Penalty Flags are Piling up on Eagles and DE Derek Barnett
Eagles defensive end Derek Barnett has already been fined for a helmet-to-helmet hit this season, and that was just a week ago when he sent out Green Bay packers running back Jamaal Williams from the game on a stretcher.
Barnett was hit with a fine for $28,075 for that hit.
This season, he already has three penalties for unnecessary roughness.
“Derek and I have talked,” said head coach Doug Pederson on Monday. “We talk during the week. We talked during the game (Sunday) about it. Listen, it's an emotional game and sometimes things escalate during the game. Having been out there and being around those guys, obviously you don't ever want to be labeled as one of those type of athletes, but he's aggressive.
“He plays hard. He plays to the whistle. I’m not going to take that away from him, obviously. We've just got to be smarter and it starts with me communicating that with the team and being a more disciplined football team that way.”
The Eagles as a team have had some difficulty with penalties, to say the least.
In their 31-6 win over the New York Jets on Sunday, they were hit with nine penalties for 76 yards. Many of those either sent them into first-and-longs or nullified a first down and stalled a drive.
Last week in their win over the Packers, the Eagles were flagged nine times for 93 yards. Eight of those penalties came on defense and resulted in a Green Bay first down.
For the season, the Eagles have been penalized 35 times for 314 yards.
The Eagles are far from alone when it comes to penalties, though, as more and more, games seem to be over-officiated.
“I know this, it is tough for the officials,” said Pederson. “The game is high-speed. It’s fast. It's aggressive. They are having to look at a lot. So from that standpoint, things get missed and things get called that, as coaches or players, we probably don't think should be called.
“It's tough. We have to clean up what we can clean up. We control what we can control. We talk to our team every week about penalties and not only penalties that we've committed, but we show them clips league-wide of things so that we are prepared, and we have to do a better job preparing our players to not make these fouls in-game.”
As for Barnett, he stands out because of the nature of his fouls. Against the Jets, he hit a Jets player way behind the play on an interception return from linebacker Nathan Gerry. It was completely unnecessary and the 15 yards penalty had the Eagles kicking off from their own 20-yard line.
“What I saw on the coach's tape is just that he was in front of the offensive lineman, and they collided and then he went low on the offensive lineman and he didn't need to do it,” said Pederson. “It was away from the play. We talked about that as soon as he came off the field. He understood that. But it was just a mistake that he didn't need to make.”
If Barnett isn’t careful, there could come a time, too, when he gets ejected, and that would be very harmful for a defensive end rotation that counts on his presence.
