After shaky start, Eagles' defense slams door on Colts

 

 

 

Reuben Frank

EAGLES INSIDER

After 5 ½ minutes, it looked like a certain disaster.

The next 54 ½ minutes? It was a masterpiece.

The Colts drove so easily down the field on their first possession – 75 yards, 50 rushing yards, Jonathan Taylor touchdown – it was easy to be concerned. Or more than concerned. Alarmed maybe.

After that first drive, Jonathan Gannon’s unit was brilliant, holding the Colts to three field goals – all on short fields – and shutting Taylor down.

The Colts netted 75 yards on their first drive and averaged 16 yards on their 10 other drives.

The defense basically shut down the Colts until the offense was able to get its act together. Which took quite a while.

The Eagles scored 14 fourth-quarter points to rally from a 10-point deficit after the third quarter and escape Indy with a 17-16 win Sunday.

With the Vikings losing to the Cowboys, the Eagles are now the only one-loss team in the NFL.

"The first 15 plays, you see how they’re trying to attack you,” Brandon Graham said. "They were doing a good job. It felt like we just bowed up (after that).

"We knew how they wanted to hit us, and I felt like it took a collective, all 11 (players). … There was just a lot of stuff in that game where we just persevered. We said if we got a chance, we were going to go out and finish the game and that’s what we did.”

For the fourth straight week, the Eagles held an opponent without an offensive touchdown after halftime.

For the eighth time in 10 games this year, the defense held an opponent to 17 or fewer points.

For the fifth straight game, they held a team to fewer than 200 net passing yards, and for a fifth straight game, they held an opponent to 330 or fewer net yards.

Best of all, they shut down Taylor after getting gashed by Washington's running game last week in their first loss of the season.

"It’s not indicative of just one game of who you are, right?” Nick Sirianni said. "The defensive coaches did an unbelievable job. The defensive players did an unbelievable job. I've been in this stadium when those offensive linemen over there, Quenton Nelson, Ryan Kelly, have taken over a game. That's a good offensive line. Jonathan Taylor is a good back. There was not much there. You know, there was not much there at all. 

"It was awesome, right? It was awesome. Interested to see what the narrative is. I don't know if it'll be, 'Well, like, they're still 31st in yards per attempt (allowed).' I'm not sure we are anymore.”

With new acquisitions Linval Joseph and Ndamukong Suh bolstering the defensive line just days after arriving in Philly, the Eagles held an opponent below 100 rushing yards for the first time in their last six games.

The Colts kept trying to run it and the Eagles kept stuffing it.

"We knew it would be a big challenge to stop the run after last week,” Haason Reddick said. "I don't know what the stats are, I still have to look at it, but I believe we did a pretty good job of that. And yeah, we played all game. No matter what happened out there, we played our game.”

After their only touchdown, the Colts had drives to the Eagles’ 17, 19, 32 and 33 without getting in the end zone.

The Eagles allowed only three plays of 20 yards, and two were on the Colts’ first drive. They recorded four sacks – Milton Williams, Graham and Reddick each had one and Suh and Joseph split one – and forced a huge turnover with the Colts in Eagles territory in the fourth quarter when Marcus Epps stripped Taylor, and T.J. Edwards recovered.

If you still don’t like Gannon?

Too bad.

The Eagles have the NFL’s No. 3 defense both in yards allowed and points allowed.

And they came up huge Sunday.

"We looked how we've looked all year when things weren't going our way,” Reddick said. "We just continued to fight, continued to play and see what happened when it's all zeros on the clock in the fourth quarter.”

https://www.nbcsports.com/philadelphia/eagles/after-shaky-start-eagles-defense-slams-door-colts

The eagles defensive weakness was stopping the run and Howie went out and got some help to fix it......when Davis comes back, it will get even better.  And maybe with Cox getting less snaps and being fresher, he'll be more effective.

The offense right now is the biggest issue........they simply aren't creative enough and don't use all their weapons effectively.  Steichen needs to up his game.....