Roob's Instant Observations as Eagles' defense dominates in win over Lions

It wasn’t too long ago we were all looking at the defense as the weak link on this Eagles football team.

Wow, have things changed.

For the second week in a row, the Eagles’ offense couldn’t do much of anything, the Vic Fangio defense smothered an opposing offense and the Eagles picked up yet another low-scoring one-possession win.

Last week it was 10-7 at Lambeau. Sunday night it was 16-9 at the Linc. Only the second time since 1935 – yeah, 1935 – they’ve won back-to-back games when they’ve scored 16 or fewer points in both.

The Eagles and Rams are now the only 8-2 teams in the NFC, and the Eagles have a head-it-head win. Which means they can see their way to the No. 1 seed. Although it would help if they could, ya know, move the fooball here and there?

The Eagles are now 31-8 since 2022 in games decided by eight points or less and 7-1 this year.

Unreal.

Here’s our 10 Observations on the Eagles’ fourth straight win. Somehow.

1. I keep thinking this is an unsustainable way to win, playing really great football on one side of the football and escaping by the skin of your teeth with a win. Week after week. Game after game. But that’s exactly what the Eagles are doing. It’s insane. They’ve won games by 7, 4, 3, 6, 6, 3 and 7 points and now they’ve won back-to-back defensive battles over very good teams from the NFC North and here we are at 8-2 with seven games left, and with the Rams beating the Seahawks the Eagles somehow have a pretty clear path to the No. 1 seed in the conference. Six days after holding the Packers to seven points, the Eagles held the explosive Lions with all their weapons to nine points, and if you didn’t think Vic Fangio was a genius before these two games you have no choice now. On a day where the offense was just abysmal, the defense held the Lions to 3-for-13 on third down in addition to that record-setting 0-for-5 on fourth down, limited those explosive Detroit running backs to 3.5 yards per carry, pressured Jared Goff – a 74 percent passer – to 14-for-37, which is 38 percent. This was a defensive masterpiece. Another defensive masterpiece. No defense in the NFL is playing better right now.

2. You go into any game vs. the Lions knowing that Dan Campbell is going to go for it on just about every fourth down outside Detroit’s own maybe 40. And sometimes inside. Their aggressiveness on fourth down and the success they’ve had with it – they had converted 72 percent of the time going into Sunday night – puts a tremendous amount of pressure on a defense because the Lions are essentially giving themselves two third downs with an offense loaded with weapons. The Eagles’ 4th-down defense Sunday night was astonishing, stopping the Lions on all five of their 4th-down attempts.

→ The Lions went for it on a 4th-and-1 from their own 48 early in the second quarter and Moro Ojomo stuffed Jahmyr Gibbs for no gain.
→ Next drive Campbell called a fake punt on a 4th-and-2 from the Lions’ 43 and Jalyx Hunt sniffed it out, again for no gain.
→ Early in the third quarter the Lions had a 4th-and-5 on the Eagles’ 32 and pressure up the middle from Nakobe Dean forced an incompletion from Goff to Jameson Williams.
→ And then there was a 4th-and-goal from the 3 late in the third quarter, with Jaelan Phillips pressuring Goff, who threw incomplete to Amon-Ra St. Brown covered by Adoree’ Jackson in the end zone.
→ Later in the third quarter, the Lions had a 4th-and-3 on the Eagles’ 45. Went for it again and this time Goff threw incomplete to St. Brown, who had Quinyon Mitchell on him.

This is the first time the Eagles have gotten as many as four 4th-down stops in the same game as far back as Stathead tracks 4th-down attempts and conversions, which is 1991. And they got five.

3. The improvement we’re seeing from the Eagles’ run defense has been massive. Through six games, the Eagles were allowing 134 yards per game and 4.7 yards per carry, both among the five-worst in the NFL. The last four games, they’re allowing 83 yards and 3.7 and they’re 7th-best in the league. The Lions attack with two exceptional backs in Jahmyr Gibbs and David Montgomery, who came into the game with nearly 1,200 combined rushing yards, a 5.0 average and 15 touchdowns. But they combined for just 66 yards on 18 carriers for 3.7 a pop. What’s changed? Nakobe Dean came back for the Vikings game and has made an enormous difference. He’s playing the best football of his life. He’s been unreal. Jalen Carter is getting fitter and healthier and he’s been playing better and better each week. Jaelan Phillips, B.G. and Nolan Smith are edge rushers who love playing the run, and all three are new in one way or another. This is a different defense than it was in October, and it’s showing more against the run than anywhere else.

4. The focus will be on the d-line, and they were incredible Sunday night, but we’ve got to give some credit to the Eagles’ secondary, who have been playing lights out. Now, the two work together, but coverage was so consistently tight that Goff had to hold the ball longer than he wanted to, and the result was disastrous for the four-time Pro Bowl quarterback. Goff – leading the NFL at 74 percent – completed a career-low 38 percent of his passes, worst against the Eagles since Brandon Weeden of the Browns completed 34 percent in the 2012 opener. Amon-Ra St. Brown, a 1st-team all-pro the last two years, was targeted 12 times and caught two passes for 42 yards. Cooper DeJean finally got his first regular-season interception and two pass breakups, Quinyon Mitchell had a couple pass breakups, and we have to give some props to Adoree’ Jackson, who has now played very well two games in a row since coming back from that concussion. And it’s one thing to do it against a Packers team missing a bunch of receivers. But he was exceptional Sunday night against a team with some serious weapons.

5. I don’t even know where to begin with the offense. You don’t want to go crazy being too critical after another win, but the defense is winning games for the Eagles right now and this is two weeks in a row the offense has been dreadful. They still can’t run the ball. They still can’t get the receivers going. They still can’t convert third downs. They still can’t extend drives. Thirteen drives Sunday night and just two of those 13 drives went 30 yards. Some games, Jalen Hurts bails them out of these doldrums, but two weeks in a row now he hasn’t been sharp. We’ve seen this offense operate at a high level here and there, but the inconsistency with this talent is inexcusable. Is the answer as simple as replacing play caller Kevin Patullo? That won’t make the o-line healthy. And it won’t eliminate the endless offensive penalties. It’s not any one thing, and that makes it even tougher to fix. But it does have to be fixed because 8-2 or not, you can’t win a Super Bowl with an offense that looks like this.

6. I’m under no illusions that Tank Bigsby is anywhere near Saquon Barkley’s class, but this is twice now in the last few weeks where Bigsby has come into a game where Barkley’s numbers have been pedestrian and injected some life into the running game. On the Eagles’ touchdown drive just before halftime, Bigsby carried three times for 5, 17 and 7 yards. Bigsby has some juice to him and I’ve always believed that when you have two backs with different skill sets attacking a defense you have a chance to really keep defenses off balance, and we’re starting to see that. Bigsby finished 4-for-34 and Barkley was 26-for-83, although that includes a bunch of runs designed only to run clock. I thought Saquon ran hard Sunday night behind an offensive line that was once again missing Lane Johnson for most of the game. Barkley is the guy. He has to be the guy. But I like a little bit of Bigsby here and there. I don’t mind a bit more of an expanded role for Bigsby.

7. The Eagles’ ability to beat good teams is truly impressive. Their schedule this year as a Super Bowl champ is a minefield of quality opponents. They’ve won at Arrowhead. They’ve won at Raymond James. They’ve won at U.S. Bank. They’ve won at Lambeau. They beat the Rams. They beat the Lions. They’re now an NFL-best 5-1 against winning teams this year, and since 2022 they’re 24-7 against winning teams, also best in the NFL. By far. They’re 17 games over .500 vs. winning teams and nobody else is more than six games over .500 during that same span. Say what you want about Nick Sirianni. He can drive you crazy with some of his moves, some of his decisions. But he gets this team prepared to play the elite of the NFL and that’s a rarity.

8. How about Jalen Carter and Jordan Davis knocking down passes all over the place? Carter had two pass breakups Sunday night and Davis had three, including the one that became Cooper DeJean’s interception. Five pass breakups by defensive tackles is wild. Davis said after the game that film study showed how often Jared Goff throws kind of sidearm, and they thought they’d have a lot of opportunities to get their hands up and knock some balls down. “If you can’t get there, get your hands up.” It’s something the Eagles work on all the time. They have drills designed to get the big guys comfortable making those plays. Davis has gotten himself into such good shape that he can make those plays deep into a play without getting gassed. Not easy to do. No interior linemen are as good as Carter and Davis at batting down passes. A truly under-rated part of their game.

9. Let’s look at the rest of the schedule: At Cowboys, Bears, at Chargers, Raiders, at Washington, at Buffalo, Washington home. You never know what’s going to happen – we learned that from the first Giants game – but the Bears, Chargers and Bills are the games that concern you. But if the Eagles take care of business against the 3-5-1 Cowboys, 2-7 Raiders, 3-8 Commanders twice, that gets them to 12 wins. Win two of those three against the Bears, Chargers and Bills and that gets you to 14 wins and a 1st-round bye lock. Win one of those three and you’re still 13-4 with a chance at the top seed. I still think the Eagles’ best football is ahead of them. To be sitting here 8-2 with this minefield of a schedule so far really gives the Eagles an opportunity to do some special things over the next couple months.

10. I can’t over-state the impact that Jaelan Phillips has made in his first two games in an Eagles uniform. It’s been remarkable. Phillips had his first sack as an Eagle Sunday night along with five tackles, a tackle for loss, two quarterback hits. That’s on top of six tackles, a TFL, two QB hits and a fumble recovery. But what’s most amazing is how quickly Phillips has acclimated to a new defense, new teammates, new coaches, a new city, a new team. Yeah, he had a few games under Vic Fangio in Miami two years ago, but the way he’s come in and just seamlessly become a huge part of this defense has been fun to watch. He’s making that 3rd-round pick look like a flat-out steal, and I’m sure Howie Roseman is already trying to figure out how to keep him beyond this year.