The defending Super Bowl champions are hitting a make-or-break point.
The Philadelphia Eagles sit at 4-5, already with two more losses than they experienced all last season, on the precipice of being regarded as mostly irrelevant heading into December.
Center Jason Kelce identified one key difference between the Lombardi-hoisting squad of last year and the 2018 version: accountability.
"Last year, it just seemed like everybody was clicking," Kelce said, via ESPN. "We had guys like Brent Celek who had been here a long time who was very accountable, Torrey Smith who had been in the league for a long time, very accountable. Mack Hollins was a guy that gave great effort. LeGarrette Blount and all of these running backs that, they had their limited amount of stuff that they had to know, but they knew what to do, and they knew how to do those things. That's what we're missing. We're missing that accountability."
The attrition of veterans leaving in the offseason and a massive list of injured players -- eight already heading to injured reserve at one point or another -- have depleted the Eagles' depth.
Kelce highlighted that he's not saying the lack of accountability means the Eagles have "bad guys" or a poor mentality in 2018.
"This isn't just players, this is coaches, this is everybody," Kelce said. "Everybody takes accountability in making sure that everybody is ready to go. From a players' standpoint, it's on you to make sure that you're watching the film, you're doing everything during the week necessary for you to improve, to make sure that you understand the finer coaching points, every little detail, so that when you're in the middle of the game, you're not playing slow or apprehensive, you know exactly what you have to do and you can go 100 percent and give great effort. And it's also on the coaches to make sure everybody's ready to go."
"[Last year] there was a much greater level of accountability from a cohesive standpoint of everybody working together, and part of that is just on the makeup of the team and guys having done this for a long time and knowing the ins and outs of the game."
Badly needing a win in a pivotal game against the NFC's top-seeded New Orleans Saints on the road is not an ideal place for the Eagles. Yet that is the bed Philly lies in.
Last year the Eagles flew to the Super Bowl on the back of a motivating underdogs mantra. It's that mentality that Philly needs to find for the stretch run, or they'll spend January watching others fight for their trophy.
