The Eagles have a top 10 defense.
Really.
It would seem hard to fathom midway through the season when the Eagles had allowed five different quarterbacks to complete at least 80% of their passes in a seven-game stretch.
They allowed 41 and 42 points in back-to-back games in losses to Dallas and the Chiefs in Weeks 3 and 4.
And Fletcher Cox, for one, was openly revolting against defensive coordinator Jonathan Gannon after an Oct. 24 loss to the Las Vegas Raiders.
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Yet here the Eagles are, ranked fifth overall in yards allowed, giving up an average of 320.2 yards per game. They’re ninth against the run, allowing 104.6 yards per game, and ninth against the pass, allowing 215.6 yards per game.
And they’re 12th in points allowed, allowing 21.2 points per game.
Instead of talk about Gannon possibly getting fired during his first season, he’s now mentioned as a head coaching candidate.
Gannon was asked if he considers the Eagles a top 10 defense.
“That’s a good question. I mean, I might sound negligent, but I really don’t read or care about stats,” Gannon said. “8 and 7 (the Eagles’ record); that’s the stat that I know, so that shows us we got a long way to go.”
But the Eagles have dominated on defense going against these quarterbacks over the past eight games: Jared Goff, Teddy Bridgewater, Trevor Siemian, Daniel Jones, Zach Wilson, Garrett Gilbert and most recently, Jake Fromm/Mike Glennon.
It would stand to reason, then, that the Eagles have allowed only 16.6 points per game during that stretch.
It’s a far cry from the first seven games when the Eagles faced the likes of Dak Prescott, Patrick Mahomes, Tom Brady, Derek Carr and Justin Herbert. They were allowing 26.4 points per game during that stretch.
So has the Eagles’ defense really been that good over the last eight games? Or have the opposing quarterbacks been that bad?
We might not know that answer until the playoffs if the Eagles get there. The Eagles will face Washington’s Taylor Heinicke on Sunday. But WFT coach Ron Rivera said backup Kyle Allen will play as well.
When the two teams played each other on Dec. 21, both Heinicke and Allen were on the COVID-19 list, so Washington had to start Gilbert, just four days after signing him off the Patriots’ practice squad.
Needless to say, the Eagles won 27-17. They held Gilbert to 194 yards passing, allowed only 63 yards rushing. Even after falling behind 10-0 in the first quarter, helped by Jalen Hurts’ interception, followed by his lost fumble, it was clear that Washington wasn’t going to generate much offensively.
Heinicke is a major upgrade, of course. But no one is confusing him for Mahomes and Brady. And he was the quarterback last Sunday when WFT lost to Dallas 56-14.
And even when the Eagles close the regular season against the Cowboys next Sunday, it’s possible that Dallas will rest some of its offensive stars like Prescott, wide receiver Amari Cooper and running back Ezekiel Elliott.
After all, Dallas has already clinched the NFC East. Unless the Cowboys can overtake Green Bay for the No. 1 seed – and thus the first-round bye – the regular-season finale would be their only chance to give their starters a break before the postseason.
So do the Eagles have a top-10 defense?
“We really not really paying attention to that, because if we don’t play good this week, none of that stuff really matters,” defensive tackle Javon Hargrave said. “We really don’t even hear about that in any of our meetings or anything like that.
“We just know that for these last two games, if we make it to the playoffs, we gotta be playing our best football.”
So maybe the more relevant question is whether the Eagles’ defense is good enough to get them to the playoffs.
In that regard, against these quarterbacks and these teams, the answer is yes.
Overtaking DeSean
It’s not necessarily a question of whether DeVonta Smith will break DeSean Jackson’s Eagles’ rookie record of 912 receiving yards set in 2008, but when.
Smith, with 821 yards, needs 92 yards with two games remaining. But if Smith gets the record against Washington, he will have done it in 16 games, the same as Jackson. The NFL added a 17th game this season.
Jackson, of course, is in his 14th NFL season and considered one of the best deep threats in NFL history. But Smith said he’s not worried about living up to Jackson’s legacy.
“The main thing is just going out there and continuing to be me,” Smith said. “As long as I do my job, the things I’m supposed to do, what’s supposed to happen is gonna happen.”
Even if Smith needs all 17 games to set the mark, it’s still an impressive accomplishment. And he has a good chance to become the first Eagles’ wide receiver with at least 1,000 yards receiving since 2014 when Jeremy Maclin had 1,320 yards. Maclin was in his fifth season then.
Smith has impressed his teammates and coaches with toe-tapping sideline catches in each of the Eagles’ last two games, the second going for a 4-yard touchdown against the Giants.
But Eagles coach Nick Sirianni said that’s a result of the hard work Smith puts in, not only making those sideline catches, but other difficult catches as well.
Sirianni said in addition to toe-dragging catches, the receivers also work on “traffic catches … low balls, high balls, behind balls, over the shoulder, over the shoulder where you turn your shoulder and catch it over the other side.”
Prediction
There’s no reason why the Eagles shouldn’t win this game.
Washington had 23 players on the COVID-19 list leading up to the previous game against the Eagles. Since then, WFT has gotten most of those players back, but still suffered an embarrassing 56-14 loss to the Cowboys in which defensive linemen Jonathan Allen and Daron Payne fought on the sideline.
At 6-9, the WFT’s playoff hopes are all but eliminated.
And then there were real-life tragedies this past week, such as Montez Sweat’s brother being shot and killed, and cornerback Deshazor Everett was the driver in a car accident that resulted in the death of his passenger.
In addition, safety Landon Collins and running back J.D. McKissic are on injured reserve.
Of course, there’s the possibility that WFT players can rally around each other to overcome the tragedies.
And the Eagles won’t have running back Miles Sanders, who had a career-high 131 yards against WFT in the last meeting, and maybe not Jordan Howard either.
But it’s more likely that the Eagles’ offensive line will once again open gaping holes for whoever is playing running back, and that Hurts’ ankle is much better than it was in the previous meeting, and that the defense can handle whoever Washington plays at quarterback.
Score: Eagles 22, Washington 13.
Contact Martin Frank at mfrank@delawareonline.com. Follow on Twitter @Mfranknfl.
