TAMPA - Sometimes it's just not gonna work.
Over the last couple years, Doug Pederson has built up a reputation as one of the most aggressive head coaches in the NFL. Specifically, he goes for it on fourth down a heckuva lot more than most coaches and more than conventional wisdom would dictate.
It has won the Eagles a lot of football games. It has become the identity of their team.
That's why you can't worry too much when it doesn't work. Like in the third quarter of Sunday's 27-20 loss (see observations).
The Eagles were faced with a 4th-and-4 from the Bucs' 49-yard line on the first drive of the half. Normally, in one of those situations, Pederson will hear some analytics in his ear - the percentages of success in that situation - and then make a decision.
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He didn't even wait for that against the Bucs.
"I was going for it anyway, regardless of the percentages," Pederson said. "We were plus-50. I was going for it. I felt we had a little momentum on that drive and I felt confident that we were going to get the first down, so I was going for that one."
It was absolutely the right call.
The Eagles were down 20-7 on the first drive of the second half and they had already moved the ball 26 yards to get into rhythm. Not to mention, the Bucs had scored touchdowns on their last two real drives of the first half to stretch the score from 7-7 to 20-7. It just felt like the Eagles needed to put up points on that drive.
On the fourth-down play, Nick Foles threw a pass to Zach Ertz in the right flat. The Pro Bowl tight end fought his way and reached out the ball, but came up a few inches short of the first down. The ref ruled that Ertz's knee was one the ground before he reached the ball over the invisible yellow line. Even Ertz wasn't sure if he got it. He asked what it looked like on TV. It was close.
"I feel like right now in the league," Ertz said, "they're just trying to keep with the calls on the field if they're close."
After the failed attempt, the Bucs got the ball back with great field position at their own 46-yard line. They used the next seven plays to go 54 yards and capped the drive with a four-yard touchdown pass from Ryan Fitzpatrick to Mike Evans. That ended up being the eventual game-winner. Oh well.
In their Super Bowl season, the Eagles converted 17 of 26 fourth-down tries. Just one team attempted more fourth-down conversions. The Eagles also had the third-best fourth-down conversion rate in the NFL in 2017. Then they went 3 for 3 in last year's playoffs on their way to win the Super Bowl.
And even on Sunday, they went 3 for 5 on their fourth down attempts.
"I think that at the end of the day we've converted a lot of those," Nick Foles said. "Any time Doug (Pederson) calls a play, we want to go for it, we want to be aggressive. That's just the one that we weren't able to get the first down."
This one play failed, but you can't let that change your perception. Sometimes the aggressiveness is going to backfire. But it's all about the whole. And on the whole, Pederson's aggressive nature helps this team big time.
So when an instance like this play on Sunday happens, you've just got to shrug your shoulders and try again next time.
