Veteran cornerback Orlando Scandrick delivered a withering assessment of the reeling Philadelphia Eagles during a television appearance on Friday, four days after he was released from the team following Sunday’s catastrophic 37-10 loss to the Dallas Cowboys.
Scandrick described an atmosphere of institutional complacency that’s taken hold in the year and a half since the team’s first ever Super Bowl title.
The Eagles are 13-12, including the playoffs, since ending their 58-year championship drought in sensational fashion with a 41-33 win over the New England Patriots in February 2018.
“That locker room is different. I would tell guys when I came there, like, I still feel like they are living on that Super Bowl high,” Scandrick said Friday on Fox Sports 1. “Like, it’s over. You’re living in the past. But some of those guys came into the league and the first thing they experienced was 13-3 and the Super Bowl, that’s what it’s all about.”
He added: “I think they’re having a tough time dealing with success. Whenever you’ve got to say ‘Oh, we’re going to get it together,’ ‘Oh, no one believes in us,’ ‘Oh, it’s about us.’”
The Eagles’ defeat against their hated divisional rivals in Dallas came on the heels of a 38-20 loss to the Minnesota Vikings, marking only the fourth time in more than four decades the Eagles have lost consecutive games by 18 or more points. They are 3-4 and only one game behind the first-place Cowboys in the NFC East, but their losing streak has been underpinned by rumors of locker room turmoil.
“Let’s just say, where there’s smoke, there’s fire,” he said.
The 32-year-old Scandrick joined the Eagles in July, was released before the start of the season but re-signed last month and appeared in three games. He recorded a pair of strip sacks and returned a fumble for a touchdown against the New York Jets on his debut, but found himself on the breadlines after the Minnesota and Dallas debacles in a move he said “felt kind of scapegoat-ish”.
“The problem in Philadelphia is much, much bigger than me,” Scandrick said. “I don’t believe anything that (general manager Howie Roseman) says. Howie is one of those people that if they told me it was raining outside, I’d probably gets some shorts just in case. He put it to me as they wanted to play younger players, they’re a mess on defense and they need to get more defensive linemen, so we’ll see how that works for them up in Buffalo.”
He added: “There are some accountability issues there and it starts from the top.”