No Time to Rest
Weary Pederson impressed with Packers’ ‘opportunistic’ defense
PHILADELPHIA >> The words came out wrong, and you really couldn’t fault Doug Pederson for he looked like he slept at the office following a gut-wrenching 27-24 loss to the Detroit Lions.
The head coach said he was “opportunistic” that wide receiver Alshon Jeffery would be back in the lineup when the Eagles play their second game in five days, Thursday at Lambeau Field. He meant to say optimistic.
With Jeffery on the sideline when the Eagles needed him most the past two games, Nelson Agholor and JJ Arcega-Whiteside dropped passes that almost certainly would have brought the Eagles victories.
Instead of 3-0, the Eagles are 1-2 heading into Green Bay, where the Packers have flipped their winning script from offense to defense under new head coach Matt LaFleur. This is where “opportunistic” comes in, only with respect to the Packers’ defense.
The Packers have a dozen sacks in three games, or six times the total of the Eagles. The Pack has eight takeaways, almost three times the Eagles’ total, and just seven fewer takeaways than they managed all last season.
“What jumps out, what I’ve seen so far, No. 1 obviously is the offense is being efficient and being able to score, score early,” Pederson said Monday. “The defense has been opportunistic. You look at their game yesterday against the Broncos, a couple turnovers there, one before half and then in the third quarter that caused or allowed 14 points. You look at Denver and you look at us and you’re going, ‘Geez, hang on to the football and maybe you got an opportunity there.’ They had a touchdown that was called back because of a penalty and things like that. So, this defense is very opportunistic, they can give you a lot of problems on third down.”
The Packers’ defense is surrendering 328.3 yards a game, the offense is averaging just 287 yards and averaging just 19.3 points with Aaron Rodgers and it’s kept them undefeated.
Sure, the combined records of Chicago, Minnesota and Denver was 3-5 entering the Bears’ game Monday night. But it works. It’s a plan. The way the Eagles have been winging it, it’s tough to tell who they want to be.
Physically, Jeffery and the Eagles have their work cut out getting themselves refreshed enough to take on the Packers and their Cheesehead fans. Veteran tight end Zach Ertz began icing himself before leaving the Eagles’ locker room at Lincoln Financial Field.
“We’re not going to practice a ton this week,” Ertz said. “It’s going to be a big mental week and up until Thursday, you do everything you can to get the body feeling as good as possible. Obviously, you’re not going to be how you feel on a typical weekend but you’ve just got to do whatever it takes to feel as good as you can.”
What disappoints Pederson most about back-to-back Eagles defeats are the turnovers, untimely penalties and drops the players have lumped together. He calls them “self-inflicting wounds.
“If we just eliminate that, take the injuries aside, we have a chance to win both football games,” Pederson said. “If we just make the plays that kind of come our way, make those plays, then maybe we’re talking a different story. So, I can draw a little bit on the injury front from the last couple of seasons but honestly, that’s not what’s keeping us from winning these two games.”
Get refreshed, get your heads right and come out ready to roll. That’s the challenge to All-Pro defensive tackle Fletcher Cox.
“We’re 1-2,” Cox said. “It’s only as tough as we make it at this point. We’ve got a quick turnaround so we can’t walk around feeling sorry for ourselves because Green Bay isn’t going to feel sorry for us. We’ve got to go out there and win one on the road. That’s something we haven’t done this year.”