Bradford baffled by his struggles

The playing field immediately after an NFL game is an odd mingling of friendship and formality, a quick armistice after three hours of bashing one another so violently that a half-dozen participants are routinely helped or carted off.

Former teammates, from college or a previous professional stop, find one another to embrace and catch up. There are little clusters of guys from the same hometown, acquaintances from recruiting trips, or clients of the same agents. Hulking linemen gather, as do speedy skill players. At the center of the field, those players who want to offer a prayer take a knee together and do so, their scabbed and scraped arms draped across the shoulder pads of the man next to them.

It is the sort of camaraderie that might annoy the fan who threw a pillow across the room and accidentally dislodged a lamp during the game, but in those moments, everyone is smiling and happy and it is impossible to tell which team won and which lost. This was business and now it is over for the day. Not every salesman gets the account. Some you win, some you lose.

And then, in Charlotte's Bank of America Stadium late on Sunday night, there was Sam Bradford, head down, first guy into the tunnel.

On the final, pointless play of the game, with time already expired and the Eagles trailing by 11 points, Bradford rolled out of the pocket near midfield, running left to stay a step ahead of an oncoming lineman and bent himself nearly double to sling a pass downfield where a cluster of players awaited. The lineman could have hit him but pulled up. What was the point?

At about the 10-yard line, a Carolina player knocked the ball to the ground and the field was covered almost at once by the milling and hugs and hellos. The two head coaches met for their ritual handshake, locating each other in the crowd by looking for the play card or hat held aloft by an opposing handler like the pennant above a liege lord on the march. The network quickly set up its postgame interview dais, the cheerleaders danced and the music played.

After the ball fell, Bradford didn't see any of it. He kept going in the direction his momentum carried him, straight for the door. Derek Anderson, the Panthers veteran backup quarterback, shook his hand as they passed, but that was the extent of the postgame celebration for Bradford.

The quarterback's arrival in Philadelphia this season has been much like his exit from St. Louis, layered with a general sense of unfulfilled potential, or of potential that was incorrectly evaluated. Injuries finally did him in with the Rams, but the organization and the fans there were also unsure that the quarterback with a penchant for checking down and making that one fatal mistake each game would ever become the leader they hoped. The Rams rolled the dice that Nick Foles offered more upside than the former Heisman Trophy winner taken with the first pick of the 2010 draft - which is the very definition of rolling the dice.

During the 3-4 start to the season, Bradford has been described, usually from afar, as appearing scared or uneasy, often compared to a deer that finds itself jacklighted by an oncoming car. Up close, that isn't the case. He's just utterly perplexed, searching to figure out why things aren't going well. After making his way from the tunnel to the dressing room on Sunday night, he was still at a loss for an explanation.

"I wish I knew," he said, and he really did.

Playing a good team on a roll at home, the Eagles needed to be far better than they were Sunday. Bradford was part of the problem. There were dropped passes, sure, but some of them came when he tried to force balls through traffic or as he zipped throws with too much pace when a little touch might have worked instead. The receivers are professionals and they aren't paid to merely make the easy catches, but when Bradford winds up it often seems they don't expect exactly what comes their way.

It was a hard game for him. Bradford was sacked five times and hit another nine times. The Panthers played their safeties back and dared him to beat them with sustained drives. It wasn't that the Eagles didn't control the ball well enough to win. They ran 81 plays compared with 58 for Carolina and had five drives of 40 yards or more, compared with four for Carolina, but the Panthers somehow managed to gain more net passing and net rushing yards overall.

The Eagles dinked and dunked down the field and eventually something went wrong. Bradford completed 8 of 15 third-down passes, which is acceptable - actually great by his previous standard this season of 46.4 percent - but two of the completions were well shy of getting the first down. Those were either bad calls, bad execution or a poor decision by the quarterback to throw. Take your pick. Could be all three. Add in a third-down sack and the Eagles were actually successful 6 of 16 times, which is not acceptable.

It is certainly possible that the receivers will catch the ball more reliably and the line will provide better holes for the running backs eventually. But none of that will change things appreciably if the quarterback doesn't become one of those guys who can carry a team over the next ridge when nothing else is working.

Sam Bradford wants to be that guy. When it doesn't happen, he doesn't hang around to slap hands and smile. He cares. That's a good quality. But right now he is a below-average quarterback on a team with so-so talent. There isn't very much that is really perplexing about the results they are getting.

The Eagles would like him to be one of those special guys, too. At the moment, they are the second NFL team to wait for that to happen. It's harsh to say about a player who is so dedicated, but you start to wonder how many more teams there will be.

bford@phillynews.com

@bobfordsports