Ailing Eagles sucking it up

AFTER THE WIN that saved the season, Jason Kelce offered a phrase planted by the coaches that usually would have served as the rallying cry for 2015:

Just not my man.

Kelce, the Eagles' center, explained how that sentence fragment served to sharpen the focus of the Eagles' offensive line, whose lousy play was the root of the team's surprising, 1-3 start.

Unfortunately, the better rallying cry already had been planted, and had grown, organically:

We ain't got nobody else.

There it stands.

It is as homespun and frank as any political mantra; as poetic as any cry that remembers an Alamo or a Lusitania.

In its echo, the Eagles trounced the Saints.

If the Eagles continue to play relatively proficient football, beginning Monday night when the Giants visit, it will be because they are cornered and desperate, fighting with nothing to lose.

"That's just how this team is," right tackle Lane Johnson said. "Us being 1-3, it was a vital time of the season. Still is, with the Giants on Monday."

Left tackle Jason Peters and Johnson each implied that had the Eagles been, say, 3-1, instead of 1-3, they might have missed Sunday's game. Both believed the team could not afford their absence.

Johnson's sprained left ankle and twice-sprained left knee need rest, but he is a first-round pick from 2013. Subtract Johnson and the Eagles would have to play Dennis Kelly either at right tackle or right guard. If Kelly played right guard, Matt Tobin - currently starting in place of injured right guard Andrew Gardner - would move to right tackle.

Either way, the dropoff would be precipitous.

Johnson probably has been the best of a poor group of linemen this season. He might have been the best lineman last year, too, though any grading would have to allow for his absence during the first four games, when he served a PED suspension.

Peters started all 16 games and earned a seventh Pro Bowl berth, but his level of play dropped. It has fallen further lately as he battles a thigh bruise, but the level of play would be much worse if Peters took time off.

Tobin would move to left tackle, with Kelly in at right guard.

Peters, 33, says the injury is painful but bearable: "I just needed to rest."

So does Allen Barbre, the 31-year-old left guard who has been battling a groin injury. Barbre is a late bloomer who has earned a starting spot for only the second time in his career. Kelly would replace him, too. Rest?

There can be no rest for the wounded; not on this team, right now.

Johnson hasn't missed an offensive snap. Peters could have rested through last weekend. Barbre hasn't even missed a snap at practice.

They are a self-policing group that understands how quickly they need to cohere. If one of them takes time off during the week, the others tease him with great vulgarity and with little mercy.

"Can't say what we say in the meeting rooms," Johnson said, "and you sure can't write it."

Whatever they say, it is effective.

"A lot of teams have guys miss practice, but our offensive linemen did a great job of fighting their way back," said offensive coordinator Pat Shurmur. "It says a lot when guys like that are willing to fight to get back. Our linemen did a good job. We needed them, and they played well."

So did new corner Byron Maxwell, marketed as the free-agent savior for the reconstructed defensive backfield. Maxwell left the Game 4 loss at Washington with a quadriceps strain and seemed doomed against the surgical arm of Drew Brees.

Somehow, though, Maxwell had perhaps his best game of the season, as Brees seemed to actively avoid him.

"I think 'Max' played pretty well. It was probably one of his better games," defensive coordinator Billy Davis said. "They didn't throw at him a whole lot."

Davis seemed perplexed by this, too, but relieved.

"He's getting better," Davis said. "I don't think his injury affected him much."

Davis' use of Maxwell affected him plenty.

Whether due to his injury or his ineffectiveness, Maxwell's responsibilities shrank against the Saints.

"I'd expanded his role. I had him doing a lot of different things. By limiting that, and letting him just settle into the defense before he moves too fast forward is benefitting him. All free agents - there's a learning curve, whether it's the coaching learning the player or the player learning the system."

To his credit, Maxwell is candid about his progress.

"Sunday, I think I broke through pretty good," he said, then admitted, "I still don't really know the defense's ins-and-outs. If you asked me to play safety right now, I couldn't go play safety."

The Eagles are just asking him to play. He obliged. The alternative would be to further expose second-round rookie Eric Rowe and would mean asking undrafted rookie Denzel Rice to contribute.

"I was proud of (Maxwell), proud of all those guys, how they battled," Johnson said. "I'm looking forward to the bye week (after two more games). But we've got a bunch of mature, professional guys in here.

"We know what it takes."

As Kelce said, they know they have to take care of their man.

Because there ain't nobody else.

Blog: ph.ly/DNL