Avant Calls Players-Only Meeting

Jason Avant called a players-only meeting this morning, to stress sticking together and to reinforce the notion that the Eagles have the talent to work their way out of their dreadful 1-4 start, middle linebacker Jamar Chaney said.

"Everybody was calm," Chaney said. "You don't want to get heated right now; it ain't no time to panic. We know what we're capable of doing, and we're not going to panic. We've had a few bad games, four bad games, but at the end of the day, we don't think those four teams are better than us. They won the games ... we just have to go out there and do a better job of playing the whole game, on offense and defense ... when it's all said and done, we don't think no team can beat us, but we've been doing a good job of beating ourselves lately, and we've got to stop doing that."

Chaney said he thought the meeting reinforced the "sense of urgency for practice today" as the Eagles prepare to head for Washington. While five teams have made the playoffs after starting 1-4, under the current playoff format adopted in 1990, no 1-5 teams have made the postseason.

Avant said, when asked the gist of the meeting: "That's the team-only stuff, that's the players' stuff. I won't comment on that, because that's in-house, but we definitely support our coach on every side. This is a Philadelphia Eagles thing. The players have to come up and do their part."