They're 2-0, but Birds offense still isn't clicking

INDIANAPOLIS - The prettiest pass that Nick Foles threw Monday night traveled in a perfect arc from his right hand to the left corner of the end zone, and although Riley Cooper had Colts defensive back Vontae Davis at his hip, the football still descended into Cooper's hands as if a parachute were attached to it.

Here was a go-ahead touchdown falling out of the sky and right into Cooper's hands, if he could just do the thing that the Eagles are paying him as much as $22.5 million over the next five years to do. He did not do it. He did not catch the ball. The Eagles settled for a field-goal attempt, Cody Parkey missed the kick, and an opportunity to make a dramatic 30-27 victory a little easier on themselves was gone.

The Eagles are two games into the post-DeSean Jackson era. And even if Jackson wasn't returning to Lincoln Financial Field this Sunday with the Washington Redskins, promising to remind the Eagles of the talent they discarded for the sake of team chemistry or salary-cap space or Chip Kelly's peace of mind, the disconnect between Foles and the wide receivers would have kept the question alive anyway.

The Eagles have played one crisp, productive half of offensive football out of four so far this season, and the missed connection between Foles and his wide receivers still needs to be fixed. They have been fortunate that Darren Sproles has been something close to superhuman and that Zach Ertz is on track to have the breakout season that so many expected from and predicted for him.

They've been fortunate that Kelly embraces the unorthodox and unusual, that he's built an offense that can produce points when the two players who have been reliably producing big plays in the passing game are a running back and a tight end. But as silly as it is to say about a team that is 2-0 and has piled up 64 points, we haven't seen this offense really hum yet as it did at times last season, and until Foles and his wideouts get on the same page, it won't.

"We felt like we left a lot of meat on the bone," offensive coordinator Pat Shurmur said. "That's kind of our way of saying it. Especially early, we felt like we had some things open that we didn't connect on. We made some little mistakes."

The mistakes were "little" in that they were fundamental. They were basic. More than once, Foles was inaccurate when he had no excuse or reason to be, throwing behind receivers, rushing to get the ball out on those screen passes that are staples of Kelly's system. Cooper was open on that go route, and he dropped it. Jeremy Maclin failed to fight for another deep ball, allowing cornerback Greg Toler to vault over him for an interception. The Eagles dropped at least six passes Monday, depending on what the official statistics eventually say, and for too many stretches, for too long, Foles and his receivers seemed out of sync.

When Maclin finally made that tough crossing-route catch with 3 minutes, 25 seconds to go, tying the score at 27, you paused and blinked just to make certain he'd held on to the ball.

If this sounds like nitpicking after a night that warranted celebration, if it feels like an unnecessary search for the single burned-out bulb on the Christmas tree's strands of lights, just understand: This is the standard that Kelly established, and this is the standard that the Eagles will have to meet if they're to be considered serious Super Bowl contenders.

"That's the good thing," Shurmur said, "because you constantly need things to work on. I've never been involved in a perfect game from a player or a coach, so we'll go back and work on those things we didn't do well and build on the ones that we did, and we'll just keep moving."

It's a staggering thing to think about, because they can so easily zip down the field when they are doing everything right, but the Eagles can be better, and they will need to be. Their defense is opportunistic, but it's not particularly stout, and the Seattle Seahawks are still out there. The San Francisco 49ers are still out there. These are better defenses than the one the Eagles faced Monday night, and for all the joyful Eagles players and coaches spilling out from the Lucas Oil Stadium sideline when Parkey drilled that 36-yard field goal as time expired, this much remains true: They still have some work to do.

@MikeSielski