Turnovers and penalties are devastating the Eagles, but who is at fault?

ORCHARD PARK, N.Y. - The Bills could see it. They knew it.

The Eagles, for all of their explosive offensive talent, don't take care of the football. Buffalo took advantage.

"A couple of guys have been loose with the ball. Carrying it around, hanging it out, trying to make big plays," said Bills linebacker Nick Barnett. "All week we've been focusing on trying to rip that ball out and trying to cause turnovers and things like that. It paid off."

It certainly did. The Bills created five turnovers on Sunday, turning them into 17 points and snuffing out two Eagles drives that had moved inside the Buffalo 35. The Eagles lost by a touchdown, 31-24. As Andy Reid once said, we can all count.

The concern goes beyond one loss on Sunday, though. The bigger picture problem is that the Eagles coaches are well aware of the turnover problem and have been unable to fix it. That is a damning reflection on them and an ominous sign for an already ugly year.

"You can't have five turnovers and win a game in the National Football League," said head coach Andy Reid. "There's nobody to blame but me. That's how I look at it. I start with me, and I take full responsibility for it. It's my football team."

Those are the right answers to the media. The question is, why hasn't Reid been able to come up with the right answers on the field?

Sunday's five turnovers on 12 offensive possessions was the worst showing for the Eagles offense, but it wasn't isolated. They have 14 turnovers during their four-game skid, including four in the red zone.

That's how they put up 489 yards Sunday and scored just 24 points, and how 513 yards last week turned into just 23 points. The Eagles at times can look good enough on offense to make up for their porous defense. But they stop themselves at an astonishing rate.

The Eagles are on pace for 48 giveaways this season. The most any team has had going back to at least 2000 is 46, by the 2006 Raiders. (The most readily available NFL statistics on turnovers only go back to 2000, though the league record of 65 turnovers in a season seems safe.)

Players dismissed questions about whether turnovers and bad penalties - two signs of a lack of discipline - fall on coaches.

"Coaches ain't turning the ball over," said wide receiver Jeremy Maclin, who had a huge fumble to end the Eagles chances last week.

"There's no pinpoint reason. . . . It's not coaches that's turning the ball over. It's us out there playing."

And he's partly right. There have been batted balls and bad decisions - including a Mike Vick throw Sunday that Bills linebacker Barnett turned into a touchdown. Ronnie Brown's fumble last week was just foolish. There have been mistakes by stars and role players. Jason Avant, one of Reid's most reliable players, had his hands on two killer giveaways Sunday. Players deserve a share of blame.

Defensive tackle Cullen Jenkins said each man has to focus on his own mistakes.

"It's not undisciplined. It's just each individual just focusing in on what they need to do and what they have to do," he said. "I just need to look at what my mistakes are, and if I just focus on my mistakes then it's simple. And if we just have that, then it'll be easy to correct."

Those are rational words from a veteran quickly emerging as a voice of reason. And that seems like a sound approach for each individual Eagle to take.

But Reid and his staff are responsible for the collection of individuals who make up the team and the overarching issues affecting them.

When multiple players are making mistakes in multiple situations over multiple weeks, that points to a systemic problem, and the coaches at the top of that system.

The other teams can see it, and the fans can see it, and the media can see it, and, yes, Reid can see it. But if he and his staff can't fix it, they aren't doing their jobs, at least not well enough.

The Eagles rank in the middle of the pack in the NFL when it come to penalties. But when a defensive lineman jumps offside on an obvious hard count - as Juqua Parker did Sunday - and when the offensive line takes two red zone penalties that turn a touchdown into a field goal, the players only raise more questions about the way they are being taught.

"We have to stop [the penalties] because right now we have no room for error," said defensive coordinator Juan Castillo. Another right answer to reporters but without a solution on the field.

"If we fix the turnover situation and the penalties in key situations," Reid sad, "we get this thing turned around."

That's probably true. But it was also true last week, and it only got worse Sunday.

Now it might be too late for both the Eagles and for Reid.