Birds at best when they are doubted
If the Eagles were going to be doubted as they entered the 2017-2018 playoffs, they were going to own the role.
If they were going to be underdogs, they would rock German shepherd masks. If they were going to presumed professionally inferior, they would rally behind Malcolm Jenkins and his famous “we’re all we got, we’re all we need” proclamation. If their quarterback was injured, why, they’d win with another one. If their coach was presumed inept, he would respond with plays so inventive that they could rework NFL history.
The Eagles were not going to hide from what was, what could be or the failure that many of their fans expected. Jason Kelce even kept a mental rolodex of the complaints, just in case he’d ever wind up on the Art Museum steps in a mummer’s outfit. They did that then, and they did it again, including as recently as nine months ago when they dismissed some midseason doubt with a December ram
page to a division championship.
It’s what the Eagles do under Doug Pederson.
They thrive when doubted.
Two games into a season with its own particular challenges, even if the exact challenges are spread evenly about the league, the Eagles are being doubted like they haven’t been doubted since they won that Super Bowl LII. They are 0-2 and have allowed an average of 32 points. Their quarterback, Carson Wentz, has been prone to sacks and turnovers, including a thirdquarter interception in a 37-19 loss to the Rams Sunday that Pederson Monday would call “unacceptable.” They are nicked. They lack a dedicated offensive coordinator.
They are, by every indication, in regression. Dog masks, anyone? “We didn’t work this hard all offseason to turn our back on each other right now,” said Brandon Graham, who has been around for it all. “We just need to stay focused and keep working hard. We are fighters. We’re not going to give up.
“I love that about us.” Of all the comments to leak out of the Linc Sunday, that was the one that, for the moment, must be most honestly considered. The Eagles have earned every sour critique for their 0-2 start, for their questionable recent drafts, for some play calls, for a general decline since that Super Bowl season. Not
one of those reviews has been unfair. It’s pro sports.
“I’ve been hired here to win championships,” Pederson said Monday, in his regular day-after news briefing, “and to win games.”
That’s how it works. But how it works, too, is that if a program has shown a pattern of responding well to defeat, it has the right to be heard when it says it can do so again. The Eagles have the right to be 0-and-2 in a 16-game season and not be pressured into changing quarterbacks. They have the right to prove they can correct it all before the mob demands unreasonable change.
“Listen, there’s going to be setbacks, right?” Pederson said. “There’s going to be things that don’t go our way. But instead of just folding up our tents and going and do something else, we’re going to fight the fight, man.”
It’s not 2017 anymore. It’s not even 2019. Some leaders, including Jenkins, are no longer around the NewsControl Compound. Wentz has hit a plateau on his way to what once seemed certain superstardom. The offseason was convoluted. The realities of major-league coaching in any sport are that, eventually, there is a recycling day. But even if the Eagles were inclined to panic just two regular-season games after winning a division championship, they would be looking for a leader who has proven able to lead a team out of a slump. They’d be looking for a coach like Doug Pederson.
“We’re going to sit in here and we’re going to grind,” Pederson said. “We’re going to figure this thing out. I’ve got smart coaches. I’ve got smart players. Those guys in that locker room are mad. They’re upset that we’re 0-and-2 and in this position. But nobody is going to feel sorry for the Philadelphia Eagles or feel sorry for me.
“I am going to come here every day and take questions. And you might not like the answers, quite frankly. But what I care about is getting our team right and getting our team prepared to play the Bengals Sunday.”
The Eagles opened as five-point favorites over Cincinnati, with the wise guys quickly driving it to six and a hook. So the odds literally are that they will be 1-and-2 by next Monday.
They’ve been in worse spots.
“Obviously, it is very frustrating to be 0-2,” Kelce said. “It is on to next week. It is only going to stop when we start winning games. It doesn’t really behoove you to look too far past our next opponent, the Cincinnati Bengals.”
Not looking too far ahead is a football standard. It as for the Eagles under Pederson, and as for Wentz and Graham and Kelce and others who have been doubted before, it can be helpful to peek a little to the rear.
“We are much better than the results,” Rodney McLeod said. “We put in a lot of work. We just have to look ourselves in the mirror and figure out what we’re doing. We need to give a little bit more of ourselves, whatever that looks like individually. And then collectively we just have to put a complete game together, particularly on defense.”
In two games, the Eagles have shown no reason to believe that can be done.
In the last four years, they’ve shown plenty of reason to believe it can.