Inside Eagles' "Outstanding" Fourth-Down Defense In Win Over Lions

PHILADELPHIA – Sometimes saying “outstanding” only once isn’t enough. So, Nick Sirianni said it twice when asked about his team’s fourth-down defense after the Eagles won for the eighth time this season in beating the Detroit Lions, 16-9, on Sunday night.

Five times the Lions went for it on fourth down. They failed all five times.

“Those are turnovers in our mind, and really, really good coverage and rush together,” said the Eagles coach. “Aggressive play, the front, good matching in the secondary. It's a good football team and to be able to go, what was it? 0-5? Able to be 5-5 the way we look at it. Outstanding. Outstanding.”

Outstanding it was. Third down was pretty good, too, with the Eagles defense holding the Lions to just three conversions in 13 cracks at it.

“We came out here, we showed out,” said Jalen Carter, who batted two passes at the line of scrimmage and made five tackles. “We played as a team. We knew how explosive they were, but we didn’t let that go to our head. We came out there and did what we had to do.”

Eagles' Defense Clamped Down On Third And Fourth Downs

For anyone looking for a reason why the Lions failed to reach double digits for the first time in their last 40 games, look no further than that. Detroit came in averaging 31.4 points per game, second-best in the NFL, but the Eagles became just the second team in the last 25 years to not allow an opponent a conversion on five-plus fourth-down tries.

“It’s a mindset and physicality,” said defensive tackle Jordan Davis, who batted down three passes at the line of scrimmage. “(The Lions are) a tough team. They play the same style of play that we have. They wanna be physical up front, they wanna be physical, they wanna run the ball, they wanna establish that dominance, but when you fight fire with fire, something has to give.

“I’m glad that we edged them out today. But they’re a great team. They’re going to make plays and do their thing, but for tonight we had to go out there and make our stand.”

The longest fourth-down failure was from five yards. The other four were from much shorter distances. The Lions tried everything on them, running Jahmyr Gibbs, throwing, and faking a punt. Stop, stop, stop.

“We were just a little off,’ said Detroit coach Dan Campbell, who took over play calling duties last week and the offense put up 44 points in a win over the Commanders. “I mean, it really was kind of one of those days. I hate saying that, but it was just a little bit of one of those days and I mean it’s a rarity.”

The Eagles also made life miserable on the Lions’ run game, led by Gibbs and David Montgomery. Detroit had just 74 yards after entering ranked sixth in the league, averaging 136.3 yards per game on the ground.

“We’re young and we’re hungry and we want to be great,” said defensive tackle Moro Ojomo, who made a fourth-and-one stop and sniffed out the fake punt to stop it in its tracks. “I love this defense. I couldn’t wish to be on a better defense.”

Quarterback Jared Goff, who completed one of 11 passes in the fourth quarter, entered the game with the third-best fourth-quarter at 125, completing 36 of 53 passes in the final 15 minutes of games.

On this night, he completed just 37 percent of his throws (14-for-37) and was sacked twice. He came into the game with just three picks, but added to that total when Cooper DeJean picked him off. On fourth down, he was 0-for-3.

“He’s a competitor, so of course he was frustrated, but with a great quarterback like that, we have to make sure we box him in,” said Jalyx Hunt, who had a team-high three hits on Goff. “The rush has to be there, we have to flash a lot of people in his face, so he doesn’t make reads, because he’s well documented picking teams apart, so we knew that a big part of what we had to do this week.”

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