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Eagles explain what happened on bizarre muffed punt vs. Bucs originally appeared on NBC Sports Philadelphia
TAMPA — Isaiah Rodgers thought he made a savvy veteran play.
He didn’t.
Late in the first quarter of the Eagles’ 33-16 loss to the Bucs, the Eagles’ defense had finally forced their first punt after giving up back-to-back touchdowns. Without Britain Covey, who is on IR with a shoulder injury, rookie Cooper DeJean went back deep to return it.
At worst, the Eagles should have gotten the ball back around their own 20-yard line with a chance to turn the game around after getting in an early 14-0 hole. But after DeJean called a fair catch, Isaiah Rodgers blocked gunner Josh Hayes into DeJean, who muffed the punt.
It was a disaster.
What was Rodgers thinking?
“Me being a gunner in my career, I know not to hit the returner,” Rodgers explained. “So with me guarding him, I thought, ‘I’m going to push him into the returner and get the flag.’ Because that’s part of the game. I kind of thought it was going to be a flag, which it was, but they eventually picked it up and said because I pushed him. I never heard that before but it is what it is.”
Yeah, on the field, Hayes was initially ruled for a fair catch interference but the officials picked up the flag when they realized he was blocked into DeJean. And since the Buccaneers clearly recovered, they were set up on the Eagles’ 22-yard line.
The Bucs punched in a touchdown on the short field to go up 21-0 and the game was pretty much out of hand.
“I don’t feel like that really should have been a penalty or whatever,” Rodgers said after the loss. “I don’t feel like [the fair catch interference] should have been waved off but they called what they called.”
Head coach Nick Sirianni didn’t agree.
“Anytime you have a contact into him, they’re going to pick that flag up every single time,” Sirianni said. “A couple of things went into that. Again, we got to make sure we’re coaching it better. If…
Source link : https://sports.yahoo.com/eagles-explain-happened-bizarre-muffed-110000265.html
Author : NBC Sports Philadelphia
Publish date : 2024-09-30 11:00:00
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