Yesterday, the Eagles defensive line played their best game of the season against the Detroit Lions. They started things out by taking away the Lions running game. Lions speedy running back D’Andre Sweat had only 27 yards on 12 carries. The Lions came into the game with a strong running game, but the Birds defensive front said, NO, you aren’t running the football today.
Once they stopped them from running the football, they were able to put tremendous pressure on Detroit quarterback Jared Goff. They made life uncomfortable for Goff, by bringing pressure up the middle and off the corner. Even when he was getting rid of the ball quickly to the backs, the Birds defensive line was still pounding him. The batting took its toll on Goff and made quarterback like he was playing “Hot Potato”.
The Birds defensive line sacked him six times with defensive end Josh Sweat leading the way with two take downs. Defensive tackle Hassan Ridgeway got a sack after Sweat got his two, then defensive end Derek Barnett got to Goff, when he tried to bootleg out of the pocket.
Goff turned into “Check Down Charlie”. He took the snap and continuously dumped the ball to his running backs as soon as they released out of the backfield. He wasn’t even looking downfield because he knew the Birds were coming on each and every snap. It was a complete and thorough domination. You don’t often see that level of domination in the NFL.
I think the Lions were reading too many articles about how hard they were playing and how they were going to beat the Eagles. The Birds put an end to that talk early in the football game. This was not a football contest, it was a complete and thorough beat down. This is the same team that went blow for blow with a very good Los Angeles Rams team the week before.
