As Doug Pederson waited on hold for his weekly Monday morning interview on the WIP Morning Show, he got to hear the show’s main poll question after the Eagles’ 27-17 loss to the Giants.
It was a pretty simple one: “Who do you blame the most for the Eagles 10-point loss to the Giants?”
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And Pederson also heard that coaching was winning in a predictable landslide.
With that, we were off and running:
Doug Pederson: “Good morning, Angelo. Thanks for the lead in. I appreciate that. That was awesome. Listen, that just puts me in a great mood today. Already in a good mood, appreciate it.”
Angelo Cataldi: “I kind of felt you probably wouldn’t be in a good mood.”
NFL
DP: “Can I hang up now? I’m filling my obligation now if I hang up.”
AC: “Doug, I fully understand …”
DP: “I’m pissed off, Angelo!”
AC: “What about, Doug?”
DP: “I’m pissed off. I’m pissed off at myself. I’m pissed off at the way we played. It frustrates me. It frustrates me to no end. We have too much pride. I have too much pride. These players have too much pride. We work our ass off during the week. It’s frustrating. It is frustrating. Blame it on me all you want. I’ll handle it with the players, you can blame it on me, I’m a big guy, I can handle it. That’s fine. But this is … we’re self-inflicting ourselves, we are killing ourselves, we are shooting ourselves in the foot. All those cliche little statements are still showing up and it’s frustrating.”
After the game, safety Jalen Mills described the mood in the Eagles’ locker room similarly:
On Monday morning, Pederson was as emotional as we’ve heard him during his five years as the Eagles’ head coach.
And even he agreed that this is the most frustrated he has been in the last five years.
“Without a doubt. Without a doubt,” Pederson said. “Without getting into what we do here during the week, because I just don’t like to give all that information out. But there’s things we talk about as a team, things we talk about as coaches with our players during the week about how these games are going to be, how these games are going to play out. I mean, it’s almost like you could sit here with a crystal ball on a Monday and say, ‘I know exactly how these Giants are going to play.’ Right? You just know that. It’s NFC East. It’s the same way when you play the Cowboys or Washington. You just know.
“To me, that’s what’s frustrating, is being able to explain that during the week and even have the players understand and communicate that back. And then to go out and play like we did is very frustrating. I am frustrated. And I’m pissed off.”
Pederson should be mad. He should be frustrated. And he should be feeling the heat.
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