State of the NFC East: Ranking the Eagles defense vs rival units
Philadelphia Eagles. 3. team. 54. . .
They’re keeping their team in games, but the Eagles’ defense has been outperformed statistically by Washington and Dallas recently.
It hasn’t been smooth sailing these past two weeks with the Birds as they were embarrassed by the Commanders before being pushed to their limit versus the Colts. For the first time all season, Philly trailed at the end of the first quarter. That’s the first time that has happened all season.
The popular discussion has been about how poor their rush defense has been. The Birds are giving up an average of 125.5 yards per game with three total touchdowns during that span. Believe it or not, they’ve been slightly worse versus the pass.
The Eagles’ secondary has gotten shredded by the opposing offense’s air attacks as they were embarrassed by two pedestrian quarterbacks through Week 10 and Week 11 (Taylor Heinecke and Matt Ryan).
To their credit, they did sign defensive tackles Linval Joseph and Ndamukong Suh to plug up a few holes along the defensive line’s interior. That has proven to be a wise move. They’re still getting to the quarterback though. Seven sacks in weeks ten and 11 means that they’re only second to the Cowboys in that category.
Safety C.J. Gardner-Johnson and linebacker T.J. Edwards have been tackling machines, combining for 39 tackles in two weeks. C.J. also tallied an interception in Week 10, his sixth, while Edwards recovered a fumble in Week 11.
The Eagles’ defense looks to continue improving when they take on a struggling Green Bay Packers team, but regardless of what Aaron Rodgers is or isn’t doing, you can never count The Pack out with him behind center.