Has Gannon learned Eagles’ defense can be more aggressive? originally appeared on NBC Sports Philadelphia
The Eagles’ defense wasn’t just good on Monday night against the Vikings.
It was fun to watch.
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When’s the last time you really enjoyed watching that unit play football? It’s been a while, right? Because even when the Eagles won games in 2021, the Jonathan Gannon brand was mostly boring, passive.
Not on Monday night.
In the Eagles’ 24-7 win over the Vikings, Gannon’s defense challenged Kirk Cousins to beat them and he couldn’t. They played more man coverage, they blitzed more, they made Cousins’ night pretty miserable.
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Can there be some carryover from this game going forward?
There ought to be.
“There’s carryover to everything we do as far as calls,” Gannon said. “We’re not changing the menu week to week. We pick and choose from different buckets. But the game plan is always set up with our people in mind vs. their people, our scheme vs. their scheme and then our scheme vs. their people and our people vs. their scheme. It won’t change.”
Obviously, there are still going to be plenty of situations that warrant a more passive approach. It’s not like the Eagles can play every minute of every game with their foot on the gas.
But maybe this game can serve as a bit of a blueprint for a lot of the rest of the season.
In 2021, the Eagles faced an absolute gauntlet of top quarterbacks. They saw Pat Mahomes and Tom Brady and Derek Carr and Justin Herbert and Dak Prescott. And it made some sense based on last year’s personnel to make sure those quarterbacks didn’t beat them over the top. So play loose zones and hope someone makes a play, which didn’t happen often.
Now with significantly improved defensive personnel, the Eagles won’t see the same gauntlet in 2022. They will face Aaron Rodgers in Week 12.
The other likely quarterbacks coming up? Carson Wentz, Trevor Lawrence, Kyler Murray, Cooper Rush, Mitchell Trubisky, Davis Mills. You get it.
Cousins wasn’t able to beat the Eagles’ defense on Monday. A lot of that was thanks to execution (or lack of execution) on both sides of the line, but game plan had a big role too.
Aside from the Eagles’ success with man coverage, their blitzes were well-timed and highly effective.
Cousins was blitzed on 24% of his dropbacks on MNF. He completed 4 of 12 passes for 22 yards with 1 TD and 2 INTs.
“I would say I don’t know if [blitzing] was more effective,” Gannon said. “I think that we were able to deploy some of them in the game because situations came up. And we decided when we put the game plan together, this is where we wanted to use some of these calls. A lot of times, those calls are up in a game but they don’t come to fruition, so to speak.
“I thought the guys did a good job when those were called, some of those pressures were called. They executed them and the rush got there and we held up in coverage.”
The Eagles were able to get after Cousins and force him into some bad throws and the tighter coverage on the back end led to three interceptions and 11 pass breakups. It was the first time the Eagles had done that in a game since September of 2015.
Situational football plays a big role in Gannon’s willingness to call an aggressive game. And that makes sense. Everything gets a little easier when you have a lead and the other team is forced to throw the ball.
But sometimes the defense can dictate too. Gannon is allowed to look at his talented group and, within reason, want to challenge opposing offenses. The blueprint is there. Let’s see if he does it.
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