Matthews says he has put costly drops behind him

Jordan Matthews had completed his post-practice routine. He and teammate Zach Ertz had spent several minutes catching footballs fired at each of them by a Jugs machine. Ertz had headed to the trainer's room for treatment. Now it was time to tidy up. Matthews gathered up the dozen balls he and Ertz had used and plopped them into two large garbage cans. He put lids on the cans. He picked up an orange tarp and draped it over the machine. He was quite dutiful about the whole procedure. Among the Eagles coaches and players Tuesday, he was the last man to leave the field.

He called the cleanup "being a servant," which was an easy, purpose-driven-life way to say that he appreciates the job that the team's equipment managers did each day, and he wanted to help them out. The routine had a purpose more specific to Matthews' job. He catches passes from the Jugs machine after every practice, he said, to train his eyes to track the point of the football. "I don't leave without catching cans full of balls over and over again," he said. Do it every day, and he won't drop as many when it matters.

Do it every day, and presumably Matthews will avoid what has happened over the Eagles' first two games this season. He leads them with 16 receptions and 182 receiving yards, but he has dropped three passes, and each has been costly. The first was the final play of the Eagles' Week 1 loss in Atlanta, a high throw from Sam Bradford that caromed off Matthews' hands to Falcons cornerback Ricardo Allen. The next two were on Sunday in that unsightly 20-10 loss to the Cowboys. The first might have gone for a drive-extending first down. The second definitely would have.

"I always move on to the next play," he said Tuesday. "I honestly just go out and play. I really don't think about it, if it's a good play or a bad play."

On the list of corrections, adjustments, and complete restructurings that the Eagles must make before this Sunday's game against the New York Jets, Matthews' drops rank somewhere between the offensive line's zone-blocking techniques and Donnie Jones' decision to play in special-teams traffic. It's not close to a crisis. But the attention paid to Matthews' mistakes is an indication of his elevated importance to the Eagles offense.

With Jeremy Maclin in Kansas City, with Josh Huff and rookie Nelson Agholor still finding their way, with Riley Cooper and Miles Austin presenting minimal threat on the outside, it's Matthews who by default has become the Eagles' No. 1 receiver. That he has reached this status as a second-year player and a slot receiver, where he rarely encounters one-on-one coverage and has to negotiate the perilous middle of the field, makes his rise into an elite target, into someone who might carry the Eagles offense out of this swamp it's in, more challenging.

"I'm just a piece of the puzzle, to be honest," said Matthews, who caught 67 passes, including eight touchdowns, as a rookie last season. "I think there are a lot of guys on our team who, when stuff gets hard, it's, 'OK, let's try to get the ball in this guy's hands.' But I know when I go out there, my team trusts me. My quarterback trusts me. My coaches trust me. And I've just got to make those plays."

Except Matthews wasn't just a puzzle piece in college. The Eagles wouldn't have drafted him if he had been. He finished his career at Vanderbilt as the Southeastern Conference's all-time leading receiver, with 262 catches, and he tries to maintain a balance between his natural receiver's desire to have the ball thrown to him on every play and his obligation to be an unselfish teammate.

"I played college, and I was the only one targeted most of the time," he said. "We had other great receivers, but at the same time, when the going got rough, they always came to me.

"Trust me: I've got the dog in me. I want the ball. Everybody should want the ball. But at the same time, I understand that you can't ever step out of that box and try to make a play that's not there. So when the opportunity comes, I put that responsibility on myself. I've got to go out there and make plays. It's going to be that way for the rest of the season, for the rest of my career. That's the player I am. That's the player I want to be."

So the Eagles will practice Wednesday, and once practice ends, Jordan Matthews will remove the lids from those garbage cans and turn on the Jugs machine. He will begin his routine again, all in the name of not making the mistake he doesn't think about making.

msielski@phillynews.com

@MikeSielski