The NFL offices have made a decision about the Philadelphia Eagles.
At the time of this story being published, ten days will have passed since the time ran out on the Philadelphia Eagles‘ Week 17 loss to the Washington Football Team, and though it seems like that story should have died a while ago, it didn’t. That is until now.
Following a ton of blowback from the media, other teams, and the NFL’s most respected voices that accused Doug Pederson and the Birds of ‘tanking’, the NFL’s office opened an investigation. Thanks to Rob Maaddi of the Associated Press, we now know the outcome.
The Philadelphia Eagles won’t be punished in any capacity for their decision to bench Jalen Hurts in the fourth quarter of 2020’s regular-season finale. According to Maaddi, two sources with knowledge of the situation reported the information.
Here’s a quick reminder if you’re a Philadelphia Eagles fan.
Philly, by benching their rookie starting quarterback, in essence, handed the NFC East’s divisional crown to Washington. That decision, one that was carried out by head coach Doug Pederson (we’ve since asked whether or not he acted alone), has been questioned by other NFL franchises, most notably the New York Giants who were eliminated from postseason contention by virtue of Philly’s loss.
Perhaps someone should remind Joe Douglas, the Giants, and their fans that their team was 6-10.
We were told that Doug Pederson wanted to see what Nate Sudfeld had. If that’s the case, we weren’t taught anything about Sudfeld that we didn’t already know. He hadn’t thrown a pass in an NFL game that counted against the win-loss total since 2018. He was unable to beat Hurts out for the backup role despite being a part of this Eagles team since 2017.
The result? The Eagles, who were losing by a field goal when Hurts was pulled, limped to the finish line as Sudfeld threw an interception and lost a fumble. Again, we didn’t learn anything about Sudfeld that we didn’t already know. No, wait. That actually isn’t true. We learned that Sudfeld is actually worse than we thought he was.
Since that game, Miles Sanders was publicly quoted as saying that no one liked the decision to pull Hurts. There have been questions about whether Philly had no intention of winning, whether they had their hearts set on earning the sixth-overall selection and whether Doug Pederson had lost the team.
When you look at things that way, maybe this team had been punished enough. Throw this one in the category of drawn-out stories that possibly can take your mind off of that Eagles coaching search. Wow. This is going to be a long offseason.