SEATTLE — Maybe everybody else has given up on Nelson Agholor.
His coach and teammates say they haven’t.
“The guy’s a talented player,” tight end Zach Ertz said. “A very talented player. He’s my teammate and he works his butt off each and every day.
“I know you guys don’t see it, but he works his ass off each and every day. So I’m not down on him for making a little mistake. Guys aren’t down on him on the drops. Because we see the work he puts in.
“I know the city is kind of down on him a little bit, but we’re not down on him at all because I know the work he puts in.”
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Agholor suffered through a nightmarish performance in the Eagles’ 26-15 loss to the Seahawks Sunday at CenturyLink Field (see story).
In addition to costing Ertz a 57-yard touchdown catch from Carson Wentz because he didn’t line up on the line of scrimmage, he dropped an easy pass that would have been at least a 40-yard gain and possibly a touchdown. He finished with no catches and has just seven receiving yards in the last two games.
“I’ve had a couple preseasons where I didn’t catch the ball, and it’s hard because when you love the game, that’s all you pretty much think about,” Ertz said. “Our receivers, tight ends and backs, we catch a lot of balls.
“When I was going through some periods of drops, it eats you up inside. It’s tough. It’s real tough. It’s hard to overcome. You just have to take a deep breath and that’s all you can do. [[393267511, C]]
“Get on the JUGS. (You can’t) change your whole routine and say, ‘What I’m doing isn’t working.’ You’ve got to stick to the process, stick to the process, and it will come.”
Agholor has just 27 catches for 264 yards and one touchdown in 10 games this year and 50 catches for 547 yards and two TDs in 23 career games (see observations).
He spoke after the loss Sunday about pressing, about “getting in my own head,” about trying too hard to be perfect and how his mistakes are "eating at him."
Jordan Matthews, the Eagles’ only consistently productive receiver, was seen pulling Agholor aside on the sideline at one point and having a heart-to-heart with the struggling receiver.
“It’s football, it’s a humbling game,” Matthews said. “It’s humbled me, it’s probably humbled everybody in this locker room. I told him, ‘You don’t know what the next play could be.’
"Because when Carson drops back, he doesn’t care, he’s not seeing (an individual), he’s going through checks, going through reads, and you never know when the ball might come back to you.
“We need (Agholor). He was a big part of the gameplan today. It’s unfortunate, man. You don’t want to see anybody deal with that on a mental basis, but you have to put it behind you. That’s the only thing you can do.”
Wentz admitted he was frustrated by Agholor’s drop but said he still has faith in the second-year wide out from USC, despite his struggles, despite his terrible drops, despite his lack of production (see story).
“Obviously, any time you leave plays out there it’s frustrating,” he said. “But I’m coming right back to him the next play.
“We have not lost confidence in him. I have not lost confidence in him. We just have to keep encouraging him. … He wants to be great. He’s working his tail off, so we’re just going to keep working with him.”
Head coach Doug Pederson said he’s not down on Agholor and blamed himself for Agholor not being on the line of scrimmage, even though he was jumping up and down on the sideline yelling for Agholor to move up.
“I’m going to keep enouraging him,” Pederson said. “He works hard every single day. I’m going to keep talking, keep encouraging him. By no means am I going to be down on him.”
In Agholor’s 23 career games, he’s never had more than 64 yards.
He’s had 40 or more yards just five times and 25 or fewer 14 times.
“At the end of the day, you’ve got to know your truth,” Matthews said. “What is your truth?
“You go out there and work hard and you’re going out there making plays at practice, if you’ve got to transfer that to the game, the worst thing you can do is bring a whole bunch of other stuff outside of the game, outside of your practice, outside of your job to your job, which is to catch the ball.
“The pressure’s getting to him. He’s a friend before he’s a teammate. Just got to rally around him, keep him positive, keep him uplifted, and then let him know, ‘Hey, at some point you’re going to have to make a play for us that’s going to help us win a game.’”
