Eagles players knew before they even got into the locker room Sunday that they needed to talk as a team.
Philadelphia head coach Nick Sirianni divulged after the disappointing loss to the Jets, the Eagles’ first of the season, that he didn’t address the team immediately after the game. It was instead an impromptu players-only meeting.
The meeting came after an uncharacteristically bad week for the Eagles, the offense in particular. Jalen Hurts threw three interceptions in the loss, and the inability to score at all in the second half resulted in Philly coughing up a 14-3 lead over the final two-plus quarters. A Breece Hall touchdown with 1:46 to play and the Jets down two secured the 20-14 win for the hosts.
Eagles captain Brandon Graham offered some insight into the postgame locker room chat Tuesday in his weekly appearance on the 94WIP Morning Show.
“On the sideline we were talking already,” Graham said. “We knew that this wasn’t going to define us, but it would definitely help us in the long run – because we’ve been kind of fortunate, we go 5-0, we don’t feel that feeling in a minute of getting beat, especially on not playing our best.
"So that is where we felt like we needed to step up as leaders of the team, where coach already had said what he’s going to say, we already knew that we didn’t carry out the game plan like we needed to, because he had a good one. When we talked about it yesterday, offense it was just like little, little details that we talk and preach. But we felt that.
“Right when we got in, it was right away. A.J. (Brown) started talking and it just trickled down for everybody to be open and to be very honest with each other of ‘Man, it was on me.’ A lot of guys wanted to put it on themselves, but it was us as a team, and so I’m taking it too because shoot, at the end of the day, we’re all in this thing together.
“And so that’s really what that was about, let coach know that we got his back, that we didn’t put out our best. We knew that we couldn’t wait to get to this week so that we can get another opportunity to try to bounce back and get that bad taste out of our mouth.”
That opportunity will come Sunday night at the Linc against the Dolphins.