Turnovers Finally Catch Up to Eagles in Loss to Cardinals

When you stop to think about it, it’s amazing the Philadelphia Eagles made it to 5-2 to begin with considering the club entered Week 8 with 14 turnovers, one back of the NFL lead. Unfortunately, living on the edge finally caught up with the Birds on Sunday.

With three more giveaways in Sunday’s 24-20 loss to the Arizona Cardinals, the Eagles proved one immutable fact still holds true. The game of football is often won or lost in the turnover battle. No statistic (besides points, obviously) correlates more with the outcome of a game than turnover differential.

Case in point: Take away the turnovers and the Eagles likely go on to defeat the Cardinals with relative ease. Take away just one turnover and the Eagles probably steal a win on the road anyway.

Rick Scuteri/Associated Press

Two of Philadelphia’s giveaways almost certainly took points off the board. Rookie wide receiver Josh Huff fumbled at Arizona’s 2-yard line, where the Eagles would’ve had 1st-and-goal. Nick Foles’ first interception also came while the offense was in field-goal range and on first down to boot.

Conservatively, that’s six points off the board. Under optimal circumstances, it’s 14.

In either scenario, it would’ve been enough to come away victorious.

Foles’ second interception created a scoring chance for the enemy as well. The Cardinals wound up starting in Philadelphia territory and didn’t have to travel very far to secure three crucial points in the fourth quarter.

Even assuming the Eagles don’t score on that possession themselves, the field goal they gifted Arizona turned out to be huge. It forced Philly to score a touchdown in order to win on its final drive, a drive that came up 16 yards short of the end zone.

None of these turnovers was forced exactly either.

Huff wasn’t mindful of his surroundings and had the ball punched out from behind—good hustle by the defense but the rock should’ve been secured. Foles threw one pass into coverage, another woefully behind its intended target. All three plays easily could have been avoided.

Meanwhile, the Cardinals entered the week tied for the second-fewest giveaways in the league with four. They had one on Sunday, a lost fumble.

It’s no coincidence the Cardinals won the game because they won the turnover battle 3-1. It’s no coincidence Arizona, not Philadelphia, now stands at 6-1.

	GIVEAWAY	INT	FUM	DIFFERENTIAL
Stats	14	7	7	-5
Ranking	30th	t-20th	32nd	28th

With 17 turnovers this season, it seems like the Eagles have been beating the odds for quite a while, except they somehow only managed to lose the turnover battle twice prior to their trip to the desert.

The first time was on opening day versus the inept Jacksonville Jaguars, who had the Eagles on the ropes before eventually going down 34-17. The difference, of course, was three first-half giveaways by the Birds, which led to an early 17-0 deficit. Once they cleaned that up, the Jags were overmatched.

The second was Week 4 against the San Francisco 49ers, an opponent that held the Eagles without an offensive touchdown in a 26-21 loss. Philadelphia’s offense never even got off the plane other than to commit four turnovers to the Niners’ one, and the Birds were only in the game at the end thanks to stellar defensive and special teams performances.

YEAR	1 TO or less	2 TO or more	Win/Split TO Diff	Lose TO Diff
2013	9-4	1-3	10-4	0-3
2014	2-0	2-2	3-0	2-2

The Eagles fell to 2-2 on Sunday when losing the turnover battle in 2014 and are now 2-5 in two seasons under head Chip Kelly. It doesn’t matter who is standing on the sidelines when the offense coughs up the pill. Bad things are going to happen.

Of the 14 teams that entered Week 8 with double-digit turnovers, only the Dallas Cowboys and Indianapolis Colts joined the Eagles in boasting a winning record.

Not surprisingly, when the Eagles went 10-6 last season and went on to win a division title, they had one of the best turnover differentials in the entire NFL. Plus-14 was tied for third, behind only the Kansas City Chiefs and Super Bowl champion Seattle Seahawks.

Ross D. Franklin/Associated Press

Of course, it was a lot easier to avoid turnovers when Foles was setting an NFL record for touchdown-to-interception ratio. Nobody expected the third-year signal-caller to pull that off again, but he’s been by far the team’s most egregious offender.

After turning it over just four times in all of ’13, Foles is up to 12 giveaways through seven games. That accounts for all but five of the club’s miscues.

Foles has been given a long leash up to this point of the season for a number of reasons. Keep in mind, this was only his 23rd career start. Let’s not forget he’s coming off a historic campaign too.

Above all else, though, the Eagles were winning. That didn’t happen on Sunday. A lot of the quarterback's struggles this season can be traced to extenuating circumstances—namely a patchwork offensive line—but not turnovers. That's on him.

Foles wasn’t solely blame for the loss in Arizona. Kelly’s game management left a lot to be desired, and a defensive meltdown surrendered the lead late in the fourth quarter. That being said, we can only predict the losses will continue to mount if the turnover problem is not fixed.

Not later. Not soon.

Immediately.