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“They Take a Lot of Pride in That” – Sean Desai Credits Players and Coaching Staff for Eagles Being NFL’s #1 Rushing Defense
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It was a little less than a year ago that the Eagles signed Ndamukong Suh and Linval Joseph to shore up a run defense that wasn’t exactly stalwart.
They won’t have to do that this season, because after holding Miami to 45 rushing yards on Sunday night, Sean Desai’s unit is now the #1 rushing defense in the NFL.
Allowing just 62.9 rush yards per game, the Eagles top the league, and it’s not particularly close. You go down the list and see Detroit at #2 with a 76.3 number and San Francisco with a 79.3 number. If we’re rounding and removing the decimals, Philly is 13 yards better than the next-best rushing defense in the league.
The Eagles are also:
- one of nine teams to allow three or fewer rushing touchdowns
- #5 in the NFL with a 3.58 yards allowed per rush average
- tied for sixth with 37 tackles for loss
- tied for 3rd with 24 sacks
- a bottom ten team with only 428 defensive snaps played
- #4 with a 3:00:34 opponent time of possession number
- fifth-best with only 28 missed tackles
(Stats via SportRadar, PFF, and Pro Football Reference)
It all works in synergy. The Eagles have faced a league-low 123 rushing attempts this season because the offense limits opponent time of possession, the defense gets sacks, stuffs, and tackles for loss, and they put opposing teams behind the sticks. That forces obvious passing downs and makes the other side one-dimensional.
It’s a vast improvement of what they were last season, when they were limiting big plays and locking things down in the secondary, only to finish 16th overall with 2,068 rushing yards allowed and a 4.6 opponent YPC.
Defensive Coordinator Sean Desai didn’t have much to say for why the team has improved in this area, but instead credited the coaching staff:
“I can’t speak to last year because I wasn’t here, so I don’t want to. Really for us — and this is our defense here — our players are making this come to life and our front coaches with (Tracy Rocker) and (Jeremiah Washburn) really have a point of emphasis there. They talk about every week of you’ve got to earn the right to rush the passer. The way to earn the right is to knock the run out.
That’s a core philosophy of what they believe in, what I believe in, what we believe in as a defense and as a staff and as players. They take a lot of pride in that.
From a stack backer position, I think (D.J. Eliot) has done a tremendous job of teaching these guys the fits that we want and how we want to play different schemes, our schemes versus their schemes. Whether in a post high defense or split safety defense and how we want to stack and fit on some of those backers.
Then using our support. I thought the DBs did a great job with the secondary support this last game because we knew they were going to try to attack some edges, and they were able to come up and set some edges for us.”
What’s crazy is to think that this defensive line is even better than last year’s, which was anchored by Pro Bowl snub Javon Hargrave and his 11 sacks. This year they’ve got a sophomore Jordan Davis, potential Rookie of the Year Jalen Carter, a seemingly rejuvenated Fletcher Cox, Milton Williams, and two defensive ends in Josh Sweat and Haason Reddick that are on pace to replicate or even surpass their double digit 2022 sack totals.
“You always want to improve on the things that you feel like you can do better,” Nick Sirianni said at his midweek press conference. “So, at this point, at this stage in the game, we’re thinking to ourselves, ‘well, we’re 18th in turnover differential. Obviously, no one’s satisfied with that. We want to work at that.’ Well, it’s the same thing with your run defense. It’s the same thing with your red zone offense. It’s the same thing, if you’re not up to par with where you think you should be. You look at it, and you try to paint the picture of why you’re not where you’re supposed to be. With Sean coming in here, there’s a lot of time spent in that offseason about implementing your scheme and all those different things while still looking at the things you weren’t successful on, even in the year before. Any time like that, you’re always thinking about that and the emphasis of improving things that appear to be your weakness.”
Kevin has been writing about Philadelphia sports since 2009. He spent seven years in the CBS 3 sports department and started with the Union during the team's 2010 inaugural season. He went to the academic powerhouses of Boyertown High School and West Virginia University. email - k.kinkead@sportradar.com