Fletcher Cox, Lane Johnson make PFF’s Team of the Week to kick off the season

Pro Football Focus put together their first “Team of the Week” of the 2018 NFL Season that features Fletcher Cox and Lane Johnson.

Last Thursday, the Philadelphia Eagles added their first victory to their 2018 record. It was an ugly 18-12 win at Lincoln Financial Field over the Atlanta Falcons. Ironically, the entire game sort of mirrored the Eagles-Falcons matchup from back in January during the divisional round of the playoffs, when the Eagles put an end to the Falcons season at home.

During that same game, the Eagles fate came down to one play. A Matt Ryan pass to Julio Jones in the end zone. Well, we saw the same results as the Eagles barely got away with the win. But you know what they say. A win is a win, and it doesn’t have to be pretty.

We know it wasn’t pretty overall, but there were some excellent solo performances during the dogfight. Last week, we credited only three players who initially jumped out of the screen at us for having a dominant performance. As you know, we can’t credit all 22 guys all at once for getting the job done. Like always though, it is good to see platforms with no bias towards the Eagles give some well-deserved credit to some of the performances put on by the guys in midnight green.

The good people over at Pro Football Focus took a liking to some Eagles’ this week as they assembled their first “Team of the Week” for the 2018 NFL season on Monday. Eagles right tackle Lane Johnson has represented the offense while Fletcher Cox, the usual suspect, represents the best defensive performance by an Eagles player of the previous week.

Here’s what PFF had to say:

"[Lane] Johnson wasn’t perfect in pass protection, allowing three total pressures from 42 pass-blocking snaps, but he was solid both in that regard and as a run blocker. He produced the ninth-highest run-blocking grade at the position and had a key block on one of the Eagles touchdown runs.Continuing right where he left off in 2017, Cox was dominant in the season opener against the Atlanta Falcons. From 48 snaps as a pass-rusher, he picked up seven total pressures, including a sack and three quarterback hits."

We all know that Cox was nearly unstoppable last Thursday. Had it not been for multiple penalties, you would be able to tell how dominant he was in the trenches off of statistics alone. Cox sounded kind of crazy when he said he was shooting for Defensive Player of the Year over the offseason, but so far he has made a strong case through one week.

As for Johnson, this selection was a bit surprising. Not that Lane had a bad game or anything, but it just seems as though his performance was overshadowed by the guy on the opposite side of the line, Jason Peters. Overall, the Eagles offensive line appears to be very strong once again in 2018. As long as the big men stay healthy, this offense can do wonders when fully healthy.