More words. Finger-pointing from the outside. A day closer to Sunday's game in Buffalo. What's the mood like in the Eagles' locker room?
"I'd say motivated," said right tackle Lane Johnson, after a long moment of thought. "Desperate for a win."
At the end of the day, and when all the words have evaporated from the air and the football is kicked off on Sunday at 1 p.m., the Eagles have to win a football game.
"Everybody knows what it is. When things are going well, you have to pick your stuff up," Johnson said. "Really, that's it. Since I've been here, I've been in situations like this and far as playing, it's off to the next week, off to the next opponent."
On the other end of the locker room, safety Malcolm Jenkins addressed comments made about him and the team on FS1, saying, "you can ask anybody in the locker room who I am as a player, who I am to this team – one of the things he said is that I didn't take accountability for certain plays (a touchdown pass allowed against Minnesota), which anybody who looks at any of my comments I immediately take credit for all of the mistakes I make – for us to move on as a team, we can't have (people) like that in the room.
"For us, it's exciting that we had a good week of practice. We feel good about the guys we have in the locker room and what we're trying to move forward with. Everybody is taking their role seriously, and that's what we're focused on."
Jenkins is right. He's accountable for everything he says and everything he does and he's been a model Eagle. Anyway, enough of the talk. We're nearing gameday. The Eagles have to be an urgent, hungry football team.
They need a win in the worst way against the 5-1 Bills.
"I thought we had great energy," said Jenkins when asked what he's seen this week from the team in practice. "I think, obviously, coming off a tough loss, you've got two decisions – you can implode or you can get better. We had a lot of internal conversations, a lot of tough conversations. I think the leaders have put it upon themselves to set the example. You've got starters taking reps on scout teams, giving guys good looks. Guys are having energy in practice, so I thought this was one of the best weeks of practice we've had all year, obviously kind of put this in our own hands and make sure we turn this around."
The team had a players-only meeting during the week – nobody would divulge what was said – and Jenkins said "at the end of the day, the guys in this locker room trust one another, we believe in one another, it's just about everybody detailing their role and doing their role on the team to the best of their ability. I think we wholeheartedly believe that if we do that, we're good enough to win."
Johnson, who blew off steam after Sunday's loss in Dallas and suggested that players had been late to meetings and late to practice, walked back those comments on Friday, saying, "Basically, we've got to be a more disciplined football team, is all I was trying to get at. Including myself."
We'll see where the Eagles' heads are at in the final game of a three-week stretch of consecutive road games. This hasn't been a pleasant week as the Eagles have had to face many difficult questions. As Jenkins said – and many others have said since the loss – the Eagles can go one of two ways for the rest of the season.
It's time to play some football.
"That's what we have to do, because that's what matters," Jenkins said. "We have to go out and win a football game. That's what we're paid to do. The expectations are high for this football team and we haven't lived up to them to this point. We're well aware of the situation. We know we have a lot of season left to play. We know we have a good opponent on Sunday. We need to go to Buffalo and win. That's the bottom line."
