Finally, the Eagles had them stopped.
On a night when Aaron Rodgers was at the top of his game and defensive stands weren’t coming easily, the Eagles were able to force an incompletion on a key 3rd-and-4 with about four minutes to go in the third quarter of Monday’s 27-13 loss at the Linc.
They were about to get the ball back, down four points, with plenty of momentum.
But as Fletcher Cox got to his feet after pummeling Rodgers, the Eagles’ defensive tackle didn’t even have a chance to celebrate. The referee was already in the process of announcing a roughing the passer call on Cox, whose left forearm connected with Rodgers’ neck.
Instead of a defensive stop, the Packers were awarded a first down and marched down the field to score another touchdown.
Did Cox think it was a penalty?
“Absolutely not,” he said. “I thought it was a clean hit actually until I got up and saw the flag. I thought it was a clean hit, but like I said earlier, it’s hard to really stop 300 pounds when you get going. I wrapped my hand around his shoulder, I thought. And the referee, they’re going to call that, even if they think it’s close.”
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While Cox didn’t think the hit should have been a penalty, his head coach didn’t agree with him.
“It was a good call,” Doug Pederson said. “The head and neck area. ... Again, it's a tough situation for a defensive lineman because we teach them to go in with the hands up, try to tip passes. Anytime you strike the quarterback in the head and neck area, you're going to get flagged. It's unfortunate. Those are the things that I keep talking about. Those are the mistakes that we're making, the little things that we're making that are big things in games. We have a chance to get off the field at that time and don't. It's hard to overcome.”
This isn’t the first costly personal foul for Cox this season.
In Week 5, he was flagged for unnecessary roughness in Detroit, a penalty that negated a Connor Barwin sack on 3rd-and-9. The Lions scored a touchdown two plays later.
The next week, Cox was flagged for roughing the passer, which negated an incomplete pass on 3rd-and-4. Washington scored a touchdown three plays later.
So since his last sack, which came in Week 3 against the Steelers, Cox has three personal fouls that have extended drives and led to touchdowns for opponents.
Just because Cox didn’t think this one should have been called, he doesn’t differentiate it from the other two.
“Any penalty on third down hurts us because we’re off the field,” Cox said. “I think it was an incomplete pass. I think we get off the field on that and we get the offense the ball back. But since I got the penalty, it extends the drive and we didn’t get off the field.”
Cox wasn’t the only culprit of a costly third-down penalty — Brandon Graham was hit with a big neutral zone infraction in the fourth quarter. That was bad, but Cox’s penalty seemed to be the big tipping point in Monday’s game.
This is his third personal foul of the season, but Cox doesn’t think the officials are targeting him specifically. He just noted that anytime a play like that is close to the quarterback’s head, the ref is going to throw the flag.
He just thinks there wasn’t much he could have done to prevent it.
“When you play as hard as I play and as aggressive as I play, stuff like that happens,” Cox said. “I did talk to the referee and he said it was just one of those things where it was close and he had to call it. That’s how they protect the quarterbacks.”