Doug Pederson and the Philadelphia Eagles had a chance to achieve their first back-to-back set of wins this season on Sunday against the Carolina Panthers at home. Their odds of doing so were through the roof entering the fourth quarter when the defending Super Bowl champions were up 17-0. But that’s when the wheels started to come off for Philadelphia, as the Eagles gave up three touchdowns to the Panthers in the fourth quarter to emerge out of the contest with a 21-17 loss.

As depressing of a loss that was for the Eagles, Doug Pederson chose to look at the defeat from another perspective. In the postgame conference, Pederson told reporters that the defeat eased the team off of a heavy burden, per Josh Alper of Pro Football Talk.

“The message is that — quite frankly I told them we have to learn from these,” Pederson said. “These are games that galvanize football teams, and this is going to do that. This is going to bring us even closer together. Basically told them pressure’s off of us. Nobody on the outside world is giving us a chance to do much of anything. Pressure’s off, so we can go play, have fun, and just relax. A lot of football ahead too. We still have a bunch of games, and still anything’s possible, anything can happen. We still treat it as one week at a time.”

Pederson knows that a defending Super Bowl champion team is usually the most pressured unit to succeed and his postgame comments made it appear as if the Eagles are having trouble living up to the hype this season.

In any case, the Eagles are now 3-4. There is plenty of football to be played, but Philly has to start getting it together consistently.

The Eagles will have a date with the Jacksonville Jaguars next week in London.