Eagles have ‘a lot to learn from’ after committing 10 penalties in Week 1

Eagles quarterback Jalen Hurts is aware that weird things tend to happen during Week 1.

There’s a mix of first-game jitters and rust to shake off, especially for teams like the Eagles that didn’t play their starters much throughout the preseason. Those factors typically lead to an influx of mistakes.

Hurts sees this across all levels of the sport.

“It’s a lot to learn from,” the 24-year-old quarterback said. “It’s Week 1 — a lot of crazy stuff is happening across the league in all these games. I went back and watched my high school team play a few weeks ago, and you see the same mistakes at every level of football. The same mistakes at high school, college, NFL. Those are things we have to learn from if we want to be the team we want to be.”

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The Eagles were plagued by self-inflicted wounds during the opener at Detroit. The team committed 10 penalties, the fourth-highest total in the league behind Jacksonville, San Francisco, and Denver. The Eagles actually were flagged 11 times, although one penalty was offsetting.

Whether it was a Week 1 anomaly, it would be in the team’s best interests to correct these mistakes soon. Last year, the Eagles led the league in penalties for the first 1½ months of the regular season. They eventually buckled down, finishing with 107 total penalties, which ranked 11th in the NFL.

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For comparison, the Cowboys led the league with 127 penalties, while the Packers were flagged the least amount of times, 69. Across the division, Washington committed 82 penalties, and the Giants were flagged 87 times.

Coach Nick Sirianni preaches IQ, technique, and fundamentals as part of his core values. Those traits were lacking in the opener. Of the 10 penalties, which accounted for 61 yards, five occurred before the snap. At one point, the Eagles, when facing a third-and-1 were flagged for having 12 players in the huddle.

Multiple players attributed the lack of communication they experienced throughout the game to the raucous environment and sold-out crowd at Ford Field. Wide receiver A.J. Brown said it was so loud on the field that he couldn’t even hear Hurts, despite being right next to him in the huddle.

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“Those are the big things. The penalties, you have to eliminate the penalties,” offensive coordinator Shane Steichen said. “Those will come back to bite you in the butt. We overcame some of those deals, but you can’t have too many because if you have a lot of them, they’re going to end up hurting you. We were able to overcome a few of them, and those are things we talk about and we have to get corrected and cleaned up.”

Second-year defensive back Zech McPhearson showed tremendous awareness in fielding an onside kick by the Lions during the third quarter of Sunday’s game. McPhearson, who also recorded two tackles across a team-high 25 snaps on special teams, tracked the football perfectly and did not allow it to hit the ground. On Wednesday, the NFL announced McPhearson as the NFC special teams player of the week.

“Detroit is a very physical team. They came at him,” special teams coordinator Michael Clay said of McPhearson. “He was able to stay composed right there, caught it, and protected himself by going down right there. It was a pretty impressive play. Zech has done an outstanding job from Year 1 to Year 2 just in learning the entirety of the special teams, grasping it, and becoming a leader on the outside. He’s come leaps and bounds, and we’re going to lean on him.”

» READ MORE: Eagles Super Bowl odds among latest futures to drop after Week 1

After losing defensive end Derek Barnett to injured reserve with a torn ACL, the Eagles signed defensive end Janarius Robinson off the Vikings practice squad on Tuesday evening. Robinson, 24, was a fourth-round draft pick in 2021. During his final season at Florida State, the 6-foot-5, 258-pound edge rusher recorded 26 tackles, including seven tackles for loss, and three sacks.

Inquirer Eagles beat reporters EJ Smith and Josh Tolentino preview the team’s Week 2 game against the Minnesota Vikings. Watch at Inquirer.com/EaglesGameday