Tougher Love Greets the Eagles, Wentz at Bye Week

Doug Pederson is making the most of a bad situation by getting some extra work in before the players get their CBA-mandated downtime

PHILADELPHIA - Nothing is normal in 2020 so why would an NFL bye week be any different?

Typically Eagles players would scatter across the country to visit family and friends by the weekend for a perfectly placed midseason respite after taking care of business against a woeful Dallas Cowboys team on Sunday night.

The strict COVID-19 protocols, which have only been ramped-up in recent days as virus cases spike across the country, are forcing everyone in the NFL to shelter in their own cities when the bye arrives, however.

With the Eagles, a first-place team but a bad one at 3-4-1, it's conceivable Doug Pederson would have kept his team around until the weekend in a normal environment anyway, but the coach is taking advantage of a bad situation by getting some extra work in before the players get their CBA-mandated downtime over the weekend.

All facilities around the NFL are closed Tuesday for Election Day, although the coaches will work from home. Then the Eagles will return to the NovaCare Complex on Wednesday as they continue to look under the hood with a self-scout before turning attention toward the New York Giants on Nov. 15.

“We're going to bring the players in on Wednesday," said Pederson. "Want to work with the players. And we've got to get better. This is the time where we can look at the first eight games and really self-scout and evaluate and find ways to improve all three areas of our team. It's also a chance to get some guys healthy and prepare."

“... I will give players and coaches some time at the end of the week to relax and sort of get away and spend time with their families like we normally do."

Punctuating the pre-bye schedule with a win and cementing the title of first place would usually mean a full week off for the players but the context of Philadelphia's position is not lost on Pederson and the coach was very clear in emphasizing that the team's play - even in consecutive wins over the Giants and Cowboys - simply hasn't been good enough.

So a player's coach turned into a bit of a disciplinarian and ordered the extra work.

From a logic standpoint, an extra day of "grass time" or film work isn't going to make much difference but the act of ordering it may open up an eye or two especially from a mentor who has been successful scaling back on-field work in-season to keep his players as healthy and as fresh as possible.

“The season, it's a marathon. It's long, right? It's not a sprint,” said Pederson. “You don't sprint to the finish. Are we where we want to be? Yeah, we're in first place in the NFC East, but at 3-4-1, it could easily be the other way, right?

"It (also) could be 4-3-1 or 5-3 or whatever it could be. But there's a lot of positive that we see as coaches on the inside that give us the encouragement and the opportunity to get better as a team.”

The Eagles are a first-place team in name only when compared to their peers in other divisions and Pederson understands that which is a good thing.

The fool's gold here would be flexing after an Evan Engram-drop and Ben DiNucci serving up two wins as early Holiday gifts.

Maybe the tougher love is most needed by quarterback Carson Wentz, who turned the football over four times against a Cowboys defense that arrived at Lincoln Financial Field Sunday night dead last in the NFL when it came to allowing points.

"Too many turnovers. I have to be better," said Wentz. "There’s mistakes out there - some of it’s maybe not on the same page, some of it I have to, you know, the first fumble I should've thrown the ball away. That stuff I can keep cleaning up, and obviously, it’s stuff that, individually, I can get better at."

The fine line of harnessing Wentz's ability to extend plays and be aggressive is the magic equation the Eagles are trying to solve.

"Some of these shots down the field, I’m going to keep giving these guys chances and I can be better and put the ball in the right spot, but I’m not going to change my aggressive mentality," the QB said. "We’re going to start connecting on some of those big plays. Obviously [the turnovers] hurt us a little bit (Sunday night), but the defense played great and we got a win.”

The NFC East affords Pederson the luxury of time and he plans on using it.

"We have to go through the tape. We have to go through the cutup of the turnovers and see if there are decisions that we can make otherwise," said Pederson. "Really that's the only way to begin to correct these types of mistakes is if - it's no different if a player makes a few mental errors during the game. We have to show them the mental errors and we fix it and correct it and move on.

"It's no different with the turnovers. We've just got to make sure that we eliminate them, or at least reduce them, and give ourselves a chance to - because we're leaving points on the field, right? And a couple of these have come in the high red zone or the red zone where we have opportunities to put points on the board and that's where we have to really focus in and not turn the ball over."

John McMullen contributes Eagles coverage for SI.com's EagleMaven and is the NFL Insider for JAKIB Media. You can listen to John every Tuesday and Thursday on "The Middle" with Eytan Shander, Harry Mayes, and Barrett Brooks on SportsMap Radio and PhillyVoice.com. He’s also the host of Extending the Play on AM1490 in South Jersey. You can reach him at jmcmullen44@gmail.com or on Twitter @JFMcMullen

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