The Philadelphia Eagles are off to a 2-2 start through one month of their Super Bowl defense.
Instead of panicking, coach Doug Pederson took a measured approach following Sunday's overtime loss in Tennessee, noting the Eagles need to play with a greater "sense of urgency" moving forward.
"For us to play like champions, first of all, we have to understand that we are champions, and ... you're expected to play a certain way," Pederson said, via Philly.com. "When you don't live up to that expectation, we need to just zero down on it and figure out why. The sense of urgency from players and coaches needs to heighten just a little bit. It's not a panic mode, but it's a heightened awareness of who we are as a football team, where we want to get to and we have to eliminate these penalties because they're coming at the wrong time and turnovers are coming at the wrong time."
On the plus-side for Pederson is Carson Wentz and the offense appearing to get in gear. Through four games, the Eagles have not yet scored 25 points after leading the league with 12 games of 25-plus points last year. Wentz looked fully healthy in his second stared, tossing for 348 yards and two touchdowns on 50 attempts Sunday. The return of Alshon Jeffery immediately paid dividends, providing Wentz a big body to box out defenders.
As the quarterback gets more reps, expect the Eagles' offense to soar higher as we move toward Thanksgiving.
The bigger issue is on defense, where Philadelphia has been torched this season. When the pass rush can't get home, the Eagles secondary has been picked apart. It's somewhat inexplicable that Philly allowed Marcus Mariota to convert three fourth-downs in Sunday's loss, including an inexcusable 4th-and-15.
Pederson didn't discount the idea of making changes to his personnel, but won't make any drastic moves at this point.
"We have to be careful that we are not just on a whim swapping people out," Pederson said. "If you start doing that, it starts moving other people around as well. We're going to take these next couple of days and really evaluate everybody, evaluate us as coaches, too, and see if there's a change to be made, we'll make it. If not, then we'll leave it alone. At the same time, we can also coach a little bit better and get our guys prepared in a situation to play."
In a muddy NFC East, the 2-2 start isn't a death sentence for Philly, but Pederson knows his team needs to kick it in high gear.
