EAST RUTHERFORD, N.J. -- It hasn’t been an easy year. It’s been a truly wretched year.
They missed the playoffs again. They got blown out four times the second half of the season. They lost four of their last five home games. Their coach got fired. They became the first team in NFL history to allow 400 yards the last seven games of a season. They became the seventh straight Eagles team to not win a playoff game.
Let’s face it. It’s been a nightmare.
“I try to remember the positive stuff,” Brandon Graham said.
Like what?
“Right now,” he said with a quiet laugh, “I’m drawing a blank on some of the positive.”
The Eagles finished a miserable season with a meaningless win Sunday, their eighth win in their last nine games against the Giants in North Jersey.
Despite allowing more than 500 yards, they beat the Giants, 35-30, at MetLife Stadium in a game with an interim coach and no playoff implications (see Instant Replay).
“The reality of it is we were all just out there doing our jobs,” interim coach Pat Shurmur said. “But they had fun doing it, and they get to experience that feeling you get when you win a football game one last time.”
The Eagles were eliminated from playoff contention last Sunday when they lost by two touchdowns on their own turf to the Washington Redskins.
Two days later, head coach Chip Kelly was fired.
“I think the first couple days everyone was in a haze,” tight end Zach Ertz said. “Everyone knows the situation we were in. By Thursday, I think everybody settled down and realized, 'OK, we have one game left together. There’s going to be a lot of turnover, it happens in the NFL, so let’s just go play for each other today,' and I think that’s what we did.”
There are so many unknowns swirling around this team. Players don’t know about their futures. Assistant coaches know they likely won’t be back. Even ball boys and equipment guys and trainers could be jettisoned.
It’s a tough atmosphere. And a very tough atmosphere to try to play football in.
“The reality of the situation is that the only thing guaranteed to any of us was this game, and even that wasn’t guaranteed,” safety Malcolm Jenkins said. “That was really what we rallied around.
“That pretty much starting tomorrow, everything’s going to change. That’s the reality of the situation, and all we had was this moment in time and this week of preparation and this game, and so we wanted to take full advantage of this opportunity.
“This was the last chance to see these guys in the locker room, and even though this season hasn’t come out the way that we wanted it to, we still enjoy playing this game, we still enjoy the guys in the locker room, so we wanted to go out there and have some fun and play together.”
Center Jason Kelce said Shurmur impressed on his players that worrying about the future wouldn’t help anybody.
Players are smart enough to know that the work they put on film in Week 17 could very well help them get a job somewhere else next year
“You don’t know what’s going to happen, and you thinking about what’s going to happen isn’t going to do any good, so all you can do is train, try to improve yourself, try to improve on your weaknesses, and just wait for whoever comes in,” Kelce said.
“And if you’re a part of it, you’ll be here, and if you’re not, you’re not. At the end of the day, that’s all you can do.”
Lane Johnson, Chip Kelly's first draft pick, said Shurmur gathered the team for a meeting, where he told the team to maintain its professionalism no matter how depressing the situation is.
"He told us to just maintain your professionalism. You owe it to the fans and your teammates and the organization," Johnson said.
"Even though we weren’t playing for a playoff spot, we owed it to each other to go out the right way, and we were able to do that."
Graham said he’s curious about the future of himself and his teammates, but he made sure he didn’t dwell on it until after the season was officially over.
“We just said we’ll figure it all out and see what our future is after this,” he said. “We just worried about the game and not worried about what’s the outcome after the game because we don’t know. We really don’t know.
“It’s kind of sad. This is the unknown. The weird moment that everybody talks about because we don’t know what’s going to happen.
“It sucks, but now we might as well embrace it because we’ve got somebody new coming in. We want to see exactly his approach and what we’re going to run as far as defense and how we’re going to run our system. Whatever it is, I can’t wait to adjust and get to work.”