For the first month or two of this NFL season critics were questioning the identity of this Philadelphia Eagles team.   But after a franchise record 10-game winning streak Vic Fangio’s defense has put the league on notice that they can ball with the best of them.  But is it enough to carry them to a second Super Bowl Championship?  Before we get into that let’s take a look at week 17 in Philadelphia at a glance as Cowboys’ week hit its crescendo.

The Basics: Cowboys at Eagles

• Who: Cowboys (7-8, 5-2 Away) at Eagles (12-3, 6-1 Home)
• When: Sunday 1 p.m. ET
• Where: Lincoln Financial Field, Philadelphia, PA
• TV: FOX
• Betting: Eagles -7.5 ; Money Line: Eagles -380, Cowboys +300

Heavy on Eagles Game Day Rant: Birds’ Defense Needs a Bigger Chip to Go with Their Edge

There’s a saying in the NFL that refers to coaching as pertains to the way a team plays football. “You either coach it or you tolerate it.”  In the case of the Philadelphia Eagles their emotional on-the-field antics aren’t coached but certainly are encouraged by head coach Nick Sirianni and his staff, and that’s a good thing, right up to the point where it starts costing them football games.

Being physical has helped them win 12 games this season, that included a 10-game winning streak before their 36-33 loss to the Washington Commanders last Sunday. However, the same aggressiveness and emotion that is the bane of their style and philosophy has resulted in a rise of costly unnecessary roughness and unsportsmanlike conduct penalties.

Let’s get one thing straight – there is a major difference between an unsportsmanlike conduct penalty and an unnecessary roughness penalty. Both can be the result of an attempt to intimidate but one can be fruitful while the other just wasteful.

Eagles safely C.J. Gardner Johnson who tallied two unsportsmanlike penalties last week was, by rule, ejected from the game early in the third quarter.  He was replaced by Triston McCollum who is a distant drop-off from Gardner-Johnson and the result was on full display as Washington scored 22 fourth quarter points, all through the air, in a three-point win for the Commanders, that most likely cost the Birds a shot at the number one overall seed in the NFC.

Me First Attitude

Gardner-Johnson has a reputation of being physically intimidating.  He’s a little crazy when he’s in his alter ego mode of Ceedy Duce, an on-field name change that he has sworn is coming according to his I.G. account.  Whatever you call him whether it’s Chauncey or C.J. or Ceedy Ducey, you can’t call him soft.  He’s a big hitter with a big mouth to match.  But if you called him stupid for last week’s antics in Landover, MD. I doubt anyone would argue with you.  His motor mouth cost him a little over $45,000 in fines from last week’s exhibition in selfishness.  Yes, selfishness.  Because when you make it about you and it turns out costing your team, that’s the definition of selfishness.  I have zero problem with his attempt at mental intimidation by trash talking because if you can get inside your opponent’s head, the game is over before it is even played.  But if you can’t, the sucker is you.

Two head coaches ago, Chip Kelly was the head man here in Philly.  He had a saying. “Play with emotion.  Don’t let emotion play with you.”  

Usually the team that comes out and plays with more emotion ends up on the winning side of things.  Unless of course you let your emotion play with you and that’s exactly what happened to Gardner-Johnson last week against the Commanders.

There is a fine line between playing with emotion and knowing where that line is and sometimes it gets muddied in the fog of “war”.

Play With a Chip

Eagles’ star defensive lineman Jalen Carter is a game wrecker that gives opposing defensive coordinators many a sleepless night.  He also happens to be a walking unnecessary roughness penalty.  The Eagles, according to NFL Penalties, have received six unnecessary roughness penalties this year, tied for 7th most in the NFL.  Carter now has four of them.

Carter was flagged for an unnecessary roughness penalty last week when he pushed Commanders’ guard Sam Cosmi with one arm, causing Cosmi to fall.  It was a costly penalty in that it handed the Commanders an automatic first down and kept their drive alive.

If the Eagles want to clinch the NFC East title Sunday against the Dallas Cowboys, they will need to avoid undisciplined penalties and not give the Cowboys any extra chances.

But here’s the thing with Carter.   The Eagles don’t want to take away the thing he has that makes him special – his edge.  The Eagles love that Carter plays with so much passion and fire, but they would like him to temper his emotions with intelligence.  Carter was asked this past week how he knows how far he can take things?

“When that flag goes in the air, that’s how you know how far you can take it…that flag goes in the air, that means you probably went overboard.”  You just gotta calm it down. You can’t get another one. That’s pretty much it.”   Hmmmm.  Let me know if you find and comfort in that answer if you are an Eagles’ fan.  I’m pretty sure if you push things far enough to draw a flag it’s a little late to be smarter about things.   

In a 27-13 win over the Pittsburgh Steelers a couple of weeks ago Carter drew a flag for a head slap of Steelers’ tight end Connor Heyward during a Pittsburgh punt that should have given the Steelers a first down in Eagles’ territory.  The Birds were fortunate that replay assist botched the call (go figure) and viewed the penalty as a post- punt infraction and the possession was subsequently reversed.  Fortunately for the Birds, it didn’t cost them.   But it doesn’t mean it wasn’t an incredibly stupid play given the situation.  Success at this level comes from playing good situational football.  Maybe you’ve heard of it before.  

After the head slap defensive line coach Clint Hurtt had to step in between Sirianni and Carter as the head coach was ripping into him on the sideline.  Hurtt was asked this past week if he wants to see his prize bull continue to play with a chip.  “You’re damn right I do,” Hurtt said earlier this month. “If I got to sit there and encourage you to have juice and passion to go play, I don’t need to be coaching you. Every day that you come in here, you should be ecstatic and fired up to put a helmet on and go kick the shit out of people.”

Swagger U

That attitude shouldn’t come as a surprise to anyone who has followed Hurtt’s career.  He played college football in the birthplace of swagger – the University of Miami.  While he never played for the legendary Jimmy Johnson, the founder and curator of said swagger, that attitude of individualism that Johnson allowed and encouraged during his tenure in Coral Gables continued to reverberate through that program and was passed down for years to come.  

Hurtt was a defensive lineman in college, but his career was cut short by a knee injury.  He turned his setback into a very successful coaching career that began at his alma mater.  After his playing days were over, he became a graduate assistant under then head coach Larry Coker and scored a National Championship ring from the 2001 season when the Hurricanes went 12-0 capturing their fifth national title.  

That program, under Johnson, was heavily criticized for celebrating their successes overzealously, earning themselves a bad-boy reputation.  But that collective chip his players played with also had a galvanizing us-against-the-world effect and it was very intimidating to their opponents and helped Johnson win 40 of his last 44 games at the University of Miami.

Hall of Famer Michael Irvin, who played for Johnson at both Miami and with the Dallas Cowboys was the leader of that renegade brigade.  “We would tell you we were going to kick your ass, then we’d go out and kick your ass, and then we would celebrate the kicking of your ass.” said Irvin once upon a time.

It turned the rest of the free world off but it worked for them.  Why?  Because if you can get inside your opponent’s head, the game is won before it is even played.  Sounds familiar.  They were an intimidating and talented bunch whose swagger was paralyzing to their opponents.   

In his book that he wrote a couple of years ago, appropriately titled Swagger, Johnson clarified a common misnomer about his coaching philosophy.  “The story line said I just sat there, doing nothing, as all these on-field celebrations and loud proclamations changed the look of college football.  

“That’s not how it worked at all.  I didn’t sit there passively, looking the other way as players danced and pointed to the skies.  I encouraged them to act that way.  I wanted them to play to their personalities.  That’s the mind-set I had as a coach, too.  Why follow someone else’s rules?  Why not unleash who you really are, and by doing so, become the best version of yourself?

Step over a player?  Talk some trash? …I coached everyone to play freely under my rules. That’s not a contradiction.  I thought if players talked loud and celebrated, they’d have to back it up.  Their energy would run like an electric current through the team if you had similar-minded players, too.  But my players were also coached that there’s a line out there, even as they played freely, and that line stopped at taunting the opponent, or committing dumb penalties.”   

Buddy Ball

Buddy Ryan never won a playoff game as the head coach of the Eagles back in the late 80’s- early 90’s but he is still one of the most beloved head coaches in Eagles’ history.  Why?  Because Buddy was cocky, confident and had a boastful swagger about him and put together a star-laden intimidating defense that won a lot of games taking their cue from the former Philadelphia legend. 

Buddy knew that by making a quarterback or wide receiver think twice about catching a ball or scrambling for extra yards, the battle was already won, despite even an occasional penalty. 

I spoke to former Eagles’ Linebacker Garry Cobb this past week for this Heavy on Pregame Rant, and he told me that, “Buddy thought receivers and especially quarterbacks were ‘gutless’ and if we were within two steps, even if the whistle had blown, that he was ok with us finishing the hit, even if it drew a personal foul call.  He used to say to us ‘if it’s early in the game – the first 15 is on me.’  Buddy felt that if an opposing quarterback or receiver took even a fraction of a second to take a quick peek over their shoulder or to lose concentration for a brief moment, ultimately someone down the line would short arm a ball or flinch in fear of what might be coming.”

That kind of fear is invaluable to any defense.  Buddy’s teams had missile launchers like Wes Hopkins, Andre Waters and Jerome Brown.  Feared defenses that have won Super Bowls often carried a handful of remorseless assassins like James Harrison, Ryan Clark, John Lynch, Joey Porter, Ronnie Lott, Lawrence Taylor and Ray Lewis just to name a few.   Heat-seeking missiles with a controlled reckless abandon.

This Eagles team doesn’t need to produce a sequel to “the Body Bag Game” but they do need to channel their swagger into a more fearful identity, rather than an undisciplined one.

 

 

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