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For a team sitting at 8-4 and still on top of the NFC East, the Philadelphia Eagles have felt more like a group on the brink than a contender. Even Saquon Barkley has admitted that the team’s sideline energy has been “awful” this season, saying the juice fans and cameras see from Monday to Saturday just is not carrying over to game day.
Speaking with The Athletic’s Zach Berman, Barkley tried to put the current skid in perspective. “On the outside, everyone’s going crazy, probably. In here, it’s like, it’s the NFL. We’re 8-4. We have a great opportunity on Monday night.”
Those three words, “it’s the NFL,” have become his internal mantra, a reminder that panic outside the building cannot dictate how the locker room responds.
Barkley was blunt about the problem. He said the energy in meetings, walkthroughs, and practice has been strong, but that something gets lost once the whistle blows.
On the sideline, in his view, the group has dragged, failed to lift each other, and looked nothing like a team fighting for a division crown. It is not a secret, either.
Tom Brady hammered their body language during the marquee matchup with the Cowboys, calling out a group that looked more like it was counting down to vacation than hunting another Super Bowl run.
Inside the locker room, players are at least trying to fight back against the gloom. After a deflating 24-15 Black Friday loss to the Bears that dropped Philly to 8-4, sparked fan meltdowns and even led to offensive coordinator Kevin Patullo’s house getting egged, the offensive line brought in a giant inflatable “positivity rabbit.”
The irony is that, for all the noise, the Eagles still control their fate. They remain in first place, are “very likely” to reach the playoffs, and should get a major boost when All-Pro tackle Lane Johnson returns from a Lisfranc sprain, which he has been dealing with since Week 11.
Whether Barkley’s “it’s the NFL” mindset and a locker room rabbit can flip the switch is another question, but the opportunity he talked about on Monday night is still right in front of them.
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