Eagles' D offers Rx for offensive ills

September 22, 3:41 AMPhiladelphia Eagles ExaminerGordie Jones

Previous Next

Comment Print Email RSS Subscribe

Subscribe

Get alerts when there is a new article from the Philadelphia Eagles Examiner. Read Examiner.com's terms of use.

Email Address   Include other special offers from Examiner.com Terms of Use

Jim Johnson unleashed the hounds Sunday.

With 3:31 left in Sunday’s Eagles-Steelers game, Birds safety Brian Dawkins emerged, theatrically, from a pile of bodies with the football, flexing and preening as he did so.

He and his defensive teammates had taken firm hold of the game long before that.

Dawkins, who had forced a fumble with a diving strip of Pittsburgh quarterback Ben Roethlisberger, then fell on the ball at the Steeler 18, setting up the field goal that put the score out of reach in the Eagles’ 15-6 victory.

The sack was the eighth of nine the Eagles recorded on the day, a total equaling the third-highest in franchise history. It also represented a measure of redemption for Dawkins, who had played poorly six days earlier in Dallas – though he insisted he wasn’t looking for any such thing.

But the larger point is this: The Eagles might have to depend upon their defense, at least for the time being, since their offensive injuries are piling up.

Or perhaps you didn’t hear the collective gasp that went up throughout Philadelphia when do-everything running back Brian Westbrook rolled his right ankle in Sunday’s first half. He was on crutches after the game, and wearing an air cast. An MRI was scheduled for Monday morning.

Donovan McNabb? He suffered a chest contusion when caught in an avalanche of onrushing Steelers, and missed a handful of plays. Though he would return, coach Andy Reid wryly noted that his QB is “not going to be going out and doing any gardening (Monday).”

Fullback Tony Hunt (concussion) and tight end L.J. Smith (lower back sprain) were also knocked out of the game. Guard Shawn Andrews (back spasms) didn’t so much as start it. Neither did wide receiver Kevin Curtis (sports hernia), who has yet to play this year. The other wideout, Reggie Brown (hamstring), made his first appearance of the season, albeit in a limited role.

The defense stepped happily into the breach, besieging Roethlisberger and ultimately sending him to the sideline with a hand injury. Nor was running back Willie Parker a factor; he managed 20 yards on 13 carries. The Steelers generated a mere 180 yards in all, while turning the ball over three times (one of them an acrobatic interception by Asante Samuel) and yielding a safety.

It was the kind of day not often seen in an era of Eagles football, a feeling even a veteran like Dawkins struggled to explain.

“Everybody’s feeling that no matter what happens tonight, they’re not getting in the end zone,” he said afterward. “That’s really what we’ve done tonight. We’re not going to sit here and talk down on Pittsburgh, because they are an excellent football team. Excellent offensive team. But sometimes you get that feeling defensively. You say, ‘You know what? I don’t care what they do, as long as Jim (Johnson, the defensive coordinator) is calling what he was calling to allow us to get loose the way we got loose, they’re not getting in the end zone.’ ”

Johnson, who rued the fact he didn’t unleash the hounds in last Monday night’s 41-37 loss in Dallas – a game in which the Eagles went sackless – dialed up one blitz after another. The Bird rushed more than four at least half the time, and maybe as much as 85 percent of the time, according to outside linebacker Omar Gaither.

But come, they did. Sometimes it was ‘backers. Sometimes it was safeties. Sometimes it was cornerbacks. And the pressure came from all angles, too.

“We felt there were some things that we could take advantage of,” Johnson said.

More than anything, they seemed to take dead aim on the center of the Steelers’ line. Center Justin Hartwig, who came over as a free agent from Carolina in the offseason, is new to the team, and guard Chris Kemoeatu is new to the lineup. So again and again Johnson had Gaither and middle linebacker Stewart Bradley line up over them. Sometimes they came. Sometimes they didn’t. Either way, they wreaked havoc.

“When we didn’t bring presssure we were able to get sacks,” Gaither said, “because they thought we were going to bring pressure.”

“It was great,” defensive end Trent Cole said, “to see everything happening like we know it can happen. And we know it can happen again and happen again and happen again, so we’re just going to work on this win and take the next week and do it again.”

The thing is, they might need to. Because the Eagles are running short of bodies on offense.