Saints' Tyrann Mathieu is upset about his role in the Eagles incident: “We should never go to the other team's sideline”

Jalen Carter was hot on the sidelines as the Philadelphia Eagles were close to sealing their 15-12 victory over the New Orleans Saints. Earlier in the game, Carter was involved in a sideline altercation with Saints safety Tyrann Mathieu after Reed Blankenship's interception capped a dominant defensive performance by the Eagles.

The argument became so heated that Carter had to be restrained by Eagles head coach Nick Sirianni and defensive line coach Clint Hurtt. Mathieu, a Saints team captain, expressed regret for his role in the argument and how it escalated.

“It's an intense game and emotions are running high,” Mathieu said after the game, according to a transcript provided by the Saints. Obviously, it was a one-point game for a while. Defensively, we obviously want to defend our home field. Latt (Marshon Lattimore) and I should never go on the sideline of those guys. So we'll learn from this.

“It happens to all of us that emotions get the better of us. We didn't hear much from these guys the whole game until they took the lead at the end. We're just looking forward to hopefully playing these guys again.”

Carter was not asked about the altercation and the reason for his exchange with Mathieu and Lattimore, but the Eagles defense did show its strengths in Sunday's win over the Saints. The Eagles defense held the Saints to 219 yards and 4.0 yards per play after the Saints averaged 405.5 yards per game and 6.9 yards per play in the first two games. New Orleans had averaged 44.5 points per game before the game, but only scored 12 on Sunday.

The Eagles had the league's worst run defense in terms of yards per carry (6.4) on Sunday. They held the Saints to 3.1 yards per carry. Despite all the talk about defense, Carter — who was pressured four times, had one quarterback hit and had two passes defended — wanted to send a message.

“Everybody was fed up,” Carter said, according to an Eagles transcript. “You might say me and Jordan's [Davis] name, but they also said…everyone's name. We were sick of it. We didn't want to have it three weeks in a row.

“We wanted to make a big change early. We didn't want to wait until later, when the playoffs were coming up. No, we're trying to show now that we're here.”

Aside from the argument on the sidelines, Carter wanted to make a statement.