Everybody’s been blasting the Eagles’ wide receivers lately.
Add Jordan Matthews to the list.
Matthews, the only Eagles wide receiver among the top 120 in the NFL in yards per game, was asked Wednesday if he feels like the Eagles are getting enough out of their wideouts.
“I would say no, not at all,” Matthews said. “We’re not playing to the level that we need to be playing at, and you can even throw me in there too. Me included with the whole group.”
Matthews has 36 catches for 419 yards and three touchdowns, but Nelson Agholor (21-for-216), Dorial Green-Beckham (18-for-194) and Josh Huff (13-for-72) combined are averaging less than 70 yards per game, and each has one touchdown catch.
The Eagles, 4-3, have lost three of their last four games, and they have just one offensive play of 30 yards or more in those four games.
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They will try to end a three-game road losing streak and two-game NFC East losing streak Sunday afternoon at the Meadowlands against the Giants.
Agholor, a former first-round pick, has just three career catches over 21 yards. Green-Beckham, like Matthews, is among the top 11 in the NFL in dropped passes. Huff, a former third-round pick, is among the NFL’s top kick returners but is averaging only 14 receiving yards per game in his career.
“It’s on us to all say internally, ‘How are we each going to go out there and not just do our job but do our job to a level where, OK, now we’re a threat to people,” Matthews said.
“Because right now we’re putting people in a situation where (they’re saying), ‘OK, this guy does this, this guy does this, he’s the big guy, he’s the slot.’ But (we need people to say), ‘OK, we need to be worried about these guys.’
“I know when our defensive guys come in here (to the interview room), y’all are going to ask them about the Giants’ wide receivers and what threat are they to you guys. Well, we need to play to that level, to where other teams are saying, ‘OK, we’ve got to get ready for these guys.’
“But that’s just on us. That’s what we’ve got to do every day in practice and we’ve just got to take that mentality into the game, and I’m confident in the guys that we have, that we’re going to do that.”
Wentz has averaged below 5.0 yards per pass attempt the last two weeks, becoming the first Eagles quarterback to do that in consecutive games since Mike McMahon in 2005.
Overall, Wentz ranks 24th in the NFL out of 32 quarterbacks who’ve thrown at least 100 passes with 6.69 yards per attempt.
In the Eagles’ first four games, Wentz averaged 252 yards per game and 7.5 yards per attempt and threw seven touchdowns. In the last three, he’s averaged 173 yards per game and 5.6 yards per attempt with two touchdowns.
Wentz, when told of Matthews’ comments, declined to discuss the receivers specifically but didn’t disagree with his sentiment.
“I think as an offense we all need to play better,” Wentz said. “We all have to take it upon ourselves to play better and to be more effective, especially late in games. I would agree with him — as an offense we all have to do better.”
