Philadelphia Eagles, Carson Wentz focused on eliminating outside noise

The word for the Philadelphia Eagles’ locker room and its coaches is cohesion.

Week 11 of the NFL season is upon us, and another game for the Philadelphia Eagles approaches seemingly as fast as the last one ended. As disappointing as the Birds’ loss to the New York Giants was, that memory needs to be removed from Philly’s subconscious completely. Otherwise, this team won’t be mentally prepared to handle the Cleveland Browns either, and we’ll spend most of next week breaking down two-consecutive losses.

Here’s where we segway into rumors and team distractions. In the days leading up to Philly’s Week 11 game versus Baker Mayfield and company, much has been said about some comments the NFL Network’s Mike Silver made on an episode of NFL GameDay Final.

Thankfully, this Philadelphia Eagles team is blocking out the outside noise.

It was Silver’s chat with Chris Rose that began the conversations, at least publicly, that Doug Pederson was ‘listening to too many voices’, but just as concerning as that were the statements that were made about Carson Wentz. Silver believes that the Eagles organization is concerned that 11 is demonstrating poor practice habits.

On Monday, Doug Pederson offered that he didn’t know where these theories stemmed from.  On WentzDay, Carson Wentz offered his rebuttal. Here’s an excerpt from his weekly sitdown with the Philly media as the Birds continued to get ready for Cleveland in Week 11.

"I know I’m not perfect. That’s why it’s practice… I’ve got to be better all the time, but I’m always out there working, and I know everybody else is, so I haven’t seen any of that from myself or really from anybody. We’re out there busting our tails every day. Do mistakes happen? Absolutely, but is that something that I’ve seen or worried about from anybody else? No, I’m not."

Fair enough. Longtime Eagle and fan-favorite Brandon Graham echoed much of what was said by his quarterback in a different conversation. Here’s an excerpt from his sitdown with the media.

"I think it starts definitely with practice. Some of the stuff showing up out there, if we’re being real with ourselves, is happening in practice, people jumping offside, pre-snap penalties, false starts, people dropping balls, us not getting off the rock. So it’s all just stuff we need to hone in on, like, as a team, and I think we’re doing a good job addressing that elephant in the room… We’re at the point where we know that stuff is affecting us, and we got to clean that up."

Though many of us are tired of hearing about 2017 and what happened with that team, especially when it’s used as an excuse for giving the current version of the Eagles a pass for more than everyone needs to, one thing about that squad that needs to be mentioned more often is how cohesive they were.

Too often, since the Birds hoisted the Vince Lombardi Trophy, we’ve heard rumors of infighting, anonymous sources, and unprofessionalism. Finally, it seems like Coach Pederson has a group of guys who are on the same page. As long as that is the case, losing may happen. Sloppy play may come, but you can best believe that the guys in the locker room and this team’s coaches will figure things out more often than not. That’s all you can ask for as a fan.