Mistake-prone Eagles drop game to Lions
PHILADELPHIA >> There were times Sunday when it seemed like Malcolm Jenkins was the only Eagles defender keeping up with the competition.
Not that the Detroit Lions and their Matt Stafford-fueled offense was all that efficient, it’s just that the Eagles’ defense was missing that badly.
You wanted to see a Detroit punt? You had to wait to nearly the midpoint of the second quarter for that. By that time, the Lions had a fourpoint lead at the Linc, with plenty of disappointing play by the home team still to come.
Yet by the time Stafford took a couple of knees and the Lions finally iced a 27-24 non-classic victory, Jenkins would have a lot to say about the few highs and collective lows, specifically lows on his personal performance chart.
It’s what the great players and leaders do. Tackle the post-game with humility.
“I’m trying to perform as best I can, regardless of the situation,” Jenkins said after the Eagles had lost a second straight game they could have won. “I know there’s plays I’m going to look at and feel like I left out there. The same play where I broke (a crucial Detroit pass) up, they ran it two other times and they completed them. I missed a sack on another one, and then the block in the back...” Oh yeah, that one.
It came with less than two minutes to play in the game, the Eagles apparently bailed out of a loss by some questionable play-calling by the Lions’ coaching callers. And it came after a play by Jenkins that just as easily could have been heralded as game-saving and an early seasonturner.
As Matt Prater tried to put the game away with a 46-yard field goal, Jenkins came out of nowhere and blocked it. The ball was picked up by Rasul Douglas, who rumbled to the Detroit 40, where with 1:39 left to play Carson Wentz had quite a reasonable game-tying or even winning challenge ahead.
Except that there was a flag down, and it was Jenkins behind called for a block in the back on the Douglas return. The ball was moved back 10 yards,
“Everyone was staying positive,” Wentz said. “Everyone was pretty optimistic. We just needed 20 yards to be in field goal range.”
Three Wentz incompletions and an offensive interference penalty later, the Eagles had run out of downs against a team they really had no business losing to, not even with their two top receivers (DeSean Jackson and Alshon Jeffery) out with injuries.
“Right now,” Jenkins said,”all of those things are controllable. I’m not talking about anybody beating me or us getting schemed up, it’s just us being where we’re supposed to be.”
Where should the Eagles be? At least 2-1, maybe even 3-0. According to Jenkins, however, the only place they can easily strive to get to is that state of grace where repeated mistakes aren’t part of their weekly story.
And Jenkins, after a game in which he made three tackles, got in on another, broke up at least two spot-on Stafford passes and blocked that late field goal attempt, wasn’t about to absolve himself of any wrong-doing.
“We’re looking at small things here and there,” Jenkins said of his team’s problems, “and that’s just how close these games are.”
All three Eagles games thus far have indeed been close. They’ve also been similarly scripted; not scoring enough early, making enough mistakes to help the other guys get a lead that has Wentz and Company struggling to play catch-up.
Jenkins was adamant that the mistakes have to be corrected. What doesn’t bother him is how those mistakes are making the Eagles play comeback football.
“You’re going to play from behind in this league at some point and I don’t think that makes anybody in this locker room uncomfortable, to be honest,” Jenkins said. “We’ve done it too many times . ... I don’t think playing from behind is a problem. The problem is when you spot teams points. The turnovers, things like that, the chances of you winning when you end up minus in the turnover margin, when you give up a return for a touchdown (like the Jamal Agnew’s 100-yard return for TD Sunday) . ... Your chances of winning then are like, slim to none.”
Cutting into the Eagles’ comfort zone were the two fumbles on one offensive series that rookie running back Miles Sanders committed, the second of which was lost to the Lions. Or another pass drop by Nelson Agholor, although this one was worse than the prior week’s because this drop went for a fumble and another turnover.
Those two fumbles were the only turnovers in the game, another factor in the Lions’ favor.
“We know we can score at will, know we can get stops on defense,” Jenkins said. “It’s just the self-inflicted things we need to get ironed out.”