Which Eagles Soared, Which Failed? Grades by Position After Loss to Chiefs

Week 4 Eagles grades by position after loss to Chiefs originally appeared on NBC Sports Philadelphia

The Eagles stayed close for a while but couldn’t keep pace with the Chiefs in a 42-30 loss at Lincoln Financial Field.

Here are our position-by-position grades:

Quarterback

Jalen Hurts: 32/48, 387 yards, 2 TDs, 0 INTs; 8 rushing attempts, 47 yards

No, Hurts wasn’t perfect on Sunday and the Eagles could have used a perfect performance. He missed a couple throws that would have helped; thinking about the overthrow to Zach Ertz early and the high pass to Greg Ward at the goal line. And he threw a couple dangerous balls. But it’s really hard to fault Hurts for this performance. He was very good and executed a pretty solid game plan in this game. His passer rating of 105.1 was the second-highest of his young career.

Grade: A-

Running back

Kenny Gainwell: 3 carries, 31 yards, 1 touchdown; 6 catches, 58 yards

A week after he got just two carries, Miles Sanders had 7 for 13 on Sunday. He did catch three passes for 34 yards, but it would be ideal to get him going more on the ground. But the rookie Gainwell really had a good game with 89 yards from scrimmage. The best game of his young career.

Grade: C+

Tight end

Dallas Goedert: 5 catches, 56 yards, 1 touchdown

In addition to Goedert’s performance, Zach Ertz also had 6 catches for 60 yards. And both tight ends had touchdowns that were called back for penalties out of their control. Nick Sirianni got both of them involved heavily in this game and it helped the Eagles move the sticks.

Grade: A

Wide receiver

DeVonta Smith: 7 catches, 122 yards

Smith had his first 100-yard game in what the Eagles hope will be a long and productive career, but he also ran out of bounds to negate a 34-yard touchdown. And there wasn’t much production from the other receivers. Quez Watkins had 3 for 33, Jalen Reagor had 1 for 9 and Greg Ward had a garbage-time touchdown with just a few seconds left.

Grade: B-

Offensive line

Grading a bit on a curve here. But for an offensive line with just one starter from opening day left, the Eagles’ offensive line performed pretty well. Lane Johnson was a last-minute scratch as he dealt with an undisclosed personal matter, but the Eagles adjusted and put Jack Driscoll at right tackle and Nate Herbig at right guard. Sure, the game plan got the ball out of Hurts’ hands quickly but there were a few times when the OL gave him a pretty sturdy pocket.

Grade: B+

Defensive line

Javon Hargrave: 6 tackles, 1 sack, 1 TFL

Well, at least Hargrave is playing well. But the rest of the defensive line is leaving much to be desired. Fletcher Cox and Ryan Kerrigan didn’t register a defensive statistic. And while Josh Sweat did have a big rush on the interception, he also had a costly penalty. And another big penalty from Derek Barnett.

Grade: D-

Linebacker

Eric Wilson: 10 tackles, 1 QB hit, 1 INT

Yes, Wilson had that interception but that was really forced from the pressure. The Eagles’ linebackers didn’t play well again. The Eagles gave up 200 rushing yards to the Chiefs after giving up 160 last week. The Eagles haven’t put a lot of resources into the linebacker position and it’s showing up on Sundays.

Grade: F

Secondary

Avonte Maddox: 7 tackles

Patrick Mahomes completed 24 of 30 passes for 278 yards and 5 touchdowns. Tyreek Hill had 11 for 186. The Eagles clearly wanted to prevent big plays but they suffered a death by a thousand paper cuts and the Chiefs averaged 7.5 yards per play.

Grade: F

Special teams

Jake Elliott: 3/3 on field goals, 3/3 on extra points

You can certainly argue that Elliott shouldn’t have been asked to kick three field goals in this game but he was and he made all of them. Quiet night for Arryn Siposs without a single punt; but he did a good job holding. Quez Watkins had what was nearly a disastrous kick return but Jalen Reagor actually had a good one for 44 yards.

Grade: C+

Coaching

Eagles record: 1-3

The good news for the Eagles is that Sirianni had a good game plan for his offense on Sunday that got the most out of Hurts. The problem was that they stalled in the red zone and Sirianni had some head-scratching decisions. There was the first-quarter flub when they took a timeout and still kicked a field goal and the decision to then not use a timeout late in the second quarter as Hurts took a sack. And on defense, Jonathan Gannon just doesn’t seem to have any answers for the second straight week.

Grade: D

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