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The Philadelphia Eagles appear to be rolling after a 3-0 start. The offense has staked big leads in all three games before taking its foot off the gas in what the nay-sayers can cite as the only disturbing trend so far. Fortunately for them, the defense has mostly slammed the door shut.
Following a near meltdown in Week 1, Jonathan Gannon’s unit has risen to the occasion. The Eagles defense pitched a second-half shutout against Minnesota, then gave up a single touchdown to Washington. They recorded an unfathomable nine sacks against old friend Carson Wentz.
Still, there’s room for improvement. There always is. Fletcher Cox (1.5 sacks vs. Washington) called out sloppy play in Week 3, citing dumb penalties and too many missed tackles. They’ll watch the tape and get it cleaned up.
“I think as a defense we got sloppy,” Cox told reporters. “Penalties kept the drive alive and we gotta fix that. And that’s my biggest worry right now. We can’t get sloppy. We gotta continue to stay consistent and put the game away. Missing tackles, we can’t be happy with that. We just gotta spend this week fixing that and get less penalized and move on.”
Brandon Graham (2.5 sacks vs. Washington) agreed with Cox, adding that “there were plays out there we left.” Good teams can do that, not great ones.
“I know there’s always room to get better,” Graham said. “Like Jalen [Hurts] said, they ain’t score no more points in the second half. Offense feel like they can get a lot better and I know we can feel the same way. Every week it’s going to be different. Everybody attack you differently. And we just gotta stay on point with what we do. I’m not worried about where we are right now because it’s not how you start, it’s how you finish.”
Jalen Hurts Delivers Another Epic Victory Speech
Hurts may seem mild-mannered in press conferences, but he’s been unleashing some attitude during his post-game victory speeches. The dual-threat quarterback shared another NSFW message to his teammates following the 24-8 win in Washington.
When you look yourself in the mirror as a man and you say I’m going to control the things I can control, that’s how you f****** get better. That’s how you get better. That’s how you take steps. A.J. [Brown] said this on the sideline and I really feel this s*** and I said, ‘Okay, we got a good football team.’ We know when we control the things we can, we damn good. Damn good. But we gotta go to f****** work every f****** day.
We gotta go to work every f****** day to clean up this little bit of bulls*** that’s holding us back, so we can be who we the f*** we admit to be. But, right now … WE GONNA ENJOY THIS ONE!
DeVonta Smith: ‘It’s Our Ball or Nobody’s Ball’
DeVonta Smith put up 156 receiving yards in the first half alone on Sunday. That was the most for an Eagles wideout through two quarters since Kevin Curtis went for 205 in 2007. Smith finished with 8 catches for 169 yards, including a jaw-dropping 45-yard grab in double coverage. He followed that one up with a 2-yard touchdown grab.
It’s all about trust, something that Hurts unequivocally has in his receiving corps.
“The trust Jalen has in all the receivers, I mean it’s our ball or nobody’s ball,” Smith said. “Just being there with him, just being able to know that if we don’t come down with it then nobody comes down with it.”
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