Just like the tremendous performance by the defense last week has to be laid at the feet of defensive coordinator Sean McDermott, he’s got to take some of the responsibility for this one, as well.
I was concerned about the times when an offense would go up and down the field against the Eagles defense, how would they react.
We saw some of that against the Saints and there’s reason to be concerned. They didn’t seem to ever get up to speed against New Orleans.
Remember they lost Jim Johnson, Brian Dawkins and Stewart Bradley. They’ve got to be able to find a way to make adjustments during a game to stop an opponent from moving the ball.
They didn’t move the corners up into the faces of the receivers and make Drew Brees pull the ball down. As I said all week, you’ve got to jam the Saints receivers or you’re going to get sliced up.
Few teams in the league take advantage of jamming receivers within five yards. It buys the pass coverage a second or two which gives the pass rush more time to get some pressure on the passer.
This is a very big deal when you’re playing against a timing-oriented passing offense like the Saints.
I know Asante Samuel likes to play off of the receivers but he’s got to get up in their face on blitzes or it gives the quarterback an outlet.
On the first touchdown throw, nobody jammed wide receiver Marques Colston and he ran his route for an easy score.
The secondary wasn’t able to make any kind of adjustment to slow them down.
Akeem Jordan made a number of nice plays during the game. He drove Mike Bell into the turf on a nice tackle early in the first quarter.
The one handed interception by Jordan with the Saints on the Eagles door step saved at least three points and it could have been seven. It was a great athletic play which says he’s getting more confident and starting to anticipate plays.
Jordan was pathethic on the touchdown catch by New Orleans fullback Heath Evans. He went over to the ball carrier and dove on the ground in front of Evans rather than making the tackle.
Macho Harris was pathetic as well because he too dove at Evans’ leg.
You had three unblocked tacklers at the scene and nobody made the tackle.
The rest of the linebackers, Chris Gocong and Omar Gaither were a day late and a dollar short. Brees was able to throw the ball to his running backs and tight ends all day long.
The tackling was poor and they’ve got to do a better job of recognizing what a team is trying to do to them. They just didn’t play tough smart football.
Right defensive end Trent Cole was seen early in the game when he came off the right side and caught Brees making the mistake of backing into him. He crushed him and caused a fumble.
That’s the last time we saw Cole during the game yesterday. They blocked him well enough and got rid of the football to neutralize him.
Left defensive end Juqua Thomas came free on a blitz and caused Brees to fumble. He got off on the snap of the ball and refused to be blocked on that play. That was the last time, the Eagles pass rush got there.
Sheldon Brown had great coverage on a catch by Devery Henderson. I don’t know what he was looking at when Reggie Bush blew by him on a cutback run.
Darren Howard pretty much said it all about the Eagles defense after the game. “Last week against the Panthers, we saw what kind of defense we can be, and this week we saw what kind of defense we can be,” the defensive end said. “We can be the best one week and the worst the next week. We’re going to take lesson from this, look at ourselves, see what we can do better, and just know who we are.”
