Sam Bradford wasn’t great on Sunday night against the Carolina Panthers.
But he wasn’t the reason the Eagles lost either.
Bradford completed 26 of 46 attempts for 205 yards and an interception in the Eagles' 27-16 loss but those numbers are kind of misleading.
The Eagles dropped eight passes. One of those was in the end zone. Another resulted in an interception.
“I thought Sam did a nice job,” Eagles head coach Chip Kelly said. “I thought he threw the ball well. I thought he put the ball on people, we just have to catch it and help him out.”
Bradford finished with a passer rating of 58.7 on Sunday night, but if those eight passes weren’t dropped — including the one in the end zone and the interception — his numbers would have been much different.
If those eight passes were completed at an average of eight yards per completion (Sunday’s rate for the Eagles), Bradford would have finished 34 of 46 for 269 yards and a touchdown. It's not a perfect way to project his stats, but that passer rating would have been 95.3.
Jordan Matthews, who has been the biggest culprit of dropped passes, called the drops “embarrassing” on Sunday night (see story). But it wasn’t just Matthews who dropped the ball both literally and figuratively.
“We gotta do a better job of catching the ball for [Bradford],” tight end Zach Ertz said. “He’s doing all he can out there.”
For the last couple weeks, Bradford finally stretched the field but that wasn’t the case on Sunday. His longest pass against the Panthers went to Ertz for 24 yards and Bradford threw just three passes of 20-plus yards.
But that was what the quarterback expected coming into the game.
“We kind of knew coming into this game that they wanted to keep everything in front of them,” Bradford said, “so I think our plan as a whole was to attack underneath tonight.”
For the season, the Eagles’ offense has had its ups and downs and so has Bradford, but the drops and penalties took them out of the game on Sunday night. Bradford called them “self-inflicted wounds.”
Despite those mistakes, however, Bradford on Sunday night said he still remains confident in the Eagles’ offense and the team.
Does he think they can go on a run after the bye week?
“I think when we play the way we are capable of, then yes,” Bradford said. “I’ve said it before that we are capable of beating anybody, but we have got to eliminate the mental errors, the self-inflicted wounds. We’ve got to stop beating ourselves. I think if we can stop beating ourselves, so we don’t have to beat not only ourselves but also the other team, I think we will be alright.”