Bradford's frustration mounts with another loss

LANDOVER, Md. - Sam Bradford seemed committed to burying himself beneath his locker Sunday, so low did his head hang, so lost and lonely did he look in the quiet of that visiting locker room at FedEx Field. He sat there for a long time before pushing himself to his feet and trudging off to take a shower, the Eagles' 23-20 loss to the Redskins still sending him to a place somewhere between frustration and bewilderment. The game hates Bradford right now. Whatever he does right isn't enough, and whatever he does wrong is too much.

For a while Sunday, the script appeared to be writing itself. He had emerged from halftime, with the Eagles down by 13-0, a new quarterback: throwing two touchdown passes to tie the game, limping off the field late in the third quarter after spraining his ankle only to return and fire a third touchdown, 39 yards to Miles Austin, on the second play of the fourth quarter to give the Eagles a 20-16 lead. Here was Comeback Sam. Here was the guy the Eagles hoped he'd be when they traded for him in March, riding in to get them to 2-2, to get them a victory in the NFC East, to save their season. Here was, after four weeks of play from him that was at best inconsistent, a franchise quarterback.

But there were two late third-down throws that could have extended drives and that Bradford couldn't complete - one that was behind Darren Sproles, one to Jordan Matthews that was knocked from his hands, either of which could have led to a field goal or touchdown that could have finished off the Redskins. So many could haves. And again, for the third time in four weeks, the entire offense was godawful over a game's first 30 minutes.

"I wish I knew how to explain it because then we'd get it fixed," said Bradford, who threw for 270 yards and three touchdowns. "It seems to kind of be the story of these first few games. We're two completely different offenses. Once we get it going, we're pretty good, but for whatever reason, it seems like there are times we just struggle to get it going."

This first half was beyond a struggle. It was abject failure. The Eagles went 1 for 5 on third down. They had 44 rushing yards, 30 of which came on one carry by DeMarco Murray. Bradford went 5 for 10 for 75 yards. Yet for all the excuses that can feel so empty when it comes to explaining why Bradford hasn't been a more productive passer, this time it was difficult to blame him.

The departure of left tackle Jason Peters to a quadriceps injury forced Chip Kelly to move Matt Tobin into Peters' spot and to insert Dennis Kelly at right guard. If Kelly had wanted to test Bradford's confidence by putting him in the most challenging of situations, he could have done better only by having no one pass-block at all Sunday. The Redskins sacked Bradford three times in the first half, and it was fair to wonder whether Kelly might replace him with Mark Sanchez, just to stop the waves from crashing on Bradford's head.

Of course, Kelly was the one who had set the stage for that chaos, and the scene was a reminder of just how different his approach to building the Eagles has been from his predecessor's. Once Andy Reid, a year into his tenure, recognized that the Eagles had a franchise quarterback in Donovan McNabb, he and the Eagles' player-personnel people made solidifying the offensive line their No. 1 priority. They signed Jon Runyan. They cultivated enough depth that when center Bubba Miller was lost to injury, his replacement, Hank Fraley, remained the starter for the next 41/2 years.

Kelly did the opposite in the offseason. He tried to improve the skill positions. And if the decision to let guards Evan Mathis and Todd Herremans walk away was defensible, the inability to acquire upgrades wasn't, especially when it came to protecting Bradford and his tear-prone left anterior cruciate ligament.

"We said, 'We don't care who the receivers are. If we don't make [McNabb] comfortable and confident in the pocket, he can't showcase what he can do,' " said a former member of the Eagles' organization from the Reid-McNabb era, who spoke on the condition of anonymity. "We had checked the most important box, but we needed to make some additional decisions properly. You can say they haven't done that."

In fairness, during the second half Sunday the line bought Bradford enough time to find Riley Cooper on that 62-yard touchdown deep down the center of the field, to shed Redskins linebacker Ryan Kerrigan and hit Brent Celek for a 10-yard score, to loft that 39-yarder over the top to Austin.

"You guys act like we don't want to throw the ball down the field," Bradford said, parroting Kelly's insistence that defenses have been taking deep throws away and the Eagles have been powerless to do anything about it. It was an answer with an edge, and it was good to see from Bradford.

That flash of firepower, though, only gave the Eagles the lead. It assured them of nothing. And as the Redskins tramped down the field on that 15-play, 90-yard drive for the decisive touchdown, the Eagles' defense too dog-tired to stop them, Sam Bradford had to be left asking himself what the hell it's going to take for him to get even with the game.

msielski@phillynews.com

@MikeSielski