It was a shock to pretty much everyone when the Eagles suddenly tightened up their run defense and held Redskins running backs to under 3 yards a carry. So the question is whether they just had a good week or whether the Eagles, who went into that game with one of the worst run defenses in the league, have finally turned a corner?
Juan Castillo was asked that question this week, specifically whether the things they did against Washington can be applied this weekend against the Cowboy.
"You know what, it is really the way people talk about schemes, right? And there's different kind of schemes, okay? There's outside zone scheme [and] even though people make a big deal [about it] all outside zone schemes are basically the same; some people run it better because they do it more. [There's] inside zone schemes, alright. Gap schemes are powers and counters, double teams at the point of attack with a kick-out and lead guy. Alright, then they have lead schemes, lead draws, kind of like the Cowboys had, misdirection type plays. So this is a team that probably uses a little bit of everything. The Redskins were basically an outside zone scheme [and] that's what they did and they were pretty good at that because that's what they did. The Cowboys use a little bit of each scheme so we're having to take time [to study and] we're fortunate we had Monday where we worked on a certain part of their running attack. So we're trying to break down the schemes so we can stop the run."
You all get that?