Four hours after the Eagles 34-7 win, Guns N’ Roses opened their South Philly show with a track that appropriately described the earlier performance of Jim Schwartz’s defense.
“It’s So Easy” is a song about nailing rock and roll groupies, but for the sake of the article the analogy stands, because the Birds did indeed make football look quite easy yesterday.
You have to start by thinking about the absences of Fletcher Cox and Ronald Darby, the Birds’ best defensive lineman and corner. I don’t think that storyline gets enough attention. This is three weeks in a row that the Eagles have gone out and gotten the job done while dealing with multiple key injuries on that side of the ball. If the Redskins were missing Josh Norman and Jonathan Allen, we’d never hear the end of it.
“Next man up” is usually clichéd coach speak, but the Eagles’ staff deserves a lot of credit for making second stringers look like first stringers. They’ve been getting quality contribution from guys like Beau Allen, Patrick Robinson and Rasul Douglas.
Some quick defensive stats from the game:
- two sacks
- seven QB hits
- six tackles for loss
- nine passes defended
- Arizona 4-14 on third down conversions (28.5%)
- 33 rushing yards allowed (season best)
- 307 total yards allowed
Those types of numbers are going to win you a lot of games. Continue Reading
