Inability to Stop the Run Finally Caught up With Eagles in First Loss of Season
PHILADELPHIA – It’s only one loss, and it took until the middle of November to happen.
The Eagles, though, have a problem. They can’t stop the run.
Unless they figure it out, ad figure it out soon, more losses will follow.
Perhaps as soon as Sunday when they play the Colts in Indianapolis, where the league’s rushing champion from a year ago, Jonathan Taylor, resides. After that, it’s Green Bay’s Aaron Jones, then the best of them all, Derrick Henry arrives with the Titans to open December.
New York’s Saquon Barkley still has two cracks at this run defense, and he must be salivating.
If the Eagles don’t figure it out, this one loss could very easily snowball and 8-1 can turn into 9-3 or 8-4 in a hurry.
“We'll work like crazy to get it fixed, and we understand that that will be the narrative of how to beat us," said head coach Nick Sirianni. "We have to own that and fix it, and we will.”
The Washington Commanders pummeled the defense with 49 runs for 152 yards in winning 32-21 on Monday night,
Why bother throwing with that output?
QB Taylor Heinicke had a 66.9 passer rating and the Commanders still won by 11 points.
Who cares if it’s Matt Ryan or Sam Ehlinger who lines up at QB for the Colts? He won’t have to do much except turn around and give the ball to Taylor.
“Obviously, we have to go look at this tape,” said Sirianni. “We'll look at this tape and see what went down in this game, knowing that, hey, when you show that a team attacks a place, we're going to see it again, right, and then we're going to see that again."
Here’s the thing, though: the Eagles have known they can’t stop the run for the past month.
Washington was the fifth straight team to put up more than 120 yards against them. They have been falling down the league’s run defense rankings, going from 15th heading to Houston to start the month to 20th before Washington arrived.
The reason it didn’t bite them until Monday night was that they had built early leads with historic second quarters, where they totaled 127 points. Against Washington, they were blanked in the second quarter and trailed at halftime for the first time this year.
With those previous halftime leads, they didn’t mind if a team chose to use up some clock while trying to run the ball to get back into it rather than hit them with a big play.
Washington trailed 7-0 and 14-7 but kept hammering away with rookie Brian Robinson. They stayed with the run and what smart team wouldn’t right now?
Obviously, there needs to be more than just film study to fix this thing.
“It’s about executing better,” said linebacker T.J. Edwards, who had 12 tackles, when asked how they can fix things. “Just getting back to what we do and that’s a physical front. We’ll get back to that. I’m not stressing out or freaking out. I’m obviously upset we lost that game. That’s kind of how it goes but they made more plays than we did.”
The injury to rookie Jordan Davis hurts, yes, but it's about more than one player.
Some of it is philosophical. Defensive coordinator Jonathan Gannon doesn’t want to give up the explosive play. He’d rather a team earn it on the ground.
Maybe the Eagles should consider playing three linebackers now that slot CB Avonte Maddox is out.
Perhaps instead of Josiah Scott, who is filling in for Maddox and played 54 snaps (65%), should be used less and Gannon should deploy three linebackers, giving Nakobe Dean a role and going with heavier boxes geared to stop the run.
The fact that Marvin Wilson wasn’t elevated from the practice squad was surprising.
The reserve DT may not have been Davis in his season debut in Houston, but he allowed the D-line rotation to remain fresh and he can play anywhere along the front. Maybe he would have even been better in his second straight game.
As it was, Fletcher Cox played a season-high 70 snaps (84%) and Javon Hargrave 66 snaps (80%). Cox made seven tackles and Hargrave a career-high 13, but the Eagles had to play them more. Milton Williams played 36 snaps (46%) and Marlon Tuipulotu 37 (45%).
Playing for just the third time in 29 games, the conditioning level couldn't have been expected to be the same as it was before the month of relative game activity, especially when the defense allowed the Commanders to run 83 plays.
“Coaches gotta figure out what’s best for the team,” said captain Darius Slay. “That’s what they’re going to do.”
It’s easy to say there is nothing to worry about.
“We’ll fix it," said Edwards. "We’re not losing our minds. We’re not freaking out. We know it’s something we have to get fixed and we will. We have the guys in here to do it. We have the leaders; we have the coaches to do it.”
We will see if that proves to be true, but, right now, there's only worry and concern.
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.
