Doug Pederson and the Eagles might have thought they'd gotten the focus back on football the past few days, after an extended period of turmoil over last week's anonymous quotes from a player unhappy with the organization and with quarterback Carson Wentz.
But as Pederson was wrapping up his Friday news conference, cornerback Orlando Scandrick, released by the Eagles earlier this week, was going on FS1's "Undisputed" show with hosts Skip Bayless and Shannon Sharpe to rip the organization and question the locker room atmosphere.
Scandrick was cut twice by the Eagles, at the end of training camp and then this week, in the wake of Sunday night's 37-10 loss to Dallas, the team Scandrick played for in 10 of his 12 NFL seasons.
Scandrick was released along with veteran defensive tackle Akeem Spence. He said his release "felt really, really scapegoatish. The problem in Philadelphia is much, much deeper than me."
His most direct criticisms were of general manager Howie Roseman and of safety Malcolm Jenkins.
"I don't believe anything that Howie says," Scandrick said. "Howie is one of the people that if he told me it was raining outside, I'd probably get some shorts, just in case. He put it to me that they wanted to play some younger players, they're a mess on defense, they needed to get some more defensive linemen, and we'll see how that works for them this weekend up in Buffalo."
Then Scandrick referenced the coverage mix-up at Minnesota, which Jenkins said was his fault.
"On defense, they have stuck together pretty good," he said. "But I think there's some selfish people on that defense. Rasul Douglas, who is a good friend of mine, he took some unwanted heat for some blown coverages on some other people's selfish play. And we don't have to say names at all. They know who they are."
Sharpe and Bayless then went into an extended shtick in which they suggested the selfish player was Jenkins.
"When you wear a 'C' on your jersey, it's your job to bring guys along," Scandrick said. Jenkins is a defensive captain. "Sometimes you need to take the hard down, you need to take the hard job, and you need to, like, bring the thing together. I don't know if that's the case. Look at everything that happened _ you hold out for a contract (Jenkins sat out optional OTAs, did not hold out), you come in, you're not really making any splash plays and you (blow the coverage). That's not a rookie we're talking about here, that's a two-time Super Bowl champ."
Scandrick, who has never played on a team that went to the Super Bowl, said his theory is that the Eagles "are having a tough time dealing with success. Whenever you gotta say, 'oh, we gotta get it together, oh, nobody believes in us, oh, 'it's about us,' you're already doomed."
Asked by Bayless about dissension in the Eagles locker room, Scandrick said: "Let's just say, where there's smoke, there's fire." He then described a scenario in which a player is having a discussion with another player and "it gets leaked to him. So he's going to get the edited version. So what was the version that me and you were actually talking about."
So far, there are no instances this season of anything like what Scandrick described. The anonymous quotes from ESPN reporter Josina Anderson last week were presented as having been given to her directly, not as part of some overheard conversation.
"That locker room is different," said Scandrick, who said he told Eagles players "I still feel like they're living on that Super Bowl high. It's over. You're living in the past."
He suggested younger Eagles players don't understand how hard it is to get to the Super Bowl.
"It's some accountability issues there, and it starts from the top," Scandrick said.
Scandrick said right tackle Lane Johnson's comments after the Dallas loss about lateness to meetings and practices no longer being tolerated were directed at "somebody of some significance," but then he said he didn't know who that might be and acknowledged that "I wasn't there long enough to even dive into that, that comment was made, I was released the next day."
Scandrick didn't directly criticize Wentz, except to extol Dallas quarterback Dak Prescott's work ethic, and to suggest that Wentz and his receivers working after practice during times of struggle somehow implied that they weren't doing that earlier. Scandrick played only three games with the Eagles, the blowout win over the Jets, in which he had two sacks and two fumble recoveries, one for a touchdown, and the blowout losses at Minnesota and Dallas.
Scandrick, 32, played for Andy Reid in Kansas City last season and then the three Eagles games this season. He made his ultimate loyalties clear to Bayless and Sharpe.
"I never really felt at home" in the other locker rooms, he said. "If I could take back one thing, if I have one regret, it's that I didn't stay with the Dallas Cowboys organization."
