Kevin Byard’s admission reveals true toxicity of Eagles locker room

Philadelphia Eagles wide receiver A.J. Brown may have organized a team-building trip to an escape room, but it’s going to take a lot more than that to fix whatever friction is going on inside the Eagles locker room.

After starting the season 10-1, the Eagles are reeling after losing four of their last five games. Compounded with the losing is the apparent division between the players and the coaches, prompting safety Kevin Byard to shine a light on perhaps Philly’s biggest issue right now: behind-the-scenes information getting leaked to the media.

“I think playing for this city, you have to really operate in a different way,” Byard told the Philadelphia Enquirer. “For example, I come from Tennessee, which is obviously a smaller market, I feel like it was very easy to keep in-house things in-house. It’s very different over here. I feel like there’s leaks everywhere ... it can be very divisive in a way. It can kind of force players or whoever it may be to almost protect yourself.”

The cracks in the Eagles foundation started to show after getting embarrassed in back-to-back weeks against the San Francisco 49ers (42-19 loss) and Dallas Cowboys (33-13 loss). 

Byard’s admission shows that the locker room may be even more fractured than it appears to be on the surface. Reports of a “tense” atmosphere in the locker room and a players-only meeting led by Brown in which he implied the players haven’t been listening to the coaches isn’t exactly a good sign as the Eagles head into Sunday’s matchup with the New York Giants needing a win.