By Patrick Del Gaone, Sports Talk Philly staff writer
After Sunday's game, Eagles' rookie cornerback Jalen Mills expressed disappointment in Jim Schwartz's play-call on Steve Smith's 34-yard touchdown in the final moments of the first half.
Today, the former Detroit Lions' head coach provided a simple solution to avoid a similar situation going forward.
"Yeah, we have a new system," Schwartz joked. "I'm gonna take the earpiece out of Jordan Hicks' head, I'm gonna put it in Jalen's, so Jalen can approve of every call we make from now on before it gets relayed to the defense."
"I love the hell out of that kid, I really do. He's a competitor. People talk about speed, people talk about ability to play the ball. To me, the No. 1 criteria to playing corner is, you have to be a competitor. He's let up some plays this year, he's made some plays, but he's never let it affect his psyche. I told those guys at halftime, blame me for that call. The reason I said it was because I didn't want them to play conservative in the second half. The call wasn't the issue there, it's the execution of the call. He understands that. We talked yesterday, but I'll stand behind Jalen Mills."
As Schwartz's defense goes, so do the Eagles.
Thus far this season, Philadelphia is 5-0 when allowing 23 or less points, while the team is yet to emerge victorious in a shootout, having lost all nine games when yielding 24 or more points.
This morning, Schwartz elaborated on the issues his unit has run into during Philly's five-game losing streak.
"I think there's a lot of things," Schwartz said. "We talk about putting pressure on the quarterback, we went through a spell where we weren't getting very much pressure. We talk about stopping drives on third down, we wen't through a spell, maybe not as bad, but a couple of games where we weren't very good on third down. You have to find a way to keep big plays from happening. Big plays equal scores in this league. The last couple of weeks, we've seen some flashes of us early in the season. We had a couple of big turnovers in this game. One that set up a score, another one that kept the potentially game-clinching score off the board and gave us a chance to win that game. You saw some sacks, you saw some third down stops. We just haven't been consistent enough over the course of a whole game, and that's what we have to get back to."
Head coach Doug Pederson stated yesterday that the game-deciding two-point conversion play-call was "our best play at that time against that defense."
When asked about the decision in itself to go for two, Schwartz was adamant that he agreed wholeheartedly.
"I will say this, I like his aggressiveness," Schwartz said. "I really respect his decision to go for two to win that game. That sends a good statement, not only to the team, but to the city. It lets them know, he's trying to win. It goes back to the call at the end of the half, we're not playing conservative, we're not trying to do anything other than go out there and try to win. Going for fourth down, there might be a lot of defensive coordinators that might bristle at that, I embrace that also. We had chances to keep drives alive, and the most important thing in this league is scoring points. Points give us some leeway on defense, and certainly give us a chance to win the game. I really respect those things."
You can watch the full press conference from Schwartz and Reich below.
