Jordan Matthews needs 57 yards Sunday for his first 1,000-yard season.
Not that he cares.
“I don’t think anybody looks at, ‘OK, 1,000-yard season, double-digit (catch) season,’ as (anything special),” Matthews said. “When you’ve got a guy like Antonio Brown in the league and he’s getting 1,600 two years in a row? That raises the bar.
“It makes you think, ‘When I have a good game, who am I to start trying to relax or pull back think my stuff smells good.’ Naw, you’ve got to come back and play even harder next week. This dude is catching for 280 and putting his team in position to win. That’s the thing about it.
“He brought his team back against the Broncos to win against an extremely good corner.”
Matthews was referring to the Steelers' All-Pro, who has put together the finest consecutive seasons in NFL history by a receiver — 129 for 1,698 with 13 touchdowns last year and 123 for 1,647 with nine TDs this year.
Brown had a 284-yard game against the Raiders and 16 catches for 189 yards and two TDs in the Steelers’ big comeback win over the Broncos two weeks ago.
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Numbers like that render 1,000 kind of meaningless.
“I think that (once) was the benchmark, but guys like Jerry (Rice), of course, guys like Megatron (Calvin Johnson), guys like Odell (Beckham), Antonio, they kind of raised that bar and I like it, because it makes me stay hungry,” Matthews said.
“Because if I’m over here thinking, ‘OK, I did well,’ because I had maybe a game where I had 100? That’s nothing. Some guys get that every single week.”
Matthews raises an interesting point.
There are already 21 receivers in the NFL — actually 19 receivers and two tight ends — who have surpassed 1,000 yards this year. Matthews is among six more within 60 yards.
The Eagles finish the regular season a 1 p.m. Sunday with a meaningless game against the Giants at MetLife Stadium in East Rutherford, New Jersey (see CSNPhilly.com predictions).
“It’s really surreal for me to believe that the season is going to be over after Sunday,” Matthews said. “I think even after the game it will really hit me. I hate watching other teams play in the playoffs. And we’re not in there. It really does stink.
“Especially in a city like Philadelphia where there’s so much passion and so much love for the Eagles. You want to carry the city to the playoffs, you want to carry the team. … But that’s just not the situation right now, so we have to go out and try to win on a high note.”
If Matthews does get his 57 yards, he’ll be the third different Eagle in three years over 1,000 yards. DeSean Jackson had his fourth 1,000-yard season in 2013, and Jeremy Maclin had his first last year. Maclin is back over 1,000 yards this year with the Chiefs.
From 1982 through 2007, only two Eagle draft picks — Mike Quick and Fred — had 1,000-yard seasons.
“There’s so many other things that mean more and are going on right now,” Matthews said. “For me to even think about, ‘Oh, I gotta get 1,000, that would be so selfish and that would be so backwards of where we’re really trying to take this team.
“I think it’s one of those things where you look back it’s cool to kind of see. But my whole purpose going into this game, honestly, I want to put great plays on film and have our team end on a high note.”
Matthews was up and down this year. He struggled with drops early in the season and had an 11-game stretch from Week 3 through Week 13 where he only surpassed 60 yards once.
But he’s finished strong, with TDs in four of his last six games and 159 yards against the Cards and 104 against the Redskins.
If he surpasses 100 yards again, he’ll become the first receiver in franchise history to finish a season with three straight 100-yard games.
Matthews also needs five catches for 150 in his career, which would put him among the top 10 in NFL history in most receptions after two seasons.
“If 1,000 yards happens it happens,” he said. “Truth be told I should have been (already) had 1,000 yards. But I wasn’t playing up to my standards, the coaches’ standards, my teammates’ standards.
“I‘ve been able to turn it around a litle bit, but my standard isn’t just 1,000 yards. I can go way higher than that. But you can’t say you’re going to do it. You just have to work each day and it kind of happens.”