By Patrick Del Gaone, Sports Talk Philly staff writer 
When Doug Pederson met with the media this afternoon, he didn’t beat around the bush in assessing his team’s issues along the line of scrimmage at FedEx Field.
“We got our tail kicked up front this game,” Pederson said.
The Eagles were physically dismantled by the Washington Redskins in Pederson’s inaugural divisional game as head coach. The defense allowed 230 yards rushing, while prized rookie quarterback Carson Wentz was beaten to a pulp by the Redskins front-seven.
The drubbing was not nearly as close as the 27-20 final score would indicate. The Eagles allowed 493 total yards, while Philly’s offense accumulated less than half of that amount. Moreover, mental mistakes complicated matters for the second straight week. Pederson’s team committed 13 penalties for 114 yards after amassing 14 fouls for 111 yards against the Lions.
“It’s a pride thing,” Pederson said. “It comes down to each man taking ownership in their jobs and their assignments. As coaches, we gotta make sure our players are in the right position to make plays. It’s surprising that a team could run the ball for that many yards against us, with the way we play and attack on defense. But at the same time I’ll give the Redskins credit for getting after us up front, really on both sides of the line of scrimmage.”
“It just comes down to the communication from me, to the team, to the staff, disciplining ourselves in practice, focusing on the little things. Little things will take care of big things, [penalties] are part of the game. Players know, coaches know, we can’t keep putting ourselves in these situations. It’s an unfortunate thing that we have to address and clean up.”
Quite frankly, Halapoulivaati Vaitai was tossed around like a rag doll by Washington’s mammoth defensive end Ryan Kerrigan for a majority of the afternoon. While many have considered Vaitai’s subpar performance to be a glaring weakness going forward, Philly’s first-year head coach saw improvement from “Big V” as the game progressed.
“Felt like he [had a] slow start, but really settled in nicely throughout the game,” Pederson said. “Was it perfect? Was it pretty? No. Were there assignment errors? Yes. And I’m not gonna stand here and point the finger at Big V cause that’s not what happened. There’s enough mistakes all around in this football game that cost us this game.”
“He’ll be a lot better this week. He’s now got a full game under his belt, and that’s valuable experience that he can learn from going into this week… He gives us the best opportunity to win right now, and he is our backup right tackle right now, therefore, he is going to play and gain valuable experience week in and week out.”
Defensive tackle Bennie Logan suffered a left groin strain in yesterday’s loss to the Redskins. Logan is considered week-to-week ahead of Sunday’s home game against the undefeated Vikings.
You can watch the full press conference from Pederson below.
