Eagles Defense All-22 Film Review: Takeaways from the Giants game

If the Eagles' offense All-22 piece was fun this week, this one was just as fun. I love watching this current Eagles defense and this week was no different.

Eagles Defense

The Eagles’ defense EPA numbers were excellent once again. In particular, what stands out every week, is how good the Eagles are stopping the pass on late downs. The Eagles have cleaned up their significant issues against the run and it’s resulting in a very good defense every single week.

Pass Defense

I read quite a bit this week about Andrew Thomas and Evan Neal vs. Josh Sweat and Haason Reddick would be a great matchup. I’ll be honest, it wasn’t a great matchup. It was a clear victory for Sweat and Reddick who won consistently on the edge. The Giants didn’t give them a lot of help and Sweat and Reddick took advantage of this. As I say every week, the Eagles just have better players than everyone they play against. Sweat started the game off with this fantastic rep where he shows off his explosiveness and bend. When he’s rushing from a wide position he looks so good.

The Eagles loved running this cover 3 invert in this game from dime with Josiah Scott taking up the role of the single-high safety. It worked quite a lot, but Bradberry actually got beat here and was bailed out by the pass rush. I don’t blame him however for being aggressive and jumping the route because, with this pass rush, it makes sense to take away the short stuff and take a risk on the double moves. Sweat was good, but I thought Reddick was absolutely fantastic in this game. He got frequent pressure and forced Daniel Jones to step up. Even when he doesn’t show up in the box score, he is always impacting play currently.

This was my favorite play of the game. Remember DeVonta Smith’s touchdown last week? The Eagles ran a crossing route to take away the safety and then threw a deep post over the top of the safety because the cornerback has outside leverage. The Giants tried to do the exact same thing this week to take advantage of the Eagles' cover 4 defense but the Eagles ran cover 3 invert again and Daniel Jones did not read it at all. Jones sees the safety take the crossing route and thinks he has Bradberry one-on-one with outside leverage so decides to throw the post. Josiah Scott does a really good job flipping his ups and helping out as the single-high safety. Daniel Jones would never throw a post into cover 3 which is why I’m almost certain he doesn’t pick up the post-snap rotation here. This is also a good example of why Gannon wants to line up in 2-high all the time because it is really easy to change the coverage post-snap but every play looks the same pre-snap.

This is another great example of the Eagles disguising their coverage. This time, Avonte Maddox drops into the safety position while Reed Blankenship comes up and blitzes. However, it is still only a 4 man rush because both edge defenders drop into coverage (and do a good job). Blankenship does a brilliant job tackling Daniel Jones and the Eagles' secondary does a fantastic job at covering all routes.

I liked Reddick’s tape in the off-season and thought it was a smart signing, but he is blowing me away right now. He’s playing so well in all facets of the game. He was incredibly disruptive this week and seemed to be causing havoc in nearly every pass play. Just watch the Eagles' secondary pass off these routes and take away every throw. It is beautiful.

I say it every week so apologies, but I absolutely love watching this secondary. It’s as good as I’ve ever seen in terms of communication and route distribution. You rarely ever see this defense give up explosive plays because each defender knows exactly who to cover and when to move off him and cover another receiver. Each defender has to know their job in this defense and the 4 man pass rush allows them to successfully be +1 in coverage at all times which is absolutely vital. The combination of pass rush and coverage is making this defense really hard to throw the ball against.

I heard the Giants’ tackles were meant to be really, really good? If they are, how good are Sweat and Reddick?

How cool was it to watch Brandon Graham ball out in this game too? I want him to get 10 sacks so badly this season now. What more can I say about this secondary? This is pretty much the second team! Just appreciate the coverage here. The way they match routes in their zone coverage is outstanding. If Jonathan Gannon does leave in the offseason to become a head coach, just immediately promote Eagles defensive backs coach Dennard Wilson, please.

Run Defense

One good development from this game was the ability to stop the run with a 4 man front once again. The Eagles had some good reps against the run, partly because Kyzir White was really good at coming downhill quickly and getting into the backfield. The Giants try to double both defensive tackles before getting to the linebackers at the second level, but White is too quick for the lineman and he shoots the gap before the center comes off his double team.

Think about this for a moment: Milton Williams is currently the Eagles' 6th best defensive tackle. That is absurd. He had another good game and has stood out in a good way over the past few weeks.

The Giants did have a few good plays, and I still think attacking the cornerbacks in this Eagles' defense in the run game is the main weakness. Slay is a fantastic cover corner but if you can force him to play the run, which he has to do a lot when the Eagles use a 4 man front, he can make mistakes and be caught out as he is here.

As always, appreciate all of you for checking these out. Any questions just fire away.