Everyone knows this is not true
The 256th game of the NFL season, played for the first time on NBC, is usually a good starter for the playoffs. Last year, the 49ers defeated the Seahawks in the Sunday night Soccer displayed to win the NFC West and gain the home field advantage in the playoffs. This year it made everyone look with a sour taste in their mouth.
The Giants, who beat the Cowboys earlier in the day, just needed the Eagles to beat Washington to be crowned NFC East champions. Washington played like a team that knew it was on the verge of the post-season. The Eagles players also played hard, but their coach did not.
Early in the fourth quarter, Doug Pederson gave Jalen Hurts the hook and put Nate Sudfeld, the third striker of the career, in the game at fullback. Sudfeld was terrible and the Eagles lost without a fight.
After the game, Pederson explained his decision.
“Yes, I was winning,” Pederson said. “Yes, it was just my decision. Nate has been here for four years, of course, and I felt he deserved an opportunity to make a turn.
‘Listen, if anyone thinks I did not try to win the game, [Zach] Ertz is out there, Brandon Graham is out there, Darius Slay is out there. All of our top guys are still on the field. We’re going to win the match. ”
The charitable interpretation of the quote is that Pederson thought he could give Sudfeld a chance to play while also trying to win the game. Everything the national TV audience of Sudfeld has seen should make it clear that there is no way that can be true. The match was over when Sudfeld stepped on the field. Pederson is right: the few star players who were not inactive did stay in the game, but in the most important position on the field, the Eagles play a guy who looks as inefficient and superior as Cowboys QB Ben DiNucci earlier against Philadelphia was this season.
The impeccable interpretation is that Pederson laid his ass when he claimed the Eagles were trying to win the game. Pederson may point to the presence of Ertz, Graham and Slay as proof that he did not give up the game completely, but there is simply no way to compare it to his decision to put Sudfeld in charge of the offense. Even though Hurts easily played his worst game of the season, it’s ridiculous to indicate that the Eagles have a better chance of winning with him on the bench.
Pederson added Monday morning that he is also trying to evaluate some of the players further in the depth map.
If the goal is to evaluate the future of the Eagles’ backs, Hurts would have to play the entire game. The biggest decision the team will have to make this season is whether Hurts will remain the frontrunner and make Carson Wentz in the league’s most expensive league. Every extra moment Hurts takes, especially in a game where he struggled against an elite defensive line, makes the decision easier.
Nor is it a university where a bank warmer gets action in the final game of the season as a reward for doing the job over the years. Unless you are a playoff team that cannot improve your seed, players want to win every game in the regular season. The only other time Sudfeld saw extensive match action was in the final game of the 2017 season, when the 13-2 Eagles rested Nick Foles against the Cowboys after already gaining the home field advantage.
Giant players and fans (including myself) understand that the Eagles’ lack of effort ultimately decided the division race. (The Giants could also have taken their fate out of the Eagles’ hands by winning more than six games.) Fans of the 30 other NFL teams who were not from Washington should also be upset that the Eagles won the game in a mockery changed and that Pederson had the gall to claim it was not a sham.
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