I got the feeling that Eagles defensive coordinator Sean McDermott is more focused on the Eagles “D” being true to who they are than worrying about what problems the Cowboys “O” presents.
He didn’t deny the fact that the Cowboys have a good football team, but he thinks his group can play much better.
He praised Tony Romo, Marion Barber and the rest of the Dallas offense, in much the same way as his Eagles counterpart, Marty Mornhinweg did, but he also followed him by stressing faith in his own football players.
“The first game we held them to 13 points until the one big play we gave up midway through the 4th quarter. This time it was 24 points obviously, but they’re a good team. They have good personnel. We have to do a better job coaching and that starts with me as I mentioned before. We have to go down there and execute and win one-on-one matchups.”
McDermott made it very clear that he regretted getting away from the blitz as much as he did on Sunday in Dallas.
Cowboys running back Marion Barber broke a 32 yard run on the game’s second play and it was against a blitz. It made the young defensive coach abandon the blitz and lean on his front four for pressure on Tony Romo.
They didn’t get much pressure on Romo and it allowed him to make some big plays.
McDermott plans on making some changes and getting the job done.
He talked about the success they had in the second half with Jeremiah Trotter of the field and expressed a desire to try to scheme around him being out there.
“We gave up 7 points in the second half really on a play, some broken tackles down the field. That was encouraging and the first game for us was encouraging holding them to 13 points as long as we did. They’re a good offense. They’re going to make their plays and we have to understand that and remain mentally tough within that. That’s all part of what we’re taking going into this weekend.”
McDermott said they’ve got to get more of a jam on tight end Jason Witten and do a better job of covering him this time around.
As you would expect he wasn’t willing to tell us exactly what he planned on doing on Saturday.
We’ll have to wait to see that.
