Well, this is awkward.
Eagles coach Doug Pederson has caught plenty of flak for his head-scratching coaching decisions in the team’s season finale Sunday night. He could have avoided it if he had listened to his Pro Bowl center, Jason Kelce.
Not long after Pederson benched Jalen Hurts Nate Sudfeld in the third quarter to finish out the game — a plan that saw Philly lose to Washington, 20-14, and jump up three spots in the 2021 NFL Draft order to No. 6 — a recent video of Kelce discussing the importance of winning over tanking popped up.
“I think at all times in the NFL, the focus should be winning the football game,” he said. “Nothing else takes precedence. No player evaluation, no amount of curiosity from anybody within the organization — everything is focused, in my opinion in this league, upon winning games. You see a lot of losing teams sustain losses for a number of years when they have bad cultures. They have cultures where you don’t try and win every week. Where you’re trying to think, ‘What are we going to do in the draft? What are we doing in free agency? What can we do over here?’
“In football — this isn’t basketball — one draft pick isn’t going to make us a Super Bowl champion. It might be a big start to a Super Bowl championship. But it’s always going to be about the team. That’s the greatest thing about this sport. And in culture, and the way guys fight, and the way guys go to prepare, and the way guys go about their business is a huge reason for success in this league and in this sport.”
Kelce, part of the Super Bowl-winning squad in 2018, may not even be around to see what the No. 6 pick can do for the team, and he appears to know it. After the Week 17 loss, Kelce, Wentz, and tight end Zach Ertz stayed on the team’s bench to talk, with all three having their Eagles futures in question.
“Nothing takes precedence over trying to win a football game,” Kelce said in his recent diatribe. “I don’t care who you’re trying to evaluate. I don’t care if you’ve lost every game, you’re 0-15 and it’s the last one you’ve got — everything is about winning in this league.”
It’s a clip Kelce may want to play for Pederson at some point.
