Jonathan Gannon's Rush and Cover, Cover and Rush Should be Improved
PHILADELPHIA – One of Jonathan’s favorite phrases is, “rush and cover, cover and rush.”
He said it again on Tuesday, though it was after the TV cameras had been turned off, and the Eagles defensive coordinator was holding court with reporters going into further detail about his defense.
Gannon has the players do be successful at that, now it’s a matter of executing that phrase this fall.
“We did what we wanted to do last year,” he said when asked if he had the pieces he needed to run the type of defense he wanted to. I think hopefully what the fans see is us executing at a little higher level when we need to.
"That's what I'm always concerned about. My number one concern or goal is to make sure that we're playing good enough on defense to keep us in games and play good football to help our team win.”
There were too many times the Eagles’ defense did not do that last year. Too often they fell too far behind to catch up, surrendering 80 percent or better completion percentages to Dak Prescott, Patrick Mahomes, Justin Herbert, Tom Brady, and Derek Carr.
Only Prescott is on the schedule this year, and the Eagles have seemingly upgraded their personnel to be better.
They should be able to cover, with the recent addition of James Bradberry to pair with Darius Slay and Avonte Maddox.
And they should be able to rush with a multitude of rushers, both inside and out.
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Imagine a five-man front with Jordan Davis in the middle, Fletcher Cox and Javon Hargrave flanking him, and Haason Reddick and Josh Sweat on the outside.
With the addition of personnel, Gannon debuted a new phrase on Tuesday – overhang players. Those are the players who line up outside on defense, on the edge.
His outside linebackers will do that, players such as outside linebackers Reddick, Kyzir White, Patrick Johnson, and Kyron Johnson as well as Nakobe Dean at times.
“As our overhang players they're going to rush the passer to affect the quarterback, and they're going to be violent in the run game and set edges and then they're going to have to drop a little bit in coverage,” said Gannon.
“The more rushers the better. We'll figure that out as we get closer to game day and then on game day, how we deploy those guys. But the more guys that we have that can affect the quarterback, we'll get them on the field and have them affect the quarterback.”
Add in edge players such as Brandon Graham and Derek Barnett and the Eagles should better the 29 sacks they puttered to last year.
The secondary had nine interceptions with linebackers Eric Wilson, Alex Singleton, and T.J. Edwards adding one each.
Rush and cover, cover and rush, should increase the sack and pick totals.
Should.
“You guys know I'm not big on stats, but got to the playoffs, lost in the first round. I don't have a great taste in my mouth because we want to do more than that. That's one of the things in the back of my mind, is to take the next step. So how we do that is consistency.”
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Consistency should also improve just by players who are turning doing so in the same defensive system and doing so outside the classroom. Unlike last year, when there was very little on-field work due to the pandemic
“Last year at this time, we were doing virtual meetings and things like that,” said Edwards. “We didn’t get all this time we got now, so being able to fully understand what our expectations are, knowing that, then coming in this year, I think guys are in a better place of just knowing how to do things, what to do.
"And with the coaches, you can tell they’re obviously hitting on those same points but making sure we’re getting them done quicker.”
It all adds up to what figures to be a better, more consistent defense than last year.
Ed Kracz is the publisher of SI.com’s Fan Nation Eagles Today and co-host of the Eagles Unfiltered Podcast. Check out the latest Eagles news at www.SI.com/NFL/Eagles or www.eaglesmaven.com and please follow him on Twitter: @kracze.
