Shortly after allowing a fourth quarter touchdown to Vikings rookie cordarrelle Patterson, Cary Williams was benched for losing his composure by defensive coordinator Bill Davis.
Chip Kelly confirmed Monday what anyone watching the Eagles undoing in the fourth quarter against the Minnesota Vikings Sunday already realized: Cary Williams was benched for losing control of his emotions.
It was an ugly turn of events for Bill Davis' defense in the latter stages of Sunday's disappointing 48-30 loss to Matt Cassel, Matt Asiata and the Vikings, perhaps even moreso for Williams.
Williams was called for unnecessary roughness in the fourth quarter. On the very next play, Williams was beat for a touchdown by rookie Cordarrelle Patterson that helped officially put drive the final nail through the Eagles coffin.
Kelly pointed out Monday that it was that turn of events that landed Williams on the pine alongside safety Patrick Chung who had been benched earlier in the game for poor performance.
"Yeah, (Davis) just sat him down because he was a little distraught about the call," Kelly said. "We needed to have clear heads when we were out there and we were playing"
Williams is known for losing his cool.
Before there was the pre-season practice field fight with teammate Riley Cooper there was his ejection from joint practices with the New England Patriots and of course he shoved an official during the Baltimore Ravens Super Bowl 47 win over the San Francisco 49ers in February.
However, as the Eagles defense unravelled on Sunday, Williams wasn't the only person losing control.
"I think all of us realized going into that fourth quarter, we did not play our best game up to that point," Davis admitted. "We kind of had a couple of things go wrong and multiple people lost their composure. I wasn't the most composed guy up in the box, either as it was starting to unravel."
It's certainly not comforting to see a starting cornerback come undone so quickly in the heat of battle, the reality is that these things happen in the National Football League. The challenge for Davis and company is to find a way to prevent it from costing them in the final two games of this season.
"I think there is a lesson to be learned by everybody that it's the NFL and games are tight," Davis said. "Adversity hits. You have to be able to overcome adversity and handle it. Collectively we have to find a way to do better and have to do better or bad things happen in the fourth quarter. We gave up 21 points in the fourth quarter and part of that was losing our composure."
Matt Lombardo is the Editor-In-Chief of Eagledelphia and also an on-air personality on 97.5 FM The Fanatic in Philadelphia. Join the conversation and follow Matt on Twitter.
