first.
The Eagles are also the only team in the entire league yet to score a single point in the first frame. That means teams like the Carolina Panthers and New England Patriots have been able to produce points in the first 15 minutes, but the star-studded Eagles have been unable to.
It's a far cry from the 2022 Eagles, who would come out and punch teams in the mouth with their offensive attack. Philadelphia was third in the league in first quarter points scored that season, and they were still a respectable seventh league-wide last season. This season, they're dead last.
Now, it's the Eagles who are absorbing the early blows and hoping that they have a strong enough chin to weather the storm before mustering a response. We saw how well that worked out agains the Tampa Bay Buccaneers in Week 4.
In that game, the Buccaneers scored 24 points before the Eagles even registered a single first down. That's obviously an impossible way to try to win a football game. And while they were able to overcome their slow start in Week 3 against New Orleans, it won't always be that way. Failing to produce for a quarter of every contest isn't a recipe for success.
Even fresh off of a bye week against a susceptible Cleveland defense, the Eagles were unable to produce a first quarter point in Week 6. Sure, Philadelphia still won the game 20-16, but it wasn't the convincing victory that many were hoping to see.
Coming out of the gate flat, as the Eagles have done, is often an indication of a lack of proper preparation or motivation, which would fall on the coaching staff, and there certainly have been some questionable decisions on the sidelines. Nick Sirianni isn't the most popular guy in Philadelphia right now, but he did vow to fix the slow starts, while also implying that the media is making a bigger deal out of them than necessary.
"We're going to figure it out. We're going to fix it," Sirianni said after the win over the Browns. "We've known how to score in the past. We get it. You guys have a job to do and you're going to fixate on one thing. ... We'll get it figured out on offense."
For Sirianni's own sake -- and the sake of Eagles fans everywhere -- hopefully he's right about the team's ability to address the issue moving forward.
