Andrew Buller-Russ
Spending months training, practicing, and performing, the road to the Super Bowl is incredibly tough and daunting. But the Philadelphia Eagles managed to reach the NFL Championship game, where they had a chance at adding their second Lombardi Trophy in the past six years.
While we all know that the Eagles fell short of their goal, losing to the Kansas City Chiefs 38-35 in a hard-fought battle, some members of the team haven’t been able to get over the loss.
Specifically, Philadelphia’s starting safety C.J. Gardner-Johnson, who led the NFL with six interceptions, recently took to Twitter to express his disappointment. Yet, instead of pointing the finger at himself, the poor field conditions, or referees, he’s calling out former Eagles defensive coordinator Jonathan Gannon. While Gannon is no longer with the team, as he’s since taking a promotion by becoming the head coach for the Arizona Cardinals, his last game with the Eagles still stings too.
It began with Gannon speaking publicly for the first time since the Eagles blew a 10-point lead in Super Bowl LVII, where he made fairly typical comments about the team’s failure to execute while pointing out that the Chiefs played a good game.
They made a lot of good plays in that second half. We weren’t able to get some stops when we needed to. I obviously could have done a better job of coaching a couple things that I want out of the calls. Tough to swallow when you look back at that because it’s such a big stage and we didn’t get it done. But learned a lot from it. You’ve got to give credit to Kansas City, but obviously I could have done a lot better job with some of the things were were doing.”
Former Philadelphia Eagles defensive coordinator Jonathan Gannon reflects
As mentioned, a fairly common response. But, Gardner-Johnson, who is poised to hit free agency this month, didn’t like what Gannon had to say.
He responded by quote tweeting Gannon’s comments, adding, “You ain’t put us in a position to make plays.” This tweet was later wisely deleted.
Ironically, Gannon actually had another comment from that same interview where he basically admitted the same thing Gardner-Johnson was indicating.
“Just how we set up a couple calls situationally. I could have done a better job with that. And really that’s what it came down to. I think, situationally, could have put our guys in a better spot than I put them in.”
At this point, we can’t help but wonder if Gardner-Johnson saw the second part of Gannon’s comments or not. Perhaps that’s why he retracted his tweet, or maybe it came at the advice of his player agent, likely realizing this isn’t good for business.
Gardner-Johnson is expected to be a highly-sought after free agent, as he’s ranked as one of the best safeties on the market. Hitting free agency at just the age of 25, he shouldn’t have any issue receiving a large contract this offseason.
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