Brees won’t be easy to hold back
PHILADELPHIA >> Rasul Douglas became the poster child for every bad play the Eagles made on defense in their loss to the Dallas Cowboys Sunday night by taking the wrong angle on a screen pass.
When Douglas tried to turn the play inside, Michael Gallup cut outside and picked up 25 yards to extend the only touchdown drive of the first half. What stood out about the miss was that it was third-and-15 and Douglas turned inside partly because 6-5, 320-pound offensive tackle Tyron Smith was barreling in on him in the last minute of the first half.
“I guess I could have just stayed outside,” a disappointed Douglas said after practice Tuesday. “I thought I was outside enough and I went for an inside move and I should have just stayed outside. Malcolm (Jenkins) was pursuing, running his ass off. And I could have given him a chance to make a play at like about 13, 12 yards. And maybe they punt.”
The Cowboys punted just twice after that because it was so easy to run on the Eagles. Ezekiel Elliott rushed for 151 yards and a touchdown, breaking several tackles along the way. And he scored on a 15-yard catch-and-run to affirm the game plan for putting points on the Eagles. Throw short to avoid the pass rush, mix in the run and above all, get players in space to make the Eagles tackle. They’re not much of a tackling team.
Douglas’ whiff on Gallup wasn’t the only tackle he failed to make. But it wasn’t just his mistakes that doomed the Eagles. Douglas at least was competitive playing a career-high 67 snaps spread between safety and corner, the latter when Ronald Darby suffered what would be a season-ending torn ACL in the third quarter.
“I think a lot of tackling goes to positioning, it goes to playing fast, playing confident,” defensive coordinator Jim Schwartz said. “I think first when you look at tackling you generally go there. I don’t think we’ve looked as fast and as swarming on defense. I think a lot of times last year we would miss the same number of tackles but we were just flying around so fast and guys were covering each other up. I think that we got a lot of new faces and they’re all sort of working their way through playing off of the other guy. And there is something to that sort of communication, knowing what the other guy’s going to do.
“I think we’ve got some work to do there.”
The Eagles were playing without injured starting cornerback Jalen Mills, one of their best tacklers. Sidelined with a foot injury, he wasn’t even close enough to playing to list as questionable.
Cornerback Sidney Jones has an ailing hamstring, and while he was scratched this past week there’s at least a chance he could return this week.
In a best-case scenario with both dressing this weekend, the Eagles still figure to have problems. Drew Brees and the New Orleans Saints (8-1) are tearing up the record book.
The Saints have scored 40 or more points in five games this season, joining Peyton Manning and the 2013 Denver Broncos and Kurt Warner and the 2000 St. Louis “Greatest Show on Turf” Rams as the only teams to manage that.
Brees is killing it, having completed 77.3 percent of his passes with 21 touchdowns, one interception and a 123.8 rating. He’s been sacked just nine times. Schwartz joked that at least it didn’t take long going over the interception, sacks and incompletion video this week.
The Saints average a leaguehigh 36.7 points. The most points the Eagles have scored this season is 34 against the New York Giants.
“I dare anybody to say that they’re the seventh-best or the eighth-best” offense in the league, Schwartz said. “Anybody that charts yards allowed or yards gained and everything else, it’s a points business, and they’re putting up points like nobody else.”
Only Manning (539) has more career TD passes than Brees, who collected his 509th in a 51-14 blowout of the Bengals last weekend.
The Saints’ arsenal of weaponry is topped by receiver Michael Thomas, who with 78 receptions is tied for the league lead with Adam Thielen. Thomas has
274 catches in 40 games overall, the most by a player in his first
40 career games in NFL history. Running back Alvin Kamara has 14 TDs, including 11 rushing and nine games with at least two TDs. He’s one such game from joining the late Steve Van Buren of the Eagles, Curtis Martin and Edgerrin James — all in the Hall of Fame — for the league record of multi-touchdown games in the first 25 career games.
“They’re the hottest team in the NFL right now,” Douglas said. “Offensively, they’re pretty good. I haven’t seen anybody stop them on film yet. They’ve got a good quarterback, a great quarterback in Drew Brees. He can make all the throws. It’s going to be a big test. We’ve just got to be locked in.”