TAMPA, Fla. – Jason Kelce left the field alone, head bowed and clutching a helmet he may never wear again.

It was far too melancholy a sight for an image-bearer who identifies so closely with his team's city, a 13th-year center who best represented his franchise's success while earning his sixth All-Pro selection, a 36- year-old who once seemed like he might make another run in another Super Bowl.

Instead, Kelce stood on the sidelines, emotionally absorbing the final seconds of the final loss of what might be his final season. Tampa Bay Buccaneers 32, Philadelphia Eagles 9.

How did it end like this? How did a season that began with such a seismic ascension end with such a cataclysmic collapse? How did the Eagles, who loudly left Kansas City after beating the Chiefs during a 10-1 start, endure the embarrassment of a wild-card elimination that left fans shouting expletives and threw a bucket at them as they left the field?

Kelce turned the corner of the hallway. There was general manager Howie Roseman standing at the locker room door. They shake hands. Cuddled. Kelce got dressed at his locker, turned to the crowd of waiting reporters and shook his head politely.

“No, guys,” Kelce said calmly. “Not today. Sorry.”

In the locker room there was no general explanation for the accumulation of problems that confused them. Some players were too despondent to say anything. Some came numb with petty considerations. Some seemed relieved that the misery of the season was finally over. But everyone expressed a similar sentiment, a disbelief in the sudden direction a once-promising season would take.

“It didn't end the way we wanted it to,” Jalen Hurts said. “It's just not our turn.”

The latter sounded fatalistic coming from the quarterback, as if Hurts believed such a failure was inevitable. It certainly seemed that way at the end of the regular season. A once-powerful offense that combined the gashing runs of Hurts and D'Andre Swift with explosive passes to AJ Brown and DeVonta Smith shriveled into a consistent series of dysfunctions.

First-year offensive coordinator Brian Johnson tried to give Hurts control over a system that allowed him to run through a list of pre-snap checks at the line, and while there were several moments in 2023 when Hurts thrived, the former MVP candidate went late in the season backwards as communication errors and frequent struggles to address the blitz continued.

An offense that seemed to have no real identity in Nick Sirianni's third year as the team's head coach often seemed disjointed. The Eagles opened the game against the Buccaneers with two Swift runs that totaled 11 yards. He carried the ball just twice more in the first half, and the Buccaneers built a seven-point lead while the Eagles successfully (and unsuccessfully) forced the ball to Smith.

The strategy started with two curious third-and-short scenarios in which Hurts threw incomplete passes downfield. On the first, a third and two, it appeared Smith and tight end Dallas Goedert got in each other's way while running the same route. Smith later said that Hurts had performed two pre-snap checks before the play, and that Smith and Goedert “saw something completely different” than Hurts intended.

“They were two different signals,” Smith said. “We (saw) one and did not see the other.”

That such miscommunications continued even into the playoffs offered insight into how often hiccups turned into heart attacks for the Eagles. At the very least, there was a consistent dissonance between the system the coaching staff and players had in mind and what was happening on the field. On a pre-snap check against the Chiefs, Hurts delivered a game-changing deep throw to Smith. Against the Seattle Seahawks, Brown acknowledged that an interception late in the game was due to their freelancing during the game.

“It's very frustrating,” Smith said. “Especially if you have the talent, the right mentality, doing the right things. Like I said, it's just small details you're missing.”

The consecutive kicks to start the game against the Bucs once again put the Eagles in a situation where they had to play from behind. The Buccaneers took a 16-9 halftime lead, which widened after the Eagles' offense failed to score in the second half. Sirianni and Johnson, tasked with a game plan without the injured Brown, powerfully routed the ball to Smith, whose 55-yard catch in the second quarter preceded the team's only touchdown.

The Eagles seemed too dependent on Smith winning his matchups in coverage. They started the second half with a three-possession game in which they lost 10 yards on 11 plays, with Hurts being penalized in the end zone for intentional grounding, a devastating safety as he tried to elude defenders while only under a four-man rush. Two plays later, Baker Mayfield delivered the back-breaker, an open completion to Trey Palmer, who ran by cornerback James Bradberry for a 56-yard touchdown that nearly put the game away, 25-9, with 1:19 left in the game. third quarter.

AGAIN, HOW DO YOU BUCS FANS FEEL?!

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—NFL (@NFL) January 16, 2024

An Eagles defense that has been disastrous far too often under de facto defensive coordinator Matt Patricia once again proved unable to adequately contain its opponent. The Buccaneers outgained the Eagles 426-276 in total offensive yards, while recording six plays of 20 yards or more. Mayfield completed 22 of 36 passes for 337 yards and three touchdowns, often targeting linebackers in coverage, finding pass catchers in wide-open zones over the middle of the field, or connecting with receivers breaking tackles for long gains after receiving .

Patricia started the match again with a series of defensive plans. The Bucs converted first downs on both passes and runs against Philadelphia's base 3-4, running back Rachaad White ran through a third-and-3 tackle on a swing pass against an Eagles pass-oriented nickel, and, on on Tampa Bay's second drive, Mayfield hit David Moore in stride for a 44-yard touchdown against Philly's six-defensive back-dime package, with three defenders missing Moore on dismal tackle attempts.

Too slippery! David Moore takes it for a 44-yard touchdown

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Sirianni's midseason decision to demote coordinator Sean Desai exacerbated the team's defensive problems. The Eagles surrendered more yards and points in five games under Patricia (375.8, 24.7 per game) than in the first 13 under Desai (353.9, 22.8). Sirianni acknowledged that his decision did not yield the desired results, but he declined to answer when asked if he would make personnel changes at any of the coordinator positions this offseason.

“I think we just put a few things on tape and the offenses copied that and it was kind of a rinse and repeat at times,” linebacker Nicholas Morrow said. “I think that's one thing. It's just hard to change defensive philosophy in the middle of the season. Completely different defense from a play-calling standpoint. And it wasn't for a lack of effort. I think everyone tried to make it work. That just didn't happen.”

So did Philadelphia's efforts for a late comeback. On a fateful fourth-and-5 in the fourth quarter, Smith couldn't haul in a Hurts pass in the end zone while dealing with tight coverage from cornerback Carlton Davis III. Smith said he went to Sirianni before the game and “told him to give me the ball.”

“We had the answer to everything,” Smith insisted. “We just didn't execute it consistently.”

“It was almost like we couldn't get out of the rut we were in,” Sirianni said. “And that's all of us. We all have to look ourselves in the mirror and accept that and just find answers, find solutions. But when we start 10-1 and you tell what happened for us, expectations were obviously high. Expectations were even higher when we started 10-1. We got into a skid. Clearly the game is calling. I'll check the schedule. I'll look at the practices. I'll look at everything we do because I think the last two years we've gotten a little hot at the end, and this year that wasn't the case.

The future of the franchise's leadership is now uncertain. Owner Jeffrey Lurie and Roseman must now decide whether the problems that persisted at the end of the season in Philadelphia can be addressed in a fourth year under Sirianni.

Firing Sirianni would be a high-profile decision. His teams have reached the playoffs in each of his three seasons while compiling a 34-17 record. But such a sudden departure would not be unprecedented. Only two other coaches from the Super Bowl era have been fired this season after losing the big game. The late Al Davis fired Bill Callahan after a 2003 Raiders team full of drama finished 4-12. Then, in 2015, John Elway fired John Fox after a 12-4 Denver Broncos team was coming off a loss to the Indianapolis Colts in the divisional round.

Both cases contain the polarity of the possible consequences that would befall the Eagles. The Raiders have reached the playoffs just twice under 10 other head coaches in the 20 seasons since Callahan's ouster, and the Broncos won Super Bowl 50 in their first year under Gary Kubiak. At the very least, Sirianni failed to delay such a decision with an Eagles victory on Monday night. When asked if he was worried about his job security after the game, Sirianni said, “I don't think about that,” and instead spoke about his feelings for the players whose seasons ended.

“We didn't finish anywhere we wanted to finish,” Sirianni said.

“We don't know what's in store for us next year,” Bradberry said. 'We don't know who will be here. Who won't be here. Because obviously we didn't meet expectations. We had a lot of expectations for this year. If you don't deliver on that, people will of course want to make changes.”

(Photo: Kevin Sabitus/Getty Images)