McCaffery: Time for Pederson to restore order
PHILADELPHIA >> The Eagles lost a game, and an important one, Sunday night in Dallas. It happens.
Fumbles bounced inconveniently. It happens.
The Cowboys’ field goal, even at 63 yards, naturally swished at the halftime horn. It happens.
An early deficit necessitated risky in-game changes of plans. It happens.
The Eagles fell into second place. It happens.
“We’re going to get better,” Doug Pederson said. “We’ll learn from it.”
That happens, too. But receivers ripping the quarterback, even anonymously, can’t happen.
And being late for practices and meetings can’t happen.
And short-arming passes can’t happen.
And all of that static arriving around the same time can’t happen, for it will lend context to what did happen to the Eagles in a 37-10 display of unseemly football in a showcase TV game good for first place in the NFC East. That context: The Eagles didn’t just have a rough night of football. No, they were paying for troubles that have begun to dig much deeper than some ball-handling misfortune.
By Monday afternoon, there was Pederson, assuming his place at the NewsControl Compound lectern, fully briefed on how to make it all sound reasonable. But unlike most of those dayafter routines, the Eagles’ coach was confronted with issues not easily shooed away in coach-speak. They were not to be explained with a quick reminder that he found positives in his film study. They were not simple football mistakes that could be corrected … or dismissed.
Begin with Lane Johnson,
and his postgame blast on Channel 10’s post-game show that revealed information Pederson could not afford to be leaked.
“Really there’s probably going to be a call-out session,” said Johnson, whose contributions at right tackle had provided little help. “Everybody will be held accountable. Little stuff that slides during the week, late to practice, late to meetings will be held accountable for.
“I think that will maybe creep into the games.”
So there it was, on TV, live and stunning. The Eagles, some of them anyway, seem to be “late to practice,” and “late for meetings.”
Beg pardon?
What?
How does that happen at that level?
“We just have to make sure,” Pederson said, “that our sense of urgency and that accountability is there.”
Over and over Monday, Pederson attempted similar diversion tactics. But those raw revelations would not go away, at least not until his team would begin a substantial winning streak and Johnson identified their new commitment to punctuality as the reason.
“I think, obviously, that message starts with me,” Pederson said. “I love the fact that they’re talking that way. It shows that it means something and it’s important to them. And those are the little things that you carry over into the workplace. I mean, if an employee shows up late or not on time for certain things, then there are consequences for that.
“I’m not saying that’s happening, but that’s a little thing that can magnify itself in a game, meaning you’re not going to pay attention to your assignment or to alignments and different things. And that’s kind of creeping in just a little bit.
“But it starts with me, and that’s where I get to control that message and drive that point home.”
Any time now would be OK. And what is so “little” anyway about a culture where a team leader can go on TV and start spilling that there had been at least some tolerance of unprofessionalism?
Pederson, a former Eagle, is known as a players’ coach. But Week 8 of an NFL season is no time for him to decide to emphasize that reporting late to practice has a chance to be frowned upon. And if reporting times are not being enforced, what would stop a player from short-arming a pass, or forgetting to apply a block, or, yes, start yammering to an ESPN reporter that the playcalling is weak?
That’s what happened last week. One player complained not just about the play-calling but the way it had been handled at times by the franchise quarterback. By Monday morning, a broadcaster on the Eagles’ flagship radio station, WIP, one who likes to brandish his Eagles championship ring, identified the whistleblower as Alshon Jeffery. Jeffery has denied that. Just the same, somebody in that room is emboldened to take off-the-record verbal swipes at Carson Wentz. And either that player, or another rogue voice, felt it necessary to complain, too, that Howie Roseman wasn’t able to trade for cornerback Jalen Ramsey.
Since the Jeffrey news was leaked by an entertainer who rides on the team plane, Pederson was asked if that was information the Eagles deliberately wanted shared.
“That has nothing to do with the Buffalo Bills this week or the Dallas Cowboys,” he replied. “So I’m not going to answer those comments. I’m not going there.”
Instead, Pederson will go to Buffalo Sunday, where the Eagles will try to recover from dual lopsided losses to the Vikings and the Cowboys. But if he believes that locker room leaks, or disinterested players or unprofessional behavior, alleged or otherwise, doesn’t explain the 3-4 record in a season the Eagles expected to contend for a championship, he is wrong.
Some things in football just happen.
A locker room breakdown is not one.