Eagles’ A.J. Brown, Darius Slay take major steps in holding themselves, team accountable amid losing streak

PHILADELPHIA — The challenge was presented to the Philadelphia Eagles locker room. Character has been tested with this team up against it, mired in a three-game losing streak with the 2023 season suddenly sinking similar to the Titanic. 

Fingers have been pointing why the ship is even heading toward the iceberg, instead of trying to steer the vessel clear of impending disaster. Just like the Titanic, the Eagles are still a powerful ship — as long as it stays out of its own way. 

The first step the Eagles are taking is accountability, which has been dormant in the locker room in the midst of a defensive play-caller change and an offense that isn’t living up to its potential. If there’s a lack of accountability in the Eagles locker room, it didn’t show amongst the team captains. 

Darius Slay was the first culprit of finger pointing, getting significant backlash from his comments over the defense playing poorly but himself playing well. There were plenty of factors on that defense that led to Sean Desai’s demotion, yet the bottom line was simple. 

“It’s our fault. We failed him,” Slay said at the NovaCare Complex Friday. “That’s the sad part about that. I don’t like seeing a man get demoted because of (our) performance. It is a production business, and we just weren’t productive.

“I feel like we all got a hand in that. I don’t like the fact he got demoted. At the end of the day, it is a production business but we have to execute.”

A.J. Brown was also under fire for a few social media posts that gave the outside world a poor outlook on his character. Brown stood up for himself and the player he was, getting mixed emotions from the city. His response was as genuine as they come, wise for a person beyond his years. 

“I didn’t handle that correctly. And I’m man enough to say that,” Brown said. “I pride myself on being the best. When the game is on the line, throw me the ball. So when things don’t go my way, it’s OK. Shit, put the blame on me. I accept that. To much is given, much is required.

“So I had to sit down and really think to myself, like, ‘Yeah, if they do put the blame on me, sure, I asked for that. I asked to be in that chair.’ Who cares? So what? That don’t define me. None of that stuff defines me.”

The Eagles are working as hard as they can to get this right, making sure the Titanic doesn’t hit the iceberg. Brown hates to lose, reflecting as a team captain how hard everyone in the locker room is working to get the ship steered back in the right direction.

“I know for a fact that we’re working our tails off,” Brown said. “Like, me personally, I know I’m working my tail off. Trying to do whatever I can to help this team win. 

“That’s why you see that little frustration that comes in and stuff like that, because I know I dedicated my life to this. I sacrificed time with my own family for this game, to be with my teammates to win games. So it means a lot to me. It means the world to me.”

Monday’s loss to the Seattle Seahawks kept Brown up at night, thinking what he can do better and how he can improve. The team has been reacting the same way.

“I told (people) on the way home, we got home at 7 in the morning, and I’m damn near crying on the way home,” Brown said. “It means a lot to me. We feel the frustration from this city. We feel that. We want to do it for y’all.

“Most importantly, we want to do it for our teammates, our brothers that we go to war with. We’re working hard. We’re giving blood, sweat and tears to this game. So, the fans, I don’t want them to think that we don’t care, that we’re not trying our best. But we got a standard, we gotta uphold the standard. 

“We don’t want no excuses either. We’re 10 times harder on ourselves than anybody can be on us.”

Accountability is the first step. The Eagles don’t want to be in the history books for a wrong reason.

“The reality is that to win, it takes everyone,” Eagles quarterback Jalen Hurts said. “As committed as a team as we have to be to the process and that excellence, I take ownership of that and leading that and setting the tone and temperature of things. We’re pushing forward.”