The Philadelphia Eagles don’t owe apologies to anyone

The Philadelphia Eagles are being roasted everywhere, but it’s not their problem.

I’ve heard all of the accusations about how the Philadelphia Eagles disgraced the sanctity of football simply by making a quarterback change during Sunday night’s season-ending loss to Washington. And while I get where a lot of the vitriol is coming from, it should be made known that the Eagles and their fans shouldn’t care what other team’s coaches, active players, and retired kickers have to say.

It was in the Eagles’ best interest to lose in Week 17, and lose they did. People can talk about punitive measures like fining the organization or stripping a draft pick, but it won’t happen. Nor should it. Not when teams have mailed in entire seasons and gotten away with it. Yet, now a whole organization is getting lit up by an obviously bored sports media looking for stories. Meanwhile, you’re welcome for being able to cover the Alex Smith feel-good comeback tour for another week.

I’ll concede that the way that Doug Pederson handled things on Sunday was clumsy, a truly fitting end to an awful season in every respect. But we all know that he has a soft spot for those backup QBs, so he was clearly going to get Suddy or Sudsy or whatever Nate Sudfeld’s nickname is into the game. That’s all he did. He swapped out one player. An important one, yes, but one player. All of the other active Eagles who might be deemed as “good” remained in the game. But based on reactions across the board, you’d think that Pederson kneecapped the entire starting lineup and put scabs in. All because he lifted Jalen Hurts, who had burned the Washington defense for 72 yards through the air on 7-22 passing over three quarters.

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The funniest argument I’ve heard comes from people who say that they would have accepted if Sudfeld had just started the game rather than having things play out the way they did. On its face, this seems reasonable. But think about it. If benching Hurts is to be construed as “giving up,” then these people would have preferred that the Eagles not try to win at all rather than trying for three quarters, as they supposedly did. These people will feed you some line about making decisions based on what the moment dictates, but that goes out the window when the game means less than nothing, as this one did for the Eagles. We shouldn’t get all fired up about what Doug did or was told to do by the front office and is now being made the scapegoat for.

As hard as it may be, try to shut out what other fan bases or the sports media say. This season was fun for about two games, and winning on Sunday wouldn’t have salvaged anything, not even any kind of pride. Blame should also fall upon the NFL for flexing this game. They knew what they were getting into, or they at least figured that the Eagles wouldn’t have the guts to do anything other than toe the line. As usual, though, the league still came out as a winner because of how big of a manufactured story this ended up being.

I’m frankly also incensed at some of the Eagles players themselves. Their competitive fire can’t be denied; I know that. And I realize that Nate Sudfeld is, uh, not good. But rather than trying to rally around him and use some perceived tank job as motivation, they treated it as a death sentence. Or, less dramatically, a guaranteed loss. But where’s the support for your teammate? This guy has been with the team for this entire miserable season, and when he finally gets thrown some scraps, his supposed brothers in arms freak out about it – way to be good teammates.

Eagles players might tell you that they were more upset about Hurts coming out than Sudfeld entering, but there was nothing to be gained by leaving a rookie in behind that offensive line any longer. Does 5-10-1 really sound that much better than 4-11-1?

I will admit that I’m not totally happy with the way things played out. I was fine with the Birds losing this game, but I wish it was more straightforward. And I’m more concerned with long term implications of respect and confidence in the Eagles’ locker room than I am with how this looked to the outside world. I hope that no lasting damage will come from it, but I can’t be sure.

What I do know, however, is that the Eagles shouldn’t be blamed for a 6-10 Giants team missing the playoffs or be accused of breaking some code. They were simply a bad team, and if they hadn’t been so pathetic for almost the entirety of the schedule, this wouldn’t have happened. But it did, and it’s a fittingly embarrassing way to end this Eagles campaign. Yes, I’m simultaneously defending them while also taking smug satisfaction over this black eye.

My only irritation is that this whole scandal will prolong the amount of time it takes for the 2020 Eagles to finally leave our orbit and begin to fade from memory. Maybe this will end up just being a blip on the radar as the Philadelphia Eagles begin the long road back to respectability this offseason. Or maybe the media just won’t let it go, as they so often do. Either way, let’s just be done talking about this football season.