The Eagles lost for the third straight week on Sunday and the margin of victory for their opponents has gotten steadily larger over that streak, which isn’t a trend that coach Doug Pederson would surely like to stop as soon as possible.
His chances of making that happen will increase if he can get everyone on the roster giving their maximum effort on a weekly basis. Pederson said that wasn’t the case when he was asked if everyone was playing hard in their 32-14 loss to the Bengals.
“Not everybody. Not everybody, and that’s the accountability that I talk about,” Pederson said in his Monday press conference. “You know, I hold coaches accountable for that. I hold myself accountable for that because it all starts with me and I pride myself each week to make sure the guys are ready to go. But at the same time, it comes down to a mentality by each individual player. You know, this is a business where we have to be ready to go every single weekend because every team in the league -- I mean, there’s some teams that are better than others, obviously -- but for the most part, anything can happen each weekend.”
Pederson said at another point that he didn’t see any quit in the team, but that may matter less than the fact that some engines never turned over in the first place. Pederson said he doesn’t have any doubts about his job security and that “it’s been 100 percent support on everything” from owner Jeffrey Lurie and General Manager Howie Roseman, but there’s no quicker way for that to change than losing games with lackluster effort from the roster.