Doug Pederson: Some Players Didn’t Give Full Effort vs. Cincinnati

Doug Pederson. (Jeff Fusco)

Several Eagles said after their 32-14 loss to the Bengals that effort wasn’t a problem, but Doug Pederson disagreed Monday afternoon when he noted how he felt some guys didn’t play hard.

“Not everybody, and that’s the accountability that I talk about,” Pederson said. “I hold coaches accountable for that; I hold myself accountable for that because it all starts with me. I pride myself each week to make sure the guys are ready to go, but at the same time, it comes down to a mentality by each individual player. This is a business where we have to be ready to go every single weekend because every team in the league — there are some teams that are better than others, but for the most part anything can happen any weekend.”

Although Philadelphia traveled to Cincinnati having lost six of their previous eight games, they were still 5-6 and only 1.5 games out of the playoff hunt with five weeks remaining. But they fell behind 29-0 in three quarters, scored a season-low 14 points against an average defense and allowed Cincinnati to score a season-high 32 points despite missing star receiver A.J. Green and starting running back Giovani Bernard.

“There’s a level of that tough love; there’s got to be that accountability that I was talking about. I implore and I challenge the leaders of the football team to stand up and not only hold themselves [accountable], but the rest of the team,” Pederson said. “It’s not a panic move or anything like that, but let’s just make sure we’re doing things right. Everybody just do things right, do their jobs, do their assignments and good things are going to happen. Obviously, it starts with me. I got to make sure I’m doing it right and I’m holding myself accountable.”

While Pederson admitted that not everyone on his team played hard, he expressed confidence that he won’t get fired after this season. He also noted that Jeffrey Lurie and Howie Roseman have been very supportive of him.

“From both of them, it’s been 100 percent support on everything. I meet with Jeffrey and Howie every week and we discuss a lot of things and go over a lot of things. Every week, it’s very positive,” Pederson said. “I just don’t think you can base a guy’s career on one season. I think you got to give it time to develop. We got a rookie quarterback; we’ve got to have time to develop this quarterback. It just doesn’t happen over night. By no means have they expressed anything [negative] to me; it’s been positive and very supportive.”