The Philadelphia Eagles aren’t just losing. They’re losing in ways the NFL record books haven’t seen in decades, and the Eagles’ defense is a big reason why this season has gone sideways. A couple of stats from the latest loss are so ugly that I almost can’t believe they’re real.

The first one came straight from the broadcast Sunday:

The Eagles have allowed 100+ rushing yards in each of their first eight games for the first time since 1968.

Oh my gosh. Read that again. Philadelphia hasn’t been this soft against the run since before the Super Bowl era even started.

The defense is the bigger disappointment

Look, I’m mad at the offense. There has been no creativity, no rhythm, and no identity on that side of the ball. But for the first couple of weeks, the defense was at least trying to hold things together. That’s gone now.

Here’s what makes it so frustrating. The Eagles have most of their defensive starters on the field. This isn’t a unit decimated by absences and held together by practice squad call-ups. And they literally cannot stop the run. They can’t stop the pass either. Guys have regressed. Certain guys got paid and disappeared. In my mind, nobody on that side of the ball should feel safe, and anybody should be up for grabs.

And then there’s Vic Fangio. The Eagles convinced their defensive coordinator to come back for one more season, and this is what we got? I called this guy the godfather of modern defense. A savant. Philly had a top 3 defense over the last few years, and that version of this team is nowhere to be found. It’s unbelievable. How do you let this happen?

If you thought that first stat was rough, here’s mind-numbing stat No. 2:

Over the last six games, the Eagles have lost every game, been outrushed and outpassed in every game, and have committed five or more penalties in every game. No other team in the Super Bowl era has done that in more than four consecutive games. The Eagles have done it in six straight.

Six straight losses would be bad enough on its own. Getting beaten on the ground, beaten through the air, and beating yourself with penalties every single week for a month and a half? That’s a whole different level of broken.

As I always say, this team can’t just lose and lose normal. The Eagles have to be historically bad. They have to hit rock bottom before anything changes.

Howie Roseman has been down this road before

But if there’s one silver lining in all this, it’s that Eagles general manager Howie Roseman has to realize he can’t just slap a Band-Aid on this roster and patch it up. This isn’t the window of contention right now. Pretending otherwise would only make the hole deeper.

What Philadelphia really needs to do is circle 2028 and start building toward it. Retool. Load up. I don’t want to use the word rebuild, because I don’t think this team needs to be torn down to the studs. But the Eagles need to reshape what this roster looks like, especially on a defense that has aged and regressed in front of our eyes.

This has to be the motivation to finally do it. Roseman can’t repeat the mistakes he made after the 2017-2018 run, when the front office tried to keep a championship core together a little too long. He’s been down this road before, and he knows exactly how it ends when you hold on to the wrong pieces.

At the end of the day, the evidence is right there in the record books. Roseman needs to see what’s in front of him and make the necessary changes, because this group has already shown us who it is, and it’s not a contender.