Eagles receiver Jeremy Maclin wants to make something clear: He didn’t back away from contact out of a fear of getting hit in Sunday’s loss to the Cowboys.
Maclin said today that FOX analyst Troy Aikman was wrong to suggest during the game that Maclin had been backing away from taking a hit on a play when Maclin went over the middle but failed to come up with a pass.
“It wasn’t like I was easing off because I didn’t want to get hit,” Maclin said. “I thought I couldn’t make the catch on the ball, so I was bracing myself for the hit. There’s nothing wrong with that. If you want to call that soft or scared, so be it. But anybody who’s been here, I’ve gone across the middle plenty of times, gotten hit and made plays. Simple as that.”
Maclin may not have been afraid, but it did appear that bracing himself for the hit was at least part of the reason he didn’t make the catch. It’s reasonable for an analyst to point that out.