Losses like Sunday’s usually magnify everything, and for the Philadelphia Eagles, that included a handful of things that have gone wrong all year in their playoff loss to the San Francisco 49ers.
When the gams get tougher, we were all worried that they’d do this, and what happened wasn’t too surprising.
Much of the focus landed on A.J. Brown, a player who almost never struggles with dropping passes. However, Brown dropped a pass late in the game, one that could’ve been caught.
After the game, head coach Nick Sirianni was asked about Brown’s drops and he didn’t hesitate to defend his star wideout.
“He's got the best hands I've ever seen,” Sirianni said, per NFL.com. “The way he catches the ball, the amount of different types of catches that he's made. When you get as many targets as he does, you're going to have some drops.
“Not ever using an excuse, but the ball moves differently in the wind. I thought Jalen did a good job of cutting the wind a lot of times, but yeah, we had some uncharacteristic drops. I think the one that he had, we overcame it the very next play with Dallas. But yeah, I know he will beat himself up on that."
Given everything that’s gone on this year between the two, Sirianni didn’t need to be as nice with his comments.
It also mattered that the Eagles responded right after the drop. Sirianni pointed to the next-play answer involving Dallas Goedert, a reminder that the offense was still able to do something.
Honestly, while I get why fans have been upset about the drop, it's also more important to remember that Brown once again showed an attitude on the sideline.
It'll be very interesting to see if Brown will be on the roster next season. With many fans now frustrated due to that play and others, him not being the type of player that many were hoping for him to be this year, and even complaining when he has good games, it feels like a divorce is coming for the two sides. We'll see if that ends up being the case.