Zech McPhearson stood there knowing he was going to get clobbered.
And he did get clobbered.
But not before he made a crucial heads-up play Sunday to recover a Lions onside kick, a play that may have saved the game for the Eagles.
Stay in the game with the latest updates on your beloved Philadelphia sports teams! Sign up here for our All Access Daily newsletter.
After the Lions closed to 31-21 midway through the third quarter, they tried an onside kick.
It wasn’t a great kick. Lions kicker Austin Seibert booted it right toward McPhearson, the Eagles’ second-year backup cornerback.
If it looked like McPhearson knew what was coming, it’s because he did.
Lions special teams coach Dave Fipp — who won a Super Bowl with the Eagles in 2017 — is known for trickery, and the Eagles knew anything was possible.
NFL
Both McPhearson — as well as Patrick Johnson, another second-year pro — detected a tell on Seibert’s part that indicated an onside kick.
So McPhearson was ready.
“It’s always great when you have a full offseason going against an opponent that you know can pull out some trickery here and there,” said Eagles special teams coach Michael Clay, who worked under Fipp here in 2015.
“I could tell the guys until I'm blue in the face, watch out for the onside kick, but kudos to Zech to stay disciplined, stay in there at that time of the game and not panic. He stayed patient right there.
“For him to stay in there and kind of alert (that) there was a different pace by the kicker. Then you can see also Patrick Johnson, who plays our rover, was darting there because he saw it also. So kudos to them just being so locked into that.”
McPhearson recovered near midfield and immediately went down to the ground to protect himself and the football.
Six plays later, Boston Scott scored and the Eagles went up 38-21 on the way to a 38-35 opening-day win.
The Lions had some momentum at that point, and if they got the ball back? It's easy to imagine the final result being different.
McPhearson was rewarded for his heads-up play Wednesday when he was named NFC Special Teams Player of the Week. He’s the first Eagles cornerback to receive the honor since Allen Rossum, who was also a returner, in 1999.
Clay was impressed not only with McPhearson’s mental acuity in expecting the onside kick but his fearlessness to stand in there knowing he was about to get hit.
“That's a guy looking at the ball, not being fearful there are two guys unblocked coming at him,” he said. “Detroit is a very physical team. They came at him. He was able to stay composed right there, caught it, and protected himself by going down right there. It was a pretty impressive play for Zech.”
McPhearson is the Eagles’ third outside cornerback, and he showed some promise as a d-back as a rookie last year, when he played 179 snaps. But he knows as long as Darius Slay and James Bradberry are healthy, his main role will be on special teams.
And Sunday he contributed in a big way.
“Zech has done an outstanding job from Year 1 to Year 2 just in learning the entirety of the special teams, grasping it and becoming a leader,” Clay said. “He also had two tackles as a gunner out there.
“He's come leaps and bounds, and we're going to lean on him. He's still going to get better and better at it. He was just upstairs with [special teams quality control coach] Tyler Brown champing at the bit to get ready for Minnesota.”
Subscribe to the Eagle Eye podcast
Apple Podcasts | Google Play | Spotify | Stitcher | Art19 | Watch on YouTube