Eagles Players React To Baker's Dirty Hit And Peters' Defense Of Foles
PHILADELPHIA (CBS) --- When fans at Lincoln Financial Field broke into a "LET'S GO EAGLES" chant, for I think the first time ever, following a full-fledged brawl between the Eagles and Redskins, it truly felt like a hockey game.
After Redskins' defensive lineman Chris Baker cheap-shotted Nick Foles' following what we thought was an interception, Jason Peters protected his quarterback, as he should have.
"I didn't mean to get kicked out or anything like that, but I was protecting my quarterback," Peter said after the game. "I wasn't having it," Peters said. "That's just a cheap shot. You're taking on the smallest guy on the field and you're cheap-shotting him, and he's not even trying to make the play."
"I made a football play, and I got punched in the face," Baker said. "I did not do anything wrong besides make a football play and defend myself after getting hit. But if I could do it again, I would do it again. I did not do anything wrong, but I guess since he's a quarterback I guess I got ejected. But if you go back and review the film, in the first quarter I was hit the same way by a center (Jason Kelce), but because I'm a lineman, it's OK."
Here are some of the other reactions to the hit, by Eagles players:
Nick Foles
"He got me pretty good, did not see him," Foles said. "I thought the guy was down that's why I wasn't looking for anyone and next thing you know, I was just obliterated."
"I mean I love those guys," Foles said of Peters defending him. "I'm going to fight every time for them, they're going to fight for me. Just knowing that he [Peters] had my back, in that situation, the guy does a dirty play. All those guys kept fighting, our team was fighting throughout the whole day. I'm really really proud of my teammates today."
Todd Herremans
"That's about as scary as it gets," Todd Herremans said. "I thought about stepping in the way but I would have gotten murdered."
Zach Ertz
"Jason Peters, I'm not messing with him," Ertz said. "No matter what he says to me, I would not say anything back to him. He's so selfless and he leads this team in so many ways. We're so glad to have him. It was an emotional game from the get-go. When a thing like that happens, you don't want to see anybody lose their composure and get thrown out of the game, but when somebody cheap shots your quartebrack, you've got to stand up for them, and J.P. did that. I'm very proud of the team for how we responded."
Chris Polk
"I was pissed off," Polk said. "That's the President. I'll take a bullet for the president. You take a cheap shot like that? That's not professional."
Connor Barwin
"The thing is, we didn't let it affect us at all," Connor Barwin said. "When J.P. got tossed out of the game, it was a huge loss for us, but we kept fighting and we didn't let it bother us. We did what we needed to do to come out with the win. It's kind of human nature. We can all say not to do it, but when you're put in that situation, it's hard to say you can't react, when you see somebody do that to your quarterback or any of your teammates."
DeMeco Ryans
"When we got back to the sidelines, everybody was just staying, 'Just stay calm, we're in a good position,'" DeMeco Ryans said. "Obviously, they wanted to fight,. They were frustrated, so don't really play into that."
The Eagles are 3-0, but maybe more importantly, Sunday showed us a lot about their character as a team.
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