NASHVILLE, Tenn. - Jalen Mills should probably avoid sports talk radio in Philadelphia this week.
It's not going to be kind to him.
Mills had a bad game Sunday. That comes after a few bad games before. And it comes after fans were already calling for the third-year corner's job. The green-haired, finger-wagging 24-year-old doesn't lack for confidence, but the confidence in him from the fanbase has quickly evaporated.
After the loss to Tampa Bay, Mills tweeted, "I see all the chatter keep that same energy!" Fans kept that energy Sunday while Mills was getting roasted in Tennessee (see story).
Get ready for another week of folks clamoring to bench Jalen Mills.
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After Sunday's 26-23 loss, there's certainly a lot more ammo.
• On the first drive of the game, Mills let Corey Davis get past him for a 28-yard gain on third down.
• In the third quarter, Mills got called for 20-yard defensive pass interference that set up the Titans' first touchdown.
• In the fourth quarter, Davis beat Mills on a 51-yard deep ball to start the drive that gave the Titans their 20-17 lead.
• In overtime, Mills was lucky Darius Jennings dropped a deep ball from Marcus Mariota after he ran past Mills.
Eagles defensive leader Malcolm Jenkins tried to defend Mills after the game:
He's a resilient dude. I think a lot of times, people will look at this from home and think he had a bad game, but a lot of it wasn't necessarily his fault. He's the guy by the ball, but the way we run our coverages, it wasn't all on him. It's one of those things that I'm sure … he always does respond. He'll keep his head up, he'll try to block out the noise. At the end of the day, as long as we believe in him, that's all that matters.
Maybe those miscues weren't all on Mills. Others probably deserve some blame and the defensive pass interference call was questionable. But Mills certainly didn't play well, which has become a troubling trend over the first quarter of the season.
What makes matters worse is that we've seen something from Sidney Jones and Rasul Douglas, the two possible replacements. They're younger and have performed when given chances. Really, it seems like everyone is clamoring for Jones to take over as the team's outside corner, which would slide Mills inside.
Just don't expect it to happen anytime soon. Jim Schwartz loves Mills, perhaps to a fault.
Everyone seems to praise Mills for his short memory, the fact that he rebounds from bad plays and is able to forget and move on. It's, no doubt, a valuable skill for a corner. And everyone gets beat.
But maybe Mills is so good at bouncing back from bad games because he has them so frequently.
