Philadelphia Eagles running back Wendell Smallwood has revealed the Super Bowl champions were motivated to "win it for Jay" at Wembley on Sunday.
The Eagles beat Jacksonville Jaguars 24-18 at Wembley without the sidelined running back Jay Ajayi, who was ruled out of what would have been a triumphant homecoming after tearing his ACL earlier this season.
The 25-year-old Londoner, who moved to Texas aged seven, will miss the rest of the season and is facing an uncertain future with his contract due to expire in the summer.
But Eagles team-mates were determined to get a result on their first trip to the capital in a bid to lift the spirits of their stricken running back.
"We wanted to do it for him," Smallwood said. "All week we’ve been preaching: 'Win it for Jay'."
"We know how much he loves his hometown, we know how much he wanted to be out there, and we know how much work he puts in with us. So it was very important to get the win for him."
The victory puts the Eagles’ hopes of defending their title alive at 4-4 as the season reaches its midway point, though they still trail the Washington Redskins, who are 5-2 in the race for the NFC East title and playoff spot.
“It’s very important especially going in to this bye week,” Smallwood said. “We have a little momentum, we just wanted to go 1-0 despite all the distractions we had this week, coming out here, dealing with a lot of things besides football, we came here and we took care of business.”
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