This was better. Not perfect, and there are still moments in the secondary that make me want to pause the film and stare at the ceiling and wonder what is going on, but it was better. The Eagles stopped the run and generated some pass rush. Allowing 19 points and 243 yards should be enough to keep you competitive. Apparently, that is asking too much of this offense.
The Giants averaged 3.8 yards per play, and Devin Singletary finished with 31 yards on 21 carries. The Eagles recorded six sacks. This
group will still fight under Vic Fangio. I think that matters, even in a season that has become this frustrating. The defense couldn’t do much more.
The defense cannot save this offense every week. With the NFL trade deadline now behind us, I am increasingly interested in who should be part of the next version of this team. Some players are worth getting excited about, and some positions need serious attention. Let’s get into it.
Defense
This was Zack Baun’s best game for a few weeks. He was everywhere against the run and good in coverage, too. His recent struggles have made it easy to forget just how good he can be when he sees things clearly and gets to attack. On this rep, he reads the run immediately, gets into the backfield, and finishes. There is no hesitation. It’s a lot easier to play linebacker when your defensive linemen aren’t slanting away from the run and letting a guard get to the second level immediately.
Baun finished with seven combined tackles, three tackles for loss, and two sacks. Those numbers match the film, but I also thought the defensive line did a better job of allowing him to play like this. The linebackers have spent too much time dealing with blockers in recent weeks. Here, Baun can trust what he sees and go. This was much more like it.
Unfortunately, we also got an early reminder that the secondary still has issues. The Giants repeatedly attacked the quarters side of Cover 6 from 3×1. Cover 6 combines quarters coverage on one side with Cover 2 on the other. Against this distribution, the Giants send the outside receiver vertically to take the outside corner deep and run a sail route into the intermediate space underneath.
The Eagles do not distribute those routes cleanly. Tariq Woolen carries the vertical, Andrew Mukuba cannot get across to the sail, and there is not enough help underneath. The result is a receiver sitting in a huge amount of space on third down. This is pretty poor for a Fangio’ defense.
I am not going to pretend I know the exact check because there are a lot of variables. Depending on how the Eagles coach this, the answer could involve Mukuba getting across sooner or Woolen coming off the vertical with help over the top. But somebody has to account for the intermediate route. The receiver cannot simply disappear from the defense’s rules. We have seen far too much uncertainty like this all season.
Well, one final mention for Jordan Davis. Goodbye, big man. The run defense will miss you. A healthy Davis is still one of the best run defenders you will watch, and this rep shows why. Few players his size can make a play like this. The combination of his size and movement ability is unusual, and it has real value.
I was not Davis’ biggest fan early in his career, but he turned it around and has played well for a couple of years now. He deserves credit for that, and he deserves our thanks. It feels strange watching the Eagles trade away a young player they drafted because the team is not competitive. That is a fairly miserable place to be.
I think they were right to accept the deal. The value was too good to pass up for a player who doesn’t consistently affect the quarterback as a pass rusher. Yes, he had a sack in this game. That does not change the broader evaluation of his pass-rush contribution. You can appreciate how good he became against the run and understand the decision to move him. Both things are true. Personally, I will miss him as a character on this team. Good luck, JD!
And here is the same coverage problem on the following third down. This time it is third-and-12, and the Giants attack the quarters side again. The outside receiver clears the corner vertically, the second receiver stops short and occupies the underneath defender, and the inside receiver runs the sail beyond the sticks. It is a simple way to put different levels of the coverage under stress, and the Eagles make it look far too easy.
I am much more inclined to put this one on Mukuba. Based on the receiver splits and how the other defenders react, I struggle to see how the Eagles can draw this up without asking him to get across to that route. He is so late that the quarterback does not have a difficult decision. The underneath defender has committed to the short route, and the outside cornerback has to take the deep route.
There may be details in the coaching rules that we cannot see, but the repeated outcome is the problem. Two third downs, the same basic idea, and another open receiver. Mukuba is becoming a real concern for me. Safety needs to be a serious priority next offseason because the Eagles cannot keep having these issues in their coverage structure.
There was some pass-rush juice this week! One reason was that the Eagles stopped the run on early downs and earned opportunities to attack the quarterback. That matters. It is much easier to get into your rush plan when the offense can’t keep threatening you with an efficient run game.
This stunt involving Jonathan Greenard and Baun works well here, and Baun finishes the play against J.J. McCarthy. The Giants end up with a third-down sack rather than another easy completion. This defense did not play soft. It created negative plays and forced the Giants to settle for field goals. A competent offense would have had a chance to win this game.
I feel like I have written about this problem every week for a month. An opponent puts a tight end across from Quinyon Mitchell and gets its best receiver matched up inside against someone the Eagles would surely rather protect. We have seen versions of it with Tet McMillan and Stefon Diggs. Now it is Malik Nabers against Kenny Moore II.
No elaborate motion sequence or clever switch release is required here. The Giants line up and get the matchup. Mitchell is outside, and the ball goes to the receiver they want against the defender they want. I understand the Eagles cannot dictate every matchup, and moving people around has consequences elsewhere. But how many times do we need to watch the same basic issue before there is a better answer? Is there no world in which we ask Quinyon to travel with an opposing receiver when he lines up in the slot?
Mitchell’s individual coverage chart was much better this week. He was excellent. That is good. He can also play well while an opponent finds ways to attack other parts of the secondary. The Eagles have to make those other matchups harder to access.
This is an excellent third-and-four rep, and it starts with tight coverage. McCarthy does not have the easy answer he wants, which gives Moro Ojomo time to drive the blocker back into the pocket. That interior push takes away the quarterback’s space and pushes him toward Greenard coming around the edge. Greenard gets the sack, but Ojomo does most of the work.
Ojomo had a really good game. He is one of the highest-effort players on this team and one of the few defenders who looks like he is playing his best football right now. The individual pressure chart credited Greenard with five pressures and Ojomo with three, but this is a good example of why the final number doesn’t tell the whole story of a rush.
Now that the trade deadline has passed, I am interested in what happens next with Ojomo. Will we see an extension? I hope the Eagles are thinking seriously about his future here. With Davis gone, the decisions about the interior defensive line become even more interesting. Ojomo is giving them plenty of reasons to keep him around. I didn’t want to extend Ojomo with Jordan Davis and Jalen Carter already paid, but now I’m not
Jalen Carter had another up-and-down game, but there was still the rep where he reminded you what he can do. The Eagles use the front to force the Giants to shift their protection left, giving Carter a one-on-one opportunity against the right guard. That is a matchup you expect him to win, and he does.
This is the kind of situation the Eagles should want to create. Make the protection account for the rest of the front and give your most talented interior rusher a chance to beat one blocker. Carter produces the sack and forces a fumble, although the Giants recover it. I still want more consistency across his game, but the ability to change a possession is clearly there.
Phew. Baun again. What a blitz. He bursts past the running back and gets to McCarthy before the quarterback can find a solution. This is the version of the defense I enjoy watching. An edge defender drops, a linebacker blitzes, and the coverage behind it looks coordinated.
Call me an old-school Fangio fan, but I would like to see more of these standard quarters (or Quads if you live in the Fangio world) looks. It feels as though we spend so much time discussing Cover 3, Cover 6, and Cover 8, while some of the cleanest football comes when the Eagles play quarters behind a pressure like this. The rush changes who the protection has to deal with, and the coverage rules look much clearer on this snap.
This combination of pressure and coverage worked beautifully, and Baun finished it outstandingly.
Fangio also tried to use Cooper DeJean differently against the run. Watching this live, I assumed DeJean was playing nickel. He is actually a safety in the box with the Eagles in base personnel, meaning they show a straightforward single-high structure before the snap. That is unusual for this defense.
I liked it. Fangio clearly knows the Eagles have to do more to stop the run, and this adjustment helps here. It is worth acknowledging when he changes something, especially after the criticism of the run defense in recent weeks. The Giants’ running backs combined for 51 yards on 24 carries. Whatever issues remained elsewhere, the Eagles did a much better job of preventing the Giants’ running game from getting going.
However, the communication problems did not go away. The Giants use late motion and a switch release here, changing the route distribution the secondary has to sort out. Give the offense credit for creating a more difficult picture. The Eagles still have to handle it better.
I cannot say for certain whether this is on Mukuba or Mitchell. That uncertainty adds to the frustration because the coverage doesn’t look connected, and we keep seeing plays where defenders seem to have different expectations about who should take which route.
Coverage issues seemed to follow Mukuba around in this game, which is worrying. I do not want to put every breakdown on one young safety, but I can’t ignore the pattern. This secondary needs dependable communication, and too often it looks as though the players are trying to work out the answer after the receiver is already open.
DeJean also continues to have a coverage rep each week, which frustrates me. Nabers is excellent, but DeJean has outside leverage and inside help here. His job is to protect the outside, and he allows the inside stem to compromise that positioning.
He bites inside and opens his hips too early. Once Nabers gets back outside him, DeJean has to spin to recover, which costs him vision and allows separation. The issue is his response to the route with the leverage and help available. He needs to stay square and make Nabers work hard to get outside. He makes this much harder for himself than he needs to.
Let’s finish with another good play against the run. Ojomo bursts off the snap and blows through the left tackle, allowing Jeremiah Trotter Jr. to get through untouched. Trotter can attack the ball rather than deal with a blocker before he reaches the runner. That was one of the biggest differences in this game.
Trotter and Baun both played well, and the defensive line deserves credit for helping them. Trotter finished with 10 combined tackles and three tackles for loss. I liked his performance, but this clip also shows why evaluating linebackers solely by the tackle total misses so much. Ojomo creates the opportunity. Trotter takes it. The front works together.
Ojomo had multiple reps like this, and I thought his game was better than the basic stat sheet suggested. These are the plays I want to see more of over the remaining weeks. Let’s see more young defenders winning their assignments and making the players around them better.
Final Thoughts
This was a better defensive performance. There was real resistance against the run and some life in the pass rush. The Eagles still fight under Fangio, and I do not think this film looks like a defense that has stopped caring. The offense gave them very little support again.
That does not excuse the third-down coverage failures or the two consecutive second-half scoring drives that consumed more than 14 minutes. There is plenty to correct, especially in the secondary. I do not know whether Fangio will be back next season (I imagine it is unlikely), but whoever coaches this group needs more reliable play at safety and far fewer communication breakdowns.
With the deadline behind us, my attention is shifting toward the players who can help the next version of this team. Trotter’s development matters. Mukuba needs to improve before we can consider him a starter next year. Ojomo is playing football that makes me want him here for the long term, and I will be watching what the Eagles do about his contract. The defense gave us something worth discussing this week. It just cannot keep rescuing an offense that barely gives it a chance.
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