Jason Kelce, the Anchor of Eagles O Line, Faced the Music after Loss

Personnel was an issue the loss, especially without Lane Johnson, but coaching adjustments, or lack of them, could have been as well

LANDOVER, Md. – Center Jason Kelce faced the music right after an embarrassing outing against the Washington Football Team in the season opener. 

It was a scratchy record, because, well, eight sacks of your quarterback isn’t something that gets played often and ends up in the back of the closet with stuff piled on top of it.

There’s always the familiar chorus of, “we’ll get back to you after we look at the tape,” but Kelce took a stab at only why Carson Wentz was sacked eight times and knocked down countless others but also why the run game was nonexistent.

Everybody, as Andy Reid used to say, has a piece of the pie in letting Wentz go down early and often – coaching calls, the line, running back protections or lack thereof, the line calls, and Wentz holding the ball too long.

Kelce, though, pointed in the direction of the coaching, saying that Washington blitzed a lot, especially through the middle of a line, showing some exterior pressures that neither WFT head coach Ron Rivera nor defensive coordinator Jack Del Rio had shown much of in previous coaching stops.

That doesn’t mean Kelce is ripping the coaches. He’s just stating what looked factual, without watching the tape.

“That really hadn’t been their MO in previous years,” said Kelce. “They’ve always been more of an edge pressure team, and they really put an emphasis on sitting down out inside runs and bring pressure up the middle and we didn’t handle it well enough.”

So, is that an indictment of offensive line coach/run game coordinator Jeff Stoutland, Matt Burke, who also has run game coordinator attached to his title, pass game coordinator Press Taylor, senior offensive assistant Rich Scangarello, or Doug Pederson?

It’s hard to tell with so many different cooks stirring the same broth, but it starts and stops with the head coach, who, if he had in-game adjustments, they weren’t visible. Maybe watching the tape will show them. Maybe not.

Pederson and Wentz called it a tale of two halves. It could be argued that is was that way because Rivera and Del Rio adjusted, and Philadelphia never seemed to readjust to that adjustment.

Maybe it was just a matter of personnel.

Yes, the Eagles were short-handed on the OL front, and learning Lane Johnson wasn’t going to line up at right tackle just 90 minutes before kickoff didn’t help in the slightest.

Kelce said that the team knew Johnson was iffy leading up to kickoff but added that Johnson’s recent surgery to clean out an ankle was “trending in a good direction leading up to the game. I think he was really pushing it. He had a lot of moments where there was a lot of swelling. 

“I think everybody was hoping and praying he would be out there because of the type of player he is and what he means to our team, but that being said I thought Jack (Driscoll) went out there and battled his ass off. When he went down, (Jordan) Mailata went out there and battled his ass off.

“Herbie (Herbig), I thought he did a decent, solid job for his first start. I know that the numbers really seem to suggest that the O-line played didn't play great and we didn’t, we didn’t play great. We played very average to poor at times and everybody kind of took their turns contributing to that.

I think in the first half especially there’s a lot of good things to learn from, but overall in the second half everybody needed to play better, everybody had to get their job done just a little bit better. Those two guys for being young guys went out there and did what’s expected of young backup offensive line to do.”

Mailata played 18 snaps – the first 18 football snaps in a real game of his 23-year life – in relief of Driscoll, the rookie who limped off in the second half.

There really is no replacing Johnson, however.

The Eagles are 36-17 with Johnson in the lineup and 6-12 without him. There are other, more intricate numbers that show the Eagles are better with him, too.

“Even when Lane comes back, there’s going to be other guys that are going to have to step up again,” said Kelce. “That’s the way this thing goes. We have to make sure everybody is ready to go and everybody’s improving, right?

“Everybody’s going to be able to watch this tape and know you could’ve done a better job, you could’ve done a better job on this play, that play, better technique, communicated better, whatever it is, there’s a lot of things everybody will be able to take from this tape and get better for next week.”

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