Believe it or not, the Eagles have the capability when relatively healthy to play effective pass defense even without making a deal to upgrade the cornerback position.
Zone coverage schemes, particularly Cover 2 and Cover 3 and maybe even quarters, are ways to keep their cornerbacks from having to cover with no help deep down the field, and it is an approach that’s been increasingly used by defensive coordinator Jim Schwartz.
Schwartz zoned up his defensive backfield quite often in the last game, with decent results against Hall of Fame-bound Green Bay Packers quarterback Aaron Rodgers.
“That wasn’t the plan going in,” he said. “But plans change during the game and you need to sort of be able to react to that. I thought the guys did a pretty good job of transitioning out of that with a couple injuries [to Jones and Maddox] that we had.”
That Rodgers finished with 422 passing yards does not mean the approach was wrong. Those yards had more to do with Rodgers spinning out of collapsing pockets or the Eagles being burned on the few occasions when they tried to mix things up with blitzes that left the back end of their defense exposed when they failed to force a quicker/inaccurate release or get a sack.
The Cover 3, which Seattle has been using as its base for the last decade under Peter Carroll, calls for the cornerbacks to provide deep cushions at the snap to cover the deep outside thirds of the field, with one safety covering the middle and another free to drop into the box for run support. The Eagles do this quite a bit with safeties Malcolm Jenkins and Rodney McLeod, and their corners don’t allow receivers to get behind them unless the play breaks down — Rodgers breaking containment, for example — in which case all bets are off.
The flawless execution of that system has helped make a star of former Seahawks cornerback Richard Sherman, who doesn’t run any faster than the oft-ridiculed Jalen Mills, who’s due to come off the PUP list soon and will provide a boost to the defense because he doesn’t need to have world-class speed to be effective.
Here’s what NFL.com‘s scouting report had to say about Sherman and his 4.56-40 time coming out of Stanford in 2011: “He does not possess the natural coverage instincts, fluidity or burst to be considered a future starter.”
At last glance, Sherman seems bound for Canton with 33 career interceptions, including an NFL-best eight in 2013, when the Seahawks also went on to win the Super Bowl.
Of course, Mills is no Richard Sherman, but he brings the same fire, same football intelligence and same confidence that Sherman does.
To play a lot of zone, your corners have to be good tacklers, which Mills, Rasul Douglas, Avonte Maddox and Cre’Von LeBlanc are and which Sidney Jones was showing he could be before getting injured again. Ronald Darby needs work in that area. But who knows? He is so prone to injury that it’s not unreasonable to think he might have played his last down with this team.
The point is, championships can be won without lockdown corners, which the Eagles in this millennium never really had even when they had them (Nnamdi Asomugha, Asante Samuel, et al).
By simplifying the scheme, keeping the ball in front of them and then tightening up in the red zone by using the back of the end zone as an extra defender, the Eagles can win. They did it last year, after losing so many defensive backs, and seem bound for the same this year.
And now?
They head into Sunday’s game against the Jets with three of their five available cornerbacks having arrived since their season opener, including Ryan Lewis, who was just signed to the practice squad on Tuesday and promoted on Friday.
They used that formula against the Packers by giving up nearly 500 yards but prevailing, 34-27, with the help of a magnificent goal-line stand in which Green Bay didn’t even attempt to run it and a last-minute stop by journeyman corner Craig James.
“We said this a bunch of times, the linebacker can be a half a step shorter on a play or a defensive lineman can be a bad step, and you guys don’t even notice, fans don’t even notice,” Schwartz said. “A lot of times it goes sort of just unseen. But corners live that life. They live that life in that fishbowl.”
Morning Call reporter Nick Fierro can be reached at 610-778-2243 or nfierro@mcall.com.