Eagles coach proud of team's fight - officiating aside

The Eagles believe that Ryan Mathews' game-changing fumble late in the fourth quarter of their 24-23 loss to the Detroit Lions on Sunday should have resulted in their retaining possession - not the Lions taking the ball with a chance to win.

A Zapruder-like dissection of the game film reveals that the loose ball might have touched Jason Kelce's knee while the center's hand was out of bounds before the Lions recovered it. By rule, a player who touches a fumble while out of bounds makes it a dead ball. The Eagles would have had a fourth down and a chance to punt, taking time off the clock and pinning the Lions back to make it more difficult to kick the winning field goal. Coach Doug Pederson said the Eagles would send footage of play for the league office to review.

"We'll send a few clips in from this game," Pederson said. "But again, that's not why we lost this football game."

Pederson discussed it with assistant coaches during the game. The replay officials reviewed the call and told Pederson that Kelce did not touch the ball. Dean Blandino, the NFL's senior vice president of officiating, said in a video he posted on Twitter that they "don't have any definitive angle to show whether [Kelce is] actually touching the football," so the play could not be overturned.

"It's just one of those things," Pederson said. "But we can't cough the ball up."

That was Pederson's prevailing sentiment one day after the loss. The Eagles would have benefited from a more favorable call, but they put themselves in that situation with Mathews' costly fumble.

On the pitch sweep to the right side, Mathews carried the ball in his left arm - not his right, which was closer to the sideline. By carrying the ball in his left arm, the Lions defenders were able to knock it out of his grasp.

"You'd usually like to carry it on your outside arm," Pederson said. ". . . They made a tremendous play and just kind of caught us kind of 'bang-bang' in that situation. But ideally, I think as a runner, yeah, you would want to carry it in your outside arm."

The fumble was one example of officiating decisions that drew the ire of Eagles fans after their first loss. The Eagles were charged with 14 penalties for 111 yards. The Lions were flagged for two penalties for 18 yards. That disparity was significant and was a big reason the Eagles suffered their first loss.

"I'm not going to get into the officiating," Pederson said. "We have to correct them. We have to play smarter, obviously."

Some of the calls had no room for ambiguity, such as Fletcher Cox ripping Lions quarterback Matthew Stafford's helmet off by the face mask on a third-down sack in the red zone. The personal foul gave the Lions a fresh set of downs and they scored a touchdown two plays later. If the Eagles had not committed the penalty, the Lions would have needed to settle for three points instead of seven.

The Eagles were also flagged for two delay-of-game penalties on offense. Pederson said those were the result of Carson Wentz changing protections and alignments at the line, and crowd noise affecting how quickly those adjustments could be made.

Those were a few examples of calls that were clear. And despite the penalty disparity and the fumble that could have stayed with the Eagles, using the officials as a reason for the loss would just be making an excuse. Pederson focused more on the Eagles coming back into position to win.

"We almost overcame it and won it, and that's a tribute to the football team and the way the guys battled," Pederson said. "To have as many plays on defense to start this game . . . and if you count penalties and everything, it's a bunch of football. That was their game. Our game was we battled, we hung in there, and the defense played outstanding in the second half. We made plays on offense and had a chance to win it with two minutes to go in the game."

Pederson said that's the sign of a "good football team" and is an example of this group's character. He referenced last year's Thanksgiving Day loss to the Lions and how much the Eagles had progressed since then. When Pederson boarded the charter flight back to Philadelphia on Sunday afternoon, he saw players looking at their tablets, already studying game film.

Penalties and missed calls don't carry over from one game to the next, but Pederson is confident that the team's character will.

"I saw how ticked off this team was at the end of this football game despite everything that went on in this game: negative, positive, the whole thing," Pederson said. "They're watching, they're correcting the mistakes. They're wanting to get back out on the football field. From a coach's perspective, that's great to see. That's great to see your players take ownership that way."

zberman@phillynews.com

@ZBerm