Another game, another big penalty from Derek Barnett. And Doug Pederson doesn't want him to get labeled as a dirty player.
On the tail end of Nate Gerry's pick-6 on Sunday, Barnett got called for an unnecessary roughness penalty that actually should have cost the Eagles a touchdown. Well away from the play, Barnett chop-blocked an offensive lineman. Pederson classified it as a "mistake that he didn't need to make."
Barnett needs to cut it out.
Through five games, Barnett has six total penalties for 65 yards to lead the Eagles and three of them are for unnecessary roughness.
There are other types of personal fouls, but Barnett has been penalized for unnecessary roughness more than 26 teams and no other player in the league has more than one.
That's how you get a reputation.
Derek and I have talked," Pederson said. "We talk during the week. We talked during the game yesterday about it. Listen, it's an emotional game and sometimes things escalate during the game. Having been out there and being around those guys, obviously you don't ever want to be labeled as one of those type of athletes, but he's aggressive. He plays hard. He plays to the whistle. I'm not going to take that away from him, obviously. We've just got to be smarter and it starts with me communicating that with the team and being a more disciplined football team that way.
Here are a look at Barnett's three unnecessary roughness penalties in chronological order … all of them fit the bill. They were unnecessary:
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This came after Nate Gerry's interception in the end zone in Week 2. It does initially look like Gerry want to bring the ball out of the end zone, but Barnett delivers a blindside block to an offensive lineman 10 yards away as Gerry gets tackled in the end zone.
You've already seen this one a bunch. This hit landed Jamaal Williams in the hospital and got Barnett fined $28,075. The player was already wrapped up and being pushed backward and Barnett came in as the whistle was blowing and hit him helmet-to-helmet.
And this most recent one was dozens of yards away from the play. Barnett goes low on OL Alex Lewis in what looked to be like a retaliation hit. When Barnett hits Lewis, Gerry is still outside the 10-yard line. The Eagles are lucky because this actually should have negated the touchdown.
After the hit on Williams, a few of his teammates and coaches said Barnett plays through the whistle and that's something that makes him the player he is. That's great. But he can't keep doing this. We've talked about his possibly earning a reputation. We might be there already.
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