Kenny Pickett came up short: ‘I wanted him to be bad’ Originally published NBC Sports Philadelphia
Kenny Pickett gave the Eagles a chance to win, and that’s all you can really ask for.
He wasn’t very good. He was not an aristocrat. He was definitely not Jaylen Hurts.
But he went out and struggled in his first game as an Eagle against the NFL’s fourth-ranked pass defense after not playing for more than a year, engineering six scoring drives.
It just wasn’t enough.
The Commanders came back from 14 points down to beat the Eagles 36-33 at the stadium formerly known as FedEx, yet delayed the Eagles’ takeover of the NFC East.
“I’m focused on the result,” Pickett said. “I’m sitting here disappointed. I wanted to get it for my team. We’ve got to learn from it and move on.
“I’m honestly sitting here just pissed off, man. He wanted a bad, point blank win.”
Pickett entered the game midway through the first quarter with the Eagles already up 7-0 when Hurts suffered a fumble. He was rusty, which is to be expected given that he hadn’t played significant snaps since Week 13 last year with the Steelers.
He threw a touchdown pass to AJ Brown, was picked off deep in Eagles territory, converted a couple of big fourth downs and on one of the key plays of the game — a third down at Washington’s 22-yard line with 2:07 left. And 5. And the Eagles up 30-28 — he threw a perfect pass past Devonta Smith’s sticks.
If he catches it? The ball game.
“I’ll have to go back and look at it, but there are definitely plays I want back, and I know we want back as a team.” Pickett said. “You have to give them credit. They played really hard, too. It came down to the wire, but there are things that change games long before the end of the game. We have to go back and look at them. And to see what we can all improve and move forward.
Pickett suffered a rib injury en route to Tanner Mackey warming up.
The Eagles still need a win or a Commanders loss to clinch the NFC East title and the No. 2 seed, and the Cowboys will come to the link on Sunday.
Can a one-week concussion protocol hurt? Will Pickett be healthy enough to start? Will McKee make his first NFL appearance?
All this remains to be seen.
Pickett completed 14 of 24 passes for 143 yards with one TD and one INT. He took a couple of bad sacks, recovered from Lane Johnson and completed just one pass for 15 yards.
Had Smith and Saquon Barkley made critical 3rd-down receptions in the fourth quarter, the numbers would have looked a little better.
“I think he did a good job,” Barkley said. “We didn’t win the football game, you know? A play goes here or a play goes there, it’s going to be a different conversation.”
Overall, what would you expect from a guy who hasn’t played in a year and hasn’t gotten any reps all week.
“Yeah, it’s tough, it’s tough,” Pickett said. “You don’t get a physical picture. I just do my best, mentally lock in the game plan, understand the checks and how these guys run routes, because I don’t get a chance to throw to them. .
“So I try to focus as much as I can and then go out there and let it loose and throw the ball. When I go out there, I channel as much as possible from a preparation standpoint. At the end of the day, you just have to go play.
Pickett is smart enough to know that AJ Brown is his bread and butter when he’s out there.
Pickett threw 24 passes and 15 of them to Brown, who had eight catches for 97 yards and three interceptions from Marshawn Lattimore for another 68 yards. Seven of his other nine goals went to Smith, along with one each from Barkley and Kenny Gainville.
“We were talking after every series,” Pickett said. “We were coming up with some things on the fly, some things that they’ve done with Jalen that I wasn’t aware of before. Trying to play catch-up in certain parts of the game and just making sure that We communicate really well.
“Those guys are great at it. They’ve been doing it for a long time so it was great to get out there, to play with them.
The Eagles didn’t lose this game because of Pickett, they lost it because the defense fell apart in the fourth quarter, allowing 22 points in the final 13 1/2 minutes of the game.
If Pickett has to play on Sunday and is healthy, you’d think a week of reps with Brown and Smith would help a lot.
“He played well. He played well,” Smith said. “I think he settled in well. I think he made the right reads and things like that. Unfortunately, I didn’t make the last play.”
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