Bad teams are easy to spot. I’m not talking about teams with bad quarterbacks, bad defenses, or bad offensive lines. Not to mention teams with no talent at all. I’m talking about teams where the scent is greater than the sum of the parts, where a seemingly functional group of players come together to play a brand of football so dysfunctional that it becomes uncomfortable to watch.

Bad teams don’t just drop passes. They deflect them right into the arms of the defenders. Bad teams don’t just fail on punt returns. They do this deep in their own territory before taking the game for the first time. Bad teams don’t just let opposing runners pass through them. They let it jump over them. Back. After two spin moves.

The Jacksonville Jaguars are a bad football team. They’ve been a bad team all season. Sunday was no exception. eagles 28-23 win The Jaguars had a lot on their plate. Mostly, it was a reminder of what a truly bad NFL team looks like. It doesn’t look like eagles, which is good news. Bad news? The Eagles nearly lost the game.

” READ MORE: Eagles grades: Saquon Barkley, linebackers get high marks; Nick Sirianni not so much

This is a circle to square devil. Nick SirianniCritics of ‘ tend to focus on only one side of the equation. This is understandable, especially on Sunday afternoons. You won’t find too many NFL games where a team outscored its opponent 447-215 in total yards, won the turnover battle, and still needed a downfield tackle on 1st-and-10 from the 13-yard line. 1 minute and 42 seconds left not to lose. The last-minute drama can be directly attributed to a quarter of Sirianni’s decisions. Two failed fourth down conversions and two unsuccessful two-point attempts left the Jaguars facing a potential game-winning opportunity instead of a two-possession deficit. They did not enjoy the benefits. But that’s the way it goes for bad teams.

The result was another win for which Sirianni was to blame. Actually we need a term for this. If a Pyrrhic victory is a victory that costs the equivalent of defeat, perhaps a Siriannic victory is a victory that will be remembered for everything a coach did to lose it.

I won’t defend decision-making here. I actually disagreed with all four of them. He had done this before he failed. Most egregious was their decision to place fourth.

The first came on 4th-and-3 from the Jaguars’ 22-yard line with 4:55 left in the second quarter. The Eagles had a chance to take a 13-0 lead against an opponent who failed to score a long goal. They went for it and failed. Sirianni left three points on the field.

The second example was more indefensible than the first. With 1:25 left in the third quarter, the Eagles went 4th-and-1 at the Jaguars’ 25-yard line, leading 22-16. A field goal could have made it a two-possession game. The Jaguars still didn’t look like a team that could score two goals. Not only did the Eagles not make a field goal, they also didn’t run the Tush Push. They passed. It failed. One more 3 points left on the field. Eight total, two two-point conversions that failed earlier.

“We’ve been pretty successful in those regards in the past,” Sirianni said after the game. “You always think about everything. You think about who you have, you think about your past experiences with him. You always look at the analytics of that. We were pretty good at those things. They did a good job today. I’ll look at everything. But right now it’s always about what’s best for the football team.” I’m doing what I think is going to happen. It didn’t work today, but that’s the way it is. When we lose the fourth, nothing is actually said. When we don’t do that, I understand that there will be some questions. But still, at the end of the day, I have to have the courage to do it and do everything to win the game. I should be able to say I’m doing it.”

Look, that’s an attitude that’s paying off for the Eagles. That’s the right attitude to have when playing with a good NFL team. But Doug Pederson is not Andy Reid, Trevor Lawrence is not Patrick Mahomes, and the Jaguars are not the 2013 Broncos. In fact, someone at NBC Sports deserves a lot of credit for saving the national television audience from witnessing three hours of Doug Pederson’s Electric Pink Slip Acid Test. Returning to a lineup featuring Sam Darnold and Joe Flacco takes serious confidence. It was the right call after all. The best thing you can say about the Eagles’ win over the Jaguars is that it didn’t keep us up late.

” READ MORE: Nakobe Dean and Zack Baun’s linebacker partnership carries Eagles to tense win

The Jaguars are like the NFL version of The Expendables 3; It’s full of familiar names and faces that will make you wonder how they got into such a bad situation. They are the exact opposite of eagles. They are the team that never plays games.

This brings us to the other side of the equation.

Eagles are a good team. A very good team. He’s so good that it’s unreasonable to think he’s coaching a guy who stayed at the Holiday Inn Express last night. They are making their blocks. They are fighting. They are making games.

Conventional wisdom says: because of their abilities. Saquon Barkley, A.J. Brown, DeVonta Smith – they all have cheat code skills. This is true. They do. But the Eagles’ success is more holistic than the sum of a handful of elite individual parts. There is a holistic level of competence and functionality that is missing from a team like the Jaguars.

You saw this early in the third quarter. jalen hurts He threw a deep pass to Jahan Dotson, who somehow managed to both break up the pass and allow Dotson to control the rebound and secure the catch behind the defense, giving the Eagles a first down. in the Jacksonville area. You saw it in the play of Zack Baun, who was everywhere he needed to be at every level of the floor. You’ve seen this throughout Sirianni’s four years as coach.

It’s only fair to judge Sirianni and the consequences of his decisions. But coaching is much more than in-game decision-making and offensive play calling. Sunday’s result? Eagles 6-2.