Eagles complete epic collapse with embarrassing loss to Bucs — Is this the end for Nick Sirianni?

TAMPA — The Eagles’ season officially ended Monday night with a 32-9 loss to the Tampa Bay Buccaneers and they should be equally relieved and disgusted by the outcome.

Disgusted, of course, because a season that started with such promise turned to ashes in epic fashion.

Relieved because if the Eagles’ late-season tailspin had been allowed to continue, there’s no telling how mind-numbingly awful things would have looked before they reached bottom.

The pitiful NFC Wild Card loss to the Bucs was the final proof that no matter what the Eagles said or what coach Nick Sirianni did, this monstrous freefall was not going to end before their season did.

BUY EAGLES TICKETS: STUBHUB, VIVID SEATS, TICKETMASTER

Soon we will find out what the fallout is from the late-season collapse that saw the Eagles lose six of their final seven games, often in embarrassing fashion, after a 10-1 start.

Is it possible Sirianni will be fired with a 36-20 record and after leading the Eagles to the playoffs for three straight seasons, not to mention the Super Bowl last season?

Let’s just say it wouldn’t be shocking.

Would the Eagles consider getting into a battle with the rival Dallas Cowboys for the services of future Hall of Fame coach Bill Belichick?

That wouldn’t be shocking either.

Both teams will spend the rest of the playoffs at home wondering how and why it all went so wrong.

At the very least, the Eagles figure to make some significant changes on the coaching staff with the search for a new defensive coordinator starting immediately.

But on the final night of the Eagles’ season, it was ultimately Sirianni’s offense that was most to blame for things coming to an abrupt but predictable end. Sirianni has said often lately that he’s in charge of the offense, so if something doesn’t go right we should blame him rather than offensive coordinator Brian Johnson.

Well, with the exception of a 55-yard completion from Jalen Hurts to DeVonta Smith that was followed by a five-yard touchdown to Dallas Goedert late in the second quarter, the offense once again looked like a dysfunctional mess.

Ultimately, it was the offense’s inability to handle the blitz that allowed the Bucs to put the game away late in the third quarter.

After two lackluster drives to start the second half, the Eagles got the ball a third time still only trailing by seven points.

The third time, it turned out, did the most harm.

On a third-and-six play from the 14, Hurts attempted to roll away from immediate pressure applied by blitzing linebacker Anthony Nelson. As Nelson was taking the quarterback to the ground in the end zone, Hurts flipped the football away and was flagged for intentional grounding, giving the Bucs an 18-9 lead and the ball back.

That’s when the defense that could never be fixed quickly went to work on sealing the Eagles’ fate.

The Bucs scored on a two-play drive when Baker Mayfield connected on a 54-yard touchdown pass to Trey Palmer to make the score 25-9.

The defense that couldn’t be fixed did deliver another sickening performance against the league’s 23rd-ranked offense as the Bucs compiled 426 yards for their third highest offensive output of the season.

If and when the Eagles get around to dissecting this season, they’ll want to start with Week 13 when the 49ers came to town convinced they were the better team a year ago in the NFC Championship before Brock Purdy got hurt in the first quarter.

We’ll never know if that was true, but we know for sure that the 2023 Eagles were never the same after the 49ers trounced them at the Linc. Their swagger left them that day and by Monday night they were a bad enough team that they could have easily lost to the Carolina Panthers at home.

Sirianni, of course, spent the last seven weeks saying and doing all sorts of things. He essentially fired defensive coordinator Sean Desai and handed the defensive play-calling duties to Matt Patricia, then watched as things only got worse.

Siranni himself lost much of his own daring bravado.

The Eagles, for example, won the toss Monday, which offered Sirianni an opportunity to buck today’s NFL trend and take the football to start the game the way Green Bay coach Matt LaFleur did in Sunday’s game against the Cowboys. The Packers, of course, scored on that opening drive on their way to building a 27-0 lead and a stunning lopsided victory.

Sirianni deferred and the Eagles opted to get the ball to start the second half.

Tampa Bay responded by scoring on each of its first four possessions to build a 16-3 lead as the Eagles’ reeling defense surrendered 242 first-half yards.

Mayfield took the Bucs on drives of 65, 79, 40 and 45 yards, but only one of the four possessions ended with a Tampa Bay touchdown.

On their second drive, the Bucs needed just four plays to score. Mayfield hit David Moore for 22 yards to get things going and 15 yards was tacked on for a Zach Cunningham facemask penalty. Three plays later, Mayfield and Moore hooked up again for a 44-yard touchdown after Eli Ricks and Avonte Maddox collided in the Eagles’ secondary.

The Eagles ever so briefly showed some fight.

They got on the board with a 47-yard field goal by Jake Elliott, who was arguably their most consistent performer this season.

After the Bucs kicked their third field goal of the first half to make it 16-3, Hurts found Smith for a 55-yard completion down to the Tampa Bay five-yard line, then followed that up with a five-yard touchdown to Goedert to make it 16-9.

When the Bucs were flagged for an offsides penalty on the extra point, Sirianni decided to be aggressive and go for the two-point conversion from the one-yard line. We don’t need to tell you what play they ran. We do need to tell you that “The Brotherly Shove” was stopped and the Bucs were pretty pumped about it.

It seemed fitting that even the one play that worked for the Eagles all season long failed on the same night when one of the franchise’s most disappointing seasons came to a crashing halt.

Thank you for relying on us to provide the journalism you can trust. Please consider supporting us with a subscription.

Bob Brookover can be reached at rbrookover@njadvancemedia.com