Regrets, according to Doug Pederson, were few the morning after the Eagles watched a 10-point, fourth-quarter lead morph into a difficult-to-digest overtime loss to the Dallas Cowboys. In fact, the head coach had to rewind his game footage to the first quarter to find the one thing he would have done differently during an evening that seemed to have plenty of reasons for remorse.
"If there is anything in this game that I look at and point a finger at for myself, it would probably be the play in the first quarter on the fourth down," a bleary-eyed Pederson said Monday inside the NovaCare Complex.
The first quarter? Refresh our memory, please.
"We kicked the field goal, we got the roughing, it would have put us at a fourth and 1 and it would have been a situation at the 7-yard line to possibly go for it," Pederson said.
His point was that he should have been more aggressive and gone for seven points instead of settling for three. Pederson's attacking style had been a quality that endeared the rookie coach to the football-crazed masses of this city through the Eagles' first six games. With a share of first place on the line Sunday night, however, Pederson turned conservative, opting to rely on a defense that proved to be far short of great when the game was on the line.
In Pederson's mind, he was being aggressive on the fatal third-and-8 call from the Dallas 30-yard line with just over seven minutes left in the game.
"I looked at that again this morning, I looked at it on the plane last night and I'd have called the same thing again," he said. "It's assignment football. I think it's one of the basic fundamental plays we've repped the entire season in a man situation, which we got, and it just comes down to assignments. We busted one assignment and the negative play happened."
Pederson's view was that center Jason Kelce, after hindering the play with a low snap that was fumbled and quickly recovered by quarterback Carson Wentz, failed to run interference on Dallas linebacker Sean Lee, who tackled Darren Sproles for a 6-yard loss immediately after the elusive running back caught the screen pass.
Here are three reasons that Pederson should have regretted his decision:
Asking Kelce to get out on the edge against Lee was like asking a linebacker to cover an outside receiver, especially when it was clear that the Eagles center was less than 100 percent as he limped off the field at the end of the first half.
Rookie right tackle Halapoulivaati Vaitai also was beaten on the play by Dallas defensive end Tyrone Crawford, who probably would have made the tackle even if Lee did not.
A simple handoff to Sproles for a short gain or even no gain would have set up a field-goal attempt by Caleb Sturgis, who has connected on 17 of 18 attempts, including three from beyond 50 yards this season.
"We make that play, we are inside the 20-yard line," Pederson said. "When you look at it on film, we are inside the 20-yard line with first and 10."
In reality, the Eagles were staring at a fourth and 14 from the Dallas 36.
Even then, Pederson could have opted to send Sturgis out for a 53-yard attempt that would have restored a 10-point Eagles lead. That would have been the aggressive play, the move that said he had confidence in his kicker and his defense.
Pederson went passive and sent in his punter. Donnie Jones did his job by pinning Dallas down at the 10-yard line. The defense did not do its job as the Cowboys went 90 yards for the tying score.
Still, the coach had one more chance to be aggressive.
After his own offense twice went three-and-out with the game on the line, Connor Barwin sacked Dak Prescott for an 8-yard loss on a second-and-10 play with 30 seconds remaining. The Eagles had all three of their timeouts remaining and Dallas was sure to be conservative on a third-and-20 play from its own 18.
Pederson opted for overtime.
"I felt doing the math on everything and you burn two timeouts in that situation, you might get the ball back with about 15 seconds and one timeout and you have to go 30 to 35 yards to kick the field goal," the coach said. "I was relying again on the fact that our defense was playing extremely well at the time ... and I was fully confident in our team going into overtime that we were going to win the game."
We know how that turned out.
Maybe Pederson had no confidence in his offense covering 30 yards in 15 seconds because it has had just one play of more than 30 yards in its last four games. The offense has also failed to compile more than 300 total yards in each of its last three games, averaging just 256 in that stretch.
Pederson swears when he reviews game footage that the offense is close and he insisted the Eagles can win without making big plays on a weekly basis anyway.
"Yeah, we went 9-0 in Kansas City [last season] and we didn't do it," Pederson said. "I've seen it done."
The Chiefs actually won 11 in a row with a rather pedestrian offense a year ago when Pederson was their offensive coordinator. Kansas City had a lot better defense than the Eagles. Maybe that's something a passive Pederson learned when he leaned heavily and unsuccessfully on his defense to win the game against the Cowboys.
