After the Washington loss, when the Commies ran for 152 on the ground and a couple of scores, you saw a lot of tweets discussing the gauntlet of tough runners the Eagles would be facing over the next four weeks.

A month has now passed, and the results are in. Here’s what the Birds allowed:

  • Jonathan Taylor: 22 carries for 84 yds, 1 TD
  • Aaron Jones: 12 carries for 43 yds + AJ Dillon 8 carries for 64 yds, 1 TD
  • Derrick Henry: 11 carries for 30 yds
  • Saquon Barkley: 9 carries for 28 yards

Couple of nuggets here –

Obviously Saquon wasn’t totally healthy, and was questionable up until game time, but Gary Brightwell and Matt Breida only did two things on Sunday afternoon: jack and shit. They combined for 29 yards on eight carries. Funny enough, Tyrod Taylor was New York’s leading rusher, scrambling for 32 yards in garbage time to reach 40 total on two attempts. Add it all up and the Giants ran for 123 yards on 23 carries. Remove the Taylor outlier run and it’s 91 yards on 22 carries. They also kept Daniel Jones contained for the most part. Just 26 yards on four carries for him, and the QB sneak touchdown.

The question of “how will the Eagles’ run defense respond?” has been answered. They gave up just 99 yards, 106 yards, and 87 yards, and 123 yards on the ground over the ensuing four games, two of which went to garbage time. And it’s true that the offense gave the D a cushion in two of these games, but that performance in Indy featured a comeback win and the Green Bay game was a little funky with field position due to special teams and a couple of untimely turnovers (the one on downs, for instance).

Regardless, the Birds’ run defense is now ranked 18th in the NFL, allowing 118.3 yards per game. It’s a middle of the pack number, and perfectly fine when you consider they’re schemed to prevent big plays and philosophically will play lighter in the box when they go nickel and get away from their Bear front. Throw in the additions of Linval Joseph and Ndamukong Suh, and there’s little to worry about with the run defense right now.