Eagles Trying to Remain Optimistic for Playoffs: 'We Still Have Some Life Left!'
EAST RUTHERFORD, N.J. – The party line is that everybody is 0-0 now. It’s the playoffs and it’s a whole new season.
All 0-0 records, however, aren’t created equal. The Philadelphia Eagles are 0-0 but lost five of their final six games to sap any momentum they might have been able to build and probably rob them of any confidence they may have had by losing their final two games to the lowly Arizona Cardinals and New York Giants.
Nevertheless, the Eagles are taking the message and running with it as they prepare to jet to Florida to play the Tampa Bay Buccaneers on Monday night in the wild-card round of the playoffs.
Dallas Goedert said maybe the Philadelphia Eagles were in cruise control after qualifying for the playoffs weeks ago.
Ed Kracz/SI Eagles Today
“Right now, people are going home, people are packing up their lockers, but we’re still in this thing,” said the team’s eternal optimist, Brandon Graham, after the Eagles fell to the New York Giants in a 27-10 laugher at the Meadowlands on Sunday.
“We have some life left. We have some pride about us, so I’m just making sure people know it’s 0-0.”
Graham has been saying for weeks that the Eagles defense is close to turning things around even though they have never seemed any further away from that. He said his confidence in a turnaround stems from the fact that, once upon a time, this team was 10-1 before folding to 11-6.
“We had that will to win,” he said. “I just believe with our backs up against the wall people are going to come back fighting. Everything that happened regular season, we can clean it up, but it’s 0-0 right now. That’s my message, ‘What we gonna do now?’
“We have an opportunity. We have crumbs. What are we going to turn them into? As long as we have life, man, we have an opportunity. I’m excited for that.”
Graham’s longtime teammate, Fletcher Cox, isn’t spewing sunshine.
“The feeling I get from this team is very scary right now,” he said. “Obviously, everybody’s sad. We just got beat up pretty good by a really bad football team. Let’s just say that.”
Cox didn’t play on Sunday as the team chose to rest their 33-year-old defensive tackle who played 66 percent of the defensive snaps this season. Yet, he felt the need to address the situation in the postgame locker room.
“As a captain and you got a bunch of young guys, and we do have a lot of young guys on the team if they see me down, then they’re down,” said Cox. “I never feel sorry for myself. The moment I feel sorry for myself is the moment you’re not going to see me standing here, giving these postgame interviews…
“It’s all or nothing right now, and I kind of know this team, at the moment, is kind of in a funk. But for us, everything is now win or go home … I can bet you this team is going to come out on fire.”
Tight end Dallas Goedert agrees.
“Absolutely we’re still together,” he said. “I have no doubt on that. I have no doubt we’re going to go and put a good game together next week.
“Maybe we’ve just been sitting at this spot knowing we’re in the playoffs and maybe we’ve been on cruise control a little which is something you never want to say, or you want a team to do but I know this team is going to be roaring and ready to go come next week.”
