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Bowen: Ryan Mathews lets Eagles win slip away

DETROIT - There would have been so many great things for us to say Monday about Carson Wentz, Doug Pederson, Jim Schwartz and the Eagles if Ryan Mathews had shifted the ball from his left to his right hand before Lions cornerback Darius Slay hit Mathews from his left, jarring the ball loose, with two minutes and 34 seconds remaining in what became a 24-23 Eagles loss at Ford Field.

Eagles running back Ryan Mathews sits on the bench after fumbling the football.
Eagles running back Ryan Mathews sits on the bench after fumbling the football.Read moreYong Kim / Staff Photographer

DETROIT - There would have been so many great things for us to say Monday about Carson Wentz, Doug Pederson, Jim Schwartz and the Eagles if Ryan Mathews had shifted the ball from his left to his right hand before Lions cornerback Darius Slay hit Mathews from his left, jarring the ball loose, with two minutes and 34 seconds remaining in what became a 24-23 Eagles loss at Ford Field.

The Lions had blown a 21-7 lead into a 23-21 deficit and weren't going anywhere. They had managed two first downs in the entire second half. Yes, a swarm of Lions - and the fact that he was tripping over right tackle Lane Johnson on a botched toss-trap - was going to prevent Mathews from gaining the 2 yards he needed on third down from his 45. But a Donnie Jones punt was probably going to pin Matthew Stafford deep, Detroit had used all its timeouts, and seeing as how Stafford had passed for all of 27 yards since halftime, that was not a scary prospect for the Eagles.

We were going to be able to talk about Wentz finally encountering real adversity, down 14-0 and 21-7, and vanquishing it, with another cool, error-free performance. We were going to be able to talk about a defense that got up and punched back hard after being knocked down, in just the way last year's Eagles defense couldn't, on the same field last Thanksgiving. We were going to be able to talk about the unbeaten Eagles heading for a FedEx Field NFC East opener next Sunday against the Washington Redskins.

But sports can be funny. Sometimes just when you think you've outrun your mistakes, they catch up with you.

Mathews didn't shift the ball. It shot out and bounced toward the sideline. As a pile of players converged, Lions defensive tackle Anthony Zettel saw the ball about to roll out of bounds and shoveled it backward, like a center snap, for teammate Tyrunn Walker to recover. (Did the ball touch players who were lying at least partly out of bounds before it was recovered? Quite possibly, but that wasn't the call on the field and Fox's replays showed a lot of players' behinds and pink Breast Cancer Awareness Month cleats.)

It was the Eagles' first turnover of the season, and it proved fatal; a gamelong "oops" factor reached critical mass. Three plays later, Stafford had the Lions at the Eagles' 6, trying to run the clock before having Matt Prater kick what became a 29-yard, chip-shot, game-winning field goal. The game never should have come down to that, with the previously 1-3 Lions missing three key starters, but it did.

"I just (bleeped) up," Mathews said in the cramped visitors' locker room. "I let my teammates down. I have to get better."

"I felt like getting the ball on the edge with guys out front was our best possible play at that time to get the first down," Pederson said. "We didn't execute it properly."

Then, with 1:28 left, the Eagles got yet another chance to win a game they'd showed up too late to legitimately claim, but rookie quarterback Wentz unwisely decided to go for broke on the first play from scrimmage, heaving a bomb that Slay skied over a passive Nelson Agholor to intercept.

Wentz said the coverage indicated it would be a good time to take a shot.

"We didn't make a play. They made a great play," he said. "It wasn't a perfect throw. Obviously I tried to give Nelson a chance to make a play. I left it too far outside. The cornerback, he made a great play and it sealed the win for them."

"I could have had better sight on it," said Agholor, targeted seven times Sunday, but managing just two catches for 27 yards. "If I would have located it a little earlier, I think I would have given myself a better chance to pluck it."

So, 3-1 instead of 4-0. What do we make of this? Wentz has been intercepted for the first time, on his 135th career pass attempt. The Eagles' pass defense, which hadn't given up a touchdown pass the first three games, has now given up three of them; they came on Detroit's first three possessions Sunday. There were awful, shoot-self-in-foot penalties (Pete Morelli's crew called 14 on the Eagles, for 111 yards, vs. two on the Lions, for 18). There were some really strange, confusing refereeing decisions, nearly all of them going against the visitors. There was the first Eagles opening drive of the season to end without points.

There was the odd use of linebacker Nigel Bradham, who barely played in the first half but was not being penalized for last week's gun arrest, Pederson said. (Whatever, Bradham seemed to be the focal point of the defense's turnaround in the second half, when defensive coordinator Schwartz pretty much Velcroed him to the field.)

What the Eagles would like to make of it is that they showed a lot of moxie, made a few too many mistakes, will learn and move on. That's a credible rationale, especially if you still think the season is mainly about developing Wentz, the second player taken in the 2016 draft. Even that interception wasn't a huge step backward for a QB who rallied his troops in a loud dome and brought them back to lead the game, brought them back from the brink of chaos. Wentz emerged healthy and unbowed, with 25 completions on 33 attempts for 238 yards, two touchdowns, the pick, and a 102.8 passer rating.

But if you're thinking more about 2016 and the chance this team might have to make the playoffs, Sunday was a stupid loss that should not have happened with an entire bye week to prepare. A stupid loss that might turn out to be a lot less affordable than it looks, for a team facing, after Washington, a schedule that reads Minnesota, at Dallas, at the Giants, Atlanta, at Seattle, and Green Bay.

"It's still a good football team, and we'll learn from these mistakes," Pederson said after his first loss as an NFL head coach. A few questions later, he upgraded that to "a great football team," when asked about coming back from being down 14-0 early. "People could start pointing fingers at different (people), but they didn't. They rallied together and they had an opportunity."

Pederson said he was "quite honestly kind of glad (Wentz) got the interception out of the way. There's so much buildup on that, but we throw the football the way we do, and he's played great, really, these four games, and he stood in there again tonight and made some tough throws, especially on third down. Led our football team. He did a great job."

"We didn't make enough plays," Wentz said. "The defense gave us the ball in the red zone (on a Stafford fumble) and we had to settle for a field goal. Those are things we have to clean up."

It is important not to lose sight of how well Wentz played. Until that too-desperate attempt to go deep, he had no fingerprints whatsoever on this sloppy, careless loss. He made an excellent throw to Jordan Matthews, on third-and-4 from the Eagles' 26, gaining 20 yards on the drive for Caleb Sturgis' 49-yard, fourth-quarter, go-ahead field goal, which should have been the winner.

"He's incredible in those situations," Pederson said. "It seems like when the pressure gets a little tighter, he shines a little brighter. It's special to have a kid like that, especially as a rookie . . . He just continues to get better and better. The beauty of the thing is that it elevates everybody around him."

Wentz and his offensive line prepared for the dome noise, but twice the Eagles were whistled for delay penalties, both times with Wentz frantically clapping his hands for the ball but center Jason Kelce unable to hear or see him.

"We stopped ourselves more than anything else today," Kelce said. "We have to be more consistent . . . the penalties killed us all day."

Defensive end Brandon Graham said Schwartz, the former Lions head coach, "was giving us the proper adjustments," accounting for the second-half turnaround. "We just can't spot nobody 21 in the first half . . . We just can't let that first half happen like that."

@LesBowen

Blog: philly.com/Eaglesblog