Eagles don't care who's behind quotes

PHILADELPHIA -- It's been an eventful week in Eagles land. The coach (sort of) guaranteed a victory. A starter was cut. And an anonymous Eagles player/source, cited by the Worldwide Leader in anonymous sources, criticized the team for not acquiring cornerback Jalen Ramsey and the offense for being overly complex.

Considering the Eagles just came off a dreadful loss and have a divisional showdown with the Cowboys looming Sunday, it's almost par for the course. But with the season seemingly at a precipice, you could almost feel the simmering tremors at the NovaCare Complex.

And in the middle of it all, fortifying the walls, was Coach Doug Pederson.

His declaration Monday that the Eagles would beat Dallas and the release of linebacker Zach Brown the next day were clearly messages meant to rattle the players. But Pederson had to take the opposite approach later in the week when anonymous quotes apparently breached the locker room.

"Yeah, you don't like to have anonymous guys," Pederson said Friday. "At the same time, I hate to say it, but we're kind of focused on the Cowboys right now."

While the content of the quotes, particularly the ones on the offense, don't make much sense when given context, the fact that someone spoke out of school anonymously is what should be of utmost concern.

And that it was the same ESPN reporter who last year cited an Eagles source saying that the offense ran too often through tight end Zach Ertz creates natural speculation -- internet sleuths had targeted one prominent wide receiver -- as to who may be the informer.

"Same person said I was getting the ball too much last year," Ertz said. "I mean, I don't know if it was the same source, but theoretically (it's the same person). And now we're not checking the ball down enough or whatever it is."

On Wednesday, a day after the Jaguars traded Ramsey to the Rams, the ESPN reporter wrote on Twitter that an "Eagles player" told her, "We dropped the ball." A day later, more interestingly, the same reporter went on TV and said an "Eagles source" had this to say about the offense:

"We need to make [it] simpler. Sometimes we need to just handle what is manageable. Even Peyton Manning knew when to check it down."

"I'm not a smart guy and I can figure out the offense," Pederson joked. "It's not that complicated."

"There's a lot of people who know a lot of people in the locker room," wide receiver Alshon Jeffery said Friday. "I know a lot of reporters."

So, Jeffery was asked directly, it wasn't you behind the quotes?

"What are we talking about?" he answered.

The comments were then paraphrased for him.

"Sounds like a story is being written to me," Jeffery said. "I'm focused on the Cowboys."

And then, one last time, he was asked directly if he was the source of the quotes.

"Nah, I feel like the only game we really lost was this last one," Jeffery said.

Receiver Nelson Agholor, who didn't have a public relationship with the reporter, issued a stronger denial.

"I will tell you on the record that's not something I mess with," Agholor said. "I don't mess with that. You feel me? That's one thing that needs to be known. ... That's not how I do business. That's out of my character."

Losing can fracture even the closest of locker rooms.

"These guys really -- things get thrown at them all the time," Pederson said. "It's kind of funny, because we play a game. We play a sport. We're all judged and critiqued on this sport that we play and coach.

"It seems like everything is about the negative with players or with coaches and there is not enough positive."

Winning or losing often dictates the narrative, though. A win Sunday would help flip the storyline.

Sports on 10/19/2019

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