Jalyx Hunt Shines, But Eagles’ Offense Wastes Another Defensive Gem
Jalyx Hunt had the kind of night every edge rusher dreams about. He was everywhere - 2.5 sacks, 8 tackles, 3 quarterback hits, a forced fumble, and 6 pressures.
It was the most complete performance of the young linebacker’s NFL career. But when the final whistle blew and the Eagles walked off the field with a 22-19 overtime loss to the Chargers, Hunt wasn’t celebrating.
He was hurting.
“It might look good stats-wise but a loss is a loss,” Hunt said postgame, visibly frustrated. “It’s cool for your mom to talk about, your dad to talk about.
But me personally, I don’t take any consolations. It don’t feel good.
It wasn’t enough, at the end of the day.”
And he’s right - it wasn’t enough. But it should have been.
Let’s be clear: the Eagles' defense did its job on Monday night. After surrendering a touchdown on the Chargers’ opening drive, Vic Fangio’s unit locked in.
Over the next 12 possessions, they allowed only five field goals and held the Chargers to an average of just 16.25 yards per drive. Justin Herbert was under siege all night - sacked seven times and pressured on a staggering 68.3% of his dropbacks.
That’s the highest single-game pressure rate by any defense this season.
This wasn’t just a good defensive showing. It was dominant. And it was wasted.
Fangio’s defense is playing with an edge, and more importantly, with discipline and cohesion. But the frustration is real - and understandable. Because no matter how many times they get off the field, the offense just isn’t holding up its end of the bargain.
Still, to their credit, this defense isn’t pointing fingers. That’s not always the case when one side of the ball is clearly outperforming the other.
Locker rooms can fracture. Players can start playing the blame game.
But so far, the Eagles have kept that from happening - a reflection of the locker room culture Nick Sirianni has worked to build.
“Just play our ball, stick to what we do and get better,” linebacker Zack Baun said. “We haven’t been playing our best either. We can only control what we can control and try our best to play complementary ball.”
Even Hunt, after a career night, wasn’t letting himself off the hook.
“We made some mistakes on the defensive end that we need to clean up,” he said. “They scored, I don’t know, more than we scored.
That hurts. The score hurts, all the field goals hurt.
We gotta stop them a little bit more.”
That kind of accountability is rare - and valuable. But at some point, it’s fair to ask: what more can this defense do?
Sirianni, for his part, continues to preach team unity.
“This is the ultimate team game,” he said. “One phase has to pick up another.
There could be games like that, and there can be games the opposite way. That’s the important part of always connecting with everybody in the building, controlling the things you can control.”
But here’s the reality: the Eagles have the highest-paid offense in the NFL, and through 14 weeks, they’re ranked 19th in points and 24th in total yards. That’s not just underwhelming - it’s unacceptable for a team with postseason aspirations.
And it’s not trending in the right direction.
Since their Week 9 bye, the Eagles have played five games. In that stretch, the offense has scored just 8 touchdowns - only the Raiders, who recently fired offensive coordinator Chip Kelly, have scored fewer over the same span.
That’s 8 touchdowns on 59 possessions. Just 13.6%.
Even if you filter out end-of-half or end-of-game drives, the production is still anemic. This offense, loaded with talent and built to be explosive, has been anything but.
Meanwhile, the defense has allowed just 9 touchdowns since the bye - second-fewest in the league over that span, behind only the Vikings. Yes, the unit had a major hiccup against the Bears, giving up a staggering 281 rushing yards in a game that will live in infamy for all the wrong reasons. But outside of that outlier, this defense has been consistent, allowing just 17.2 points per game since Week 10.
That kind of effort should be enough to win games. But the offense hasn’t held up its end.
At 8-5, the Eagles are still in the playoff mix. But if they’re going to make a real run, it’s going to have to come on the back of this defense.
The offense doesn’t need to be elite - it just needs to be competent. Right now, it’s not even that.
“We got this long flight we gotta get on,” Hunt said. “That sucks after a loss like this.
Gotta restart. We got the Raiders coming up this weekend.
We gotta look at them on film and just keep building.”
That’s the mindset this team needs - build, reset, and keep grinding. But if the offense doesn’t find a spark soon, it won’t matter how many sacks Hunt racks up. This defense can only carry so much weight before it starts to break.