The Eagles may be 4-0, but it hasn’t been clean. Their 31-25 win in Tampa showed it: crisp in one half, messy in the other. Left tackle Jordan Mailata called out the slow huddle breaks, timing issues that quietly reflect on Jalen Hurts’ offense, even if not on Hurts himself.

Mailata said the Eagles are taking too long to break the huddle, which is giving them less time to read the defense before the snap. He told reporters it’s something he plans to focus on this week as a team leader. Good to see him speak up.

It’s the same conclusion most fans came down to. Philly owned the first half in Tampa, racking up 201 yards, and then… nothing. The final gamebook shows 201 yards at halftime and, somehow, 200 total (net yards) by the end. Slowdowns are understandable, but that’s a flatline.

And yes, that complacency in the first half left the door wide open, making it impossible to identify defensive fronts. Tampa slammed through with those two monster touchdown bombs (77 and 72 yards), flipping the game on its head and forcing Philly into survival mode late.

The wild part? Inside the red zone, they were perfect. Three trips, three touchdowns. But between the 20s? Ice cold. That points as much to timing and play-calling as execution, which Mailata admitted, saying they were “one block away” on some runs and needed to punish stacked boxes with play-action.

“We have to do a better job up front. But also, if we know they’re gonna load the box, let’s see how we can pick them apart. Maybe we run some play actions.. Again, it starts with us, but if you look at the plays, we’re one block away. Many people are not understanding, we are one block away. You can watch the film, the all-22, we’re just one block away. The lanes are there,” he added.

That inconsistency didn’t go unnoticed, and it’s exactly what head coach Nick Sirianni addressed with a pointed message to the locker room.

Nick Sirianni sends a warning to the locker room

Sirianni isn’t a fan of the Jekyll and Hyde act, and he called out the locker room with a stark warning. “Don’t let good get in the way of great,” Sirianni said, adding, “Talent wins you games, but a certain level of team, collective play, collective attacking, and intelligence in the game, that wins you championships.”

But the second they slip into cruise control, they turn into a watered-down version of themselves. Take Jalen Hurts: in the first half, he has 15-of-24 for 130 yards and two touchdowns, looking sharp and in rhythm. You’d think he’d come out of halftime ready to stack on top of that. Instead, it was like someone swapped him out for his evil twin.

He didn’t hit a single pass after halftime, going 0 for 8. And it got uglier from there: five straight three-and-outs, another drive that sputtered after five plays, and aside from one short-field touchdown, the offense managed just 33 yards the entire half.

Well… 67 if you’re generous enough to count the 34-yard run that was basically just them kneeling on the clock.

“This has been his message all week. ‘Don’t let good get in the way of great. And it’s a challenge to not settle for good. It’s a challenge to be critical of yourselves as players, as coaches, everybody, and say, ‘How can we be greater than what we are?’” Hurts said in response to Sirianni’s warning.

He is still the player he was two years ago. All he needs to do is produce consistent football across the two halves.