Pederson: Having Ryan Mathews on Field for 2-point Try Would Not Have Made Any Difference

Ryan Mathews destroyed the Ravens Sunday. Until the biggest play of the game.

Mathews rushed for 128 yards and a touchdown on 20 carries against the NFL’s No. 1-ranked run defense, the most yards by an opposing back at M&T Bank Stadium in more than six years.

After halftime, he was 9 for 73, for 8.1 yard per carry. 

And in the fourth quarter, he was 4 for 51 — nearly 13 yards per carry.

But when the Eagles lined up for the potential game-winning two-point conversion, Mathews was watching from the bench.

Instead of Mathews, Doug Pederson went with undrafted rookie Byron Marshall, playing in his first NFL game, and on Monday, a day after Carson Wentz's pass to Jordan Matthews was deflected at the line of scrimmage and the Eagles lost their fifth straight game, the head coach attempted to explain why.

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Here are Pederson’s answers, word for word, when questioned about using Marshall instead of Mathews on the game’s pivotal play.

Question: “Now that you've had a chance to go back and watch it, do you have any thought in terms of the play call on the two-point conversion? Maybe some clarity as to why it was Byron Marshall and not Ryan Mathews on the field?”

Pederson: “In my mind, there was zero opportunity to run, because what we anticipated is what we got defensively. They gapped out. They zero blitzed us. There was not going to be a lane. It was going to be a one-yard loss if we tried to run the football at that time. In those situations, as I mentioned after the game, as a defensive coordinator, you storm the castle. That's what they did. Then you try to create the match up one-on-one, which we had a good one on our slot receiver, Jordan Matthews. Just unfortunate the one extra guy got his hand on the ball and tipped it. It didn't matter who was in the backfield at the time. The fact of the matter was we weren’t going to run the ball in that situation.”

Question: “But with Mathews not out there, doesn't that kind of give it a way a little bit more [that you’re not running]?”

Pederson: “No. Listen, from a football coach's standpoint — and maybe from layman's terms it might look to appear that way — when you are in the heat of the battle like that, they are going to do what they do, we're going to do what we do.

"I know what we did the first two-point conversion (succsessful Mathews run). It was in the first half of the game when really I decided to go for two then because of the weather. I didn't want to take points off the board necessarily with a potential missed extra point with the way we were kicking into the wind at that time. So that's a different situation, different scenario. This was a true, got-to-have-it situation and we had our best play at that time against that defense.”

Question: “So you don't think the Ravens would have any more notion that you are going to throw the ball with a rookie playing in his first game at running back than with Mathews on the field?"

Pederson: “No, they knew we were throwing the ball.”

Not according to Ravens defensive end Lawrence Guy.

“We were ready for anything, run or pass,” Guy said after the game. “Didn’t matter, we were ready.”

In any case, from the Ravens’ standpoint, stopping the two-point conversion turned out to be “easy.”

At least according to Ravens safety Lardarius Webb.

“We had the defense just for it,” Webb said. “The way our corners and the way our defensive front put pressure on [Wentz], it made it easy.”

Easier than if Mathews had been out there?

Not according to the coach whose team has lost nine of its last 11 games.

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