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Eagles respond to first loss of season: Team leaders glad unbeaten talk is over, send powerful message

Eagles respond to first loss of season: Team leaders glad unbeaten talk is over, send powerful message


PHILADELPHIA — The one game at a time mentality held true throughout the Philadelphia Eagles locker room over the past two months. The mindset of the team wasn’t going to change, even if the atmosphere around them did. 

There’s little doubt the 2022 version of the Eagles heard the chatter, the only team to start 8-0 in the 90-year history of the franchise. When is this team going to lose? Can they finish the regular season unbeaten? What will this team do if they keep winning and have everything clinched with a few games remaining? 

Those questions are in the rearview mirror. The Eagles did lose their first game of the season, and the unbeaten talk is dead. But to hear the players talk, it’s not like they cared about going 17-0 anyway. 

“I don’t give a s— about any of that,” Lane Johnson said after Monday’s 32-21 loss to the Washington Commanders. “I don’t care. All the other stuff is just distractions to me, and I feel like that for all of us.”

A.J. Brown made it clear the 17-0 talk was a pain in the you-know-what to talk about. The more wins the Eagles racked up, the discussion of finishing unbeaten grew even louder outside the locker room. That’s what happens when a team is the last unbeaten in the NFL for a month. 

The Eagles aren’t the 1972 Miami Dolphins, but no one else is. 

“I know guys got long faces, but me personally — of course I want to win,” Brown said after the loss. “Now all this 17-0 s— is over with. Now we’re going to wake up, (but) how are you going to respond?. 

“This is a game that we all love to play and sometimes you get hit in the mouth. How do you respond?… I hope we get up and start fighting back and I feel like we will.”

Philadelphia was going to get the best from each team going forward as the last unbeaten. The response in the Washington Commanders locker room after the victory said it all. The music was blasting and players were proud of what they accomplished. For the second time in three years, the Commanders handed the last unbeaten team their first loss. 

The Eagles didn’t play well enough to win, committing a season-high four turnovers (only had three giveaways the whole season coming into the game). There were plenty of miscues along the way, fumbling the ball twice in the fourth quarter in a one-score game and two untimely penalties — one of which ended up determining the final outcome. 

At the end of the day, the…

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