The good news is that Jackson and Robinson did get up. Jackson has a concussion. The Falcons did not say anything more than that Robinson has a head injury. There was relief when they finally stood, and an ovation from the crowd at Lincoln Financial Field. But there could be no more poignant football scene than that of the two of them, supported under each arm, walking slowly toward their respective dressing rooms at either corner of the stadium's south end zone.
After which, it was first-and-10 for the Eagles at the Falcons' 17-yard line.
"It's just part of the game," said Eagles cornerback Ellis Hobbs, who suffered a broken neck last season. "Someone gets hurt, I always say, 'The show continues.' For that 10 to 15 minutes, everything stops and everything is standing still. But once that guy gets up, whether he's wheeled off or carried off or walks off on his own power, I think the show continues.
"There's no hard feelings for anybody. I've been in that position. That's just the nature of the game and that's how it goes."
The players are all so matter-of-fact about it that it stuns you - even though you know ahead of time that matter-of-fact is how they are going to be. It is an NFL football player's defense mechanism, that hard mental shell that takes care of the parts that the helmets and the shoulder pads cannot possibly protect.
Of about 10 Eagles players approached yesterday after Jackson's hit, 100 percent of them offered a variation on "it's just part of the game." Nobody criticized Robinson, who received a 15-yard penalty for hitting Jackson while he was defenseless. They cannot afford to be scared or intimidated because there are hundreds of people who would be more than willing to make the same deal in exchange for half of the sum on an NFL player's paycheck.
They cannot afford it. Cannot.
