Eagles defensive coordinator Jim Schwartz met with reporters Tuesday for his weekly press conference.
Here were my three big takeaways:
Feel for Rasul
Rasul Douglas played a heckuva game against the Cowboys on Sunday afternoon, but he gave up the game-winning touchdown in overtime on a bad bounce. He got his hand in to deflect a pass to Amari Cooper, but it popped in the air and Cooper waltzed into the end zone to win the game.
Brutal.
"My heart breaks for him in that last play, because he took points off the board with a great interception (earlier in the game)," Schwartz said. "He tackled really well; made some really good plays for us. If he makes that last play, I mean, that's sort of an NFC player of the week type game."
Schwartz is right. Douglas has had an up and down season. He's made some really big plays but at times has really struggled in coverage. But I thought he played really well Sunday. That's why you had to feel for him after that final play went the way it did. Schwartz said Douglas felt responsible for that play and it showed.
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That is a tough break
Eagles teammates consoling Rasul Douglas after loss#Eagles pic.twitter.com/7lYr9V8LuW— John Clark (@JClarkNBCS) December 10, 2018
"That is one of the things he's good at, is putting some stuff behind him and moving on to the next," Schwartz said. "It's just tough when you're moving on to getting on the bus, you know what I mean?"
Schwartz said he's not worried about Douglas' confidence and expects him to bounce back.
Was Jones going to take off?
I wrote at length about Sidney Jones yesterday, basically saying it's way too early to call him a bust. Some people agreed, some people were wrong.
But even Doug Pederson said it's been hard to evaluate Jones this season. How about Schwartz?
"He's done some really good things for us this year playing the nickel early in the season," Schwartz said. "I thought by this time he was really going to -- there was some on-the-job training, but by this time I would've thought he would've really taken off. He got injured, wasn't able to do it, then had to move outside with our injuries. Not just his injuries but the other guys, too.
"He hasn't really been able to play the same position. We'll be patient with it. He's working as hard as he can to contribute to the team, and we know that."
It seems like such a long time ago, but I agree with Schwartz that Jones was pretty good in the nickel spot early this season before the hamstring injury. But then he got hurt and when he came back, he was forced to play outside. I was hoping to get a chance to evaluate him as an outside corner, but that injury has lingered.
A tough test
The Rams are coming off their worst offensive output of the season. They scored a measly six points against Chicago, but they're still averaging 32.7 points per game this year.
Schwartz explained that one of the things that make the Rams so difficult is that they don't substitute much on offense. They stay in 11 personnel (three receivers) pretty much all the time and their hurry-up offense can be lethal
"We're going to have to be surgical with our substitutions," Schwartz said, "particularly on third down."
It won't be easy for the Eagles' battered defense to stop this high-flying attack.
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