Eagles remain optimistic despite disappointing start

The Eagles insist no one is panicking.

Yet one player, Jason Avant, felt the need to organize a players-only meeting yesterday before practice. The message: Remain calm.

“We had four bad games,” linebacker Jamar Chaney said. “At the end of the day, we don’t think none of those four teams was better than us.”

Andy Reid maintained his one-game-at-a-time philosophy and shot down rumors that they are looking for a defensive consultant.

“Nobody. Zero. Nothing,” Reid said.

And nobody in the locker room is criticizing Reid. There are even some faint whispers of playoffs and NFC East titles. The dream season isn’t officially a nightmare just yet.

“We’re going to keep working and, when it’s all said and done, we’re going to be in the playoffs,” Chaney said. “We’re going to do our thing, so we’re not worrying about that.”

“I still think we have just a good a chance of going to the playoffs right now [compared to two weeks ago],” center Jason Kelce said. “We’re still 0-1 in the division, so we still got the division left, and we can still turn this thing around easily.”

Easily? Only five teams have made the postseason after starting the season at 1-4 since the current playoff format was established in 1990. Cullen Jenkins was a rookie on one of those squads, the 2004 Packers.

“You see a lot of teams, especially the teams that haven’t had a lot of success, be like ‘here we go again,’” Jenkins said. “But with them, it was just that sense of having success for so long that this isn’t what we do here. This is going to get turned around.”

Jenkins sees the same thing with these Eagles.

“Definitely. We’ll get it going,” Jenkins said.