The unstoppable offense managed 12 points, 219 yards and 12 first downs.
Courtesy of the defense, who couldn’t stop anyone.
The Eagles’ defense, which struggled so much in the first two weeks of the season, rebounded tremendously from an offense that scored 91 points in wins over the Panthers and Cowboys.
“They kept us in the game,” Jordan Mailata said. “What a response. What a response. I’m so proud. My goodness. It was just one play after another, guys supporting each other, man, and that’s what you need from your defense.”
“They came and supported us. When we came out there and didn’t play well, it wasn’t good. It wasn’t a good image. But every time we came off the field, the defense was there and said, ‘Hey, don’t worry, we’ve got your back.’ That was very reassuring.”
First two games: The Saints scored 11 touchdowns and four field goals in 15 drives with David Carr at quarterback.
Sunday: The Saints scored a touchdown and two field goals in 10 drives with David Carr at quarterback.
That was an outstanding defensive effort. The Eagles did everything they couldn’t always do against the Packers and Falcons in their 15-12 win at the Superdome on Sunday.
They covered. They attacked. They struck. They applied pressure.
The Saints have played 190 games in the Superdome since 2002. This is only the fifth time in that span that they have averaged fewer than 220 yards.
“We have the best secondary, the best D-line, the best front seven in the league,” Chauncey Gardner-Johnson said. “They said we were down when they talked about last week, and now look at this.”
“Everyone said we want the No. 1 seed and stuff. Man, listen. At the end of the day, it’s football. It’s only Week 2. How can you be the best offense and the best team when you’ve only played two weeks? There are 16, 17 weeks left.
“We just had to block out the noise, understand who we are and play Eagles football, and that’s exactly what happened.”
The core of the Eagles’ great defensive performance was their ability to slow down Alvin Kamara, who entered the game with an NFL-record 5.7 rushing average.
The Saints’ game plan essentially consisted of running Kamara as often as possible against a defense that had allowed 6.7 rushing yards per carry (excluding kneels) through the first two weeks, one of the highest in NFL history.
The Saints didn’t let Kamara down, giving him eight opportunities to carry the ball on their first drive alone. But only for 18 yards. It never got much better. The Eagles held him to the line of scrimmage and got him the ball in large numbers when he reached the second level.
Kamara needed 26 carries to gain 87 yards and did not run a run longer than 16 yards. He is only the fourth running back in the last 25 years to run 26 or more carries and gain fewer than 90 yards against the Eagles.
Without an effective running game, Derek Carr was pressured and managed just 14 completions and 142 passing yards. Reed Blankenship’s second interception of the season with 55 seconds left sealed the win.
“We were pressuring him all day, and when that happens, every quarterback looks down and shortens his throws,” Blankenship said. “He was staring at the route, I just went with it, trusted my technique and got the job done.”
The guys on defense took a lot of criticism last week, most of it justified, but they deserve a ton of credit for doing exactly what they said they would do. They improved their technique, improved their tackling, and communicated better before the snap.
Everyone on defense played better Sunday than they did six days earlier at the Linc. Everyone.
“I said last week, no matter what anyone says, it’s about playing on the right side of the line of scrimmage … and then tackling,” Nick Sirianni said. “That’s what they did. You don’t want to lose, but sometimes those losses make you better.”
For the seventh game in a row, the Eagles edge rushers failed to record a single sack.
But Jalen Carter and Jordan Davis applied tremendous pressure from inside, Brandon Graham was all over the court and played more like a 26-year-old than a 36-year-old, Zack Baun rebounded from a subpar game, Nakobe Dean had his best game as a pro, and Gardner-Johnson was all over the court against his former team.
A real team effort. And the Eagles needed every bit of it.
“It took everyone in that room,” Blankenship said. “We’re playing in Philly. I love our fans to death and they’re going to hold us accountable and it’s great that we got the job done today.”
“Just believe in each other. Everyone knew what their job was and everyone knew how to do it. Yes, we had little things here and there that needed to be fixed, but at the end of the day we just rely on each other.”
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