The Philadelphia Eagles had the worst collapse in NFL history last fall. They started the season 10-1 before losing five of their final six matchups.
They managed to make it to the first round of the playoffs. But they lost that one too, brutally.
So, what happened?
Many are still wondering, but Eagles running back Kenneth Gainwell has an idea.
"I think it was a connection piece. Teams like KC are well-connected, upstairs and downstairs," Gainwell said during a recent appearance on the Javien University podcast. "Front office and locker room. When you have a connection, everything just clicks. But when you got guys that aren’t talking to each other, you never know what’s going on."
Gainwell believes that the lack of communication could have been solved if they just sat down and talked it out.
"If we all sit down and talk to each other and find out what's going on, or we find out what we need to do on the field to get this thing going, then we'll be good," Gainwell said. "Because if we played really hard at the beginning of the season, we need to continue to play hard at the end of the season because at the end of the season is what really matters."
Once the bad communication and bad attitudes started, they trickled down and didn't stop.
"If we get to the playoffs and we're not playing good, and we still got our head down because we just lost five games, what do you think we're going to do in the playoffs? It's scientific, bro," Gainwell said. "If you're moody every day, you're going to be moody tomorrow and tomorrow. You've got to work on it. You've got to continue to work on how to get better each and every day."
What Gainwell said is no surprise since fans everywhere noticed the sideline blowups and the way coaches and players acted during press conferences.
Aside from losing, that made it pretty obvious that there was a locker room issue, though it's nice to hear the truth from an inside source.
"We weren't the only ones seeing it," Gainwell said. "I feel like fans were seeing it too. People on the outside we like, 'Oh, yeah they ain't connected."
