They're sleeping on our defense...

[Alexander]

I think he's more than a little confused. He's tried everything, and we've been ready for it. But I expect them to go down swinging, if they're gonna lose they're gonna bring it this weekend. Our WRs should get some really good 1 on 1 matchups, and they're going to have to win them.

McDermott is having a tough time because of his personnel issues. Their linebacking crew is pretty poor. The fact they had to coax Jeremiah Trotter off the streets should tell you a lot. I believe they have started four or five different three man combinations at linebacker. Moises Fokou is a rookie. Chris Gocong has been demoted. Will Witherspoon moved to the middle and now is back outside. Akeem Jordan has moved inside from out. Tracy White is a special teams type who really is seeing too much playing time in the nickel defenses.

Their secondary has problems as well. They've been unable to settle down at safety (Macho Harris has been a problem) and losing Ellis Hobbs was a blow nobody talks about.

I hate to offer up excuses, but they have had big injury problems defensively all season. It does not help they cannot settle on who is playing where. That makes it much harder to pull of the blitzing packages Jim Johnson left behind. It means everyone has to know what they are doing. If they don't there will be massive holes in the defense and we saw that with Witten and Crayton doing basically anything they wanted.

 

[InmanRoshi]

The Cowboys defense allowing 250 points or less in a season is a nice accomplishment, only the Ravens and Steelers did it last year. There are years when no one in the NFL allows less than 250 points. And that's not an easy schedule they did it against with the Saints #1 in scoring offense, Green Bay #3, San Diego #4, Philly 2X #5, Giants 2X #8. That's roughly half of our games on the schedule this season against Top 10 scoring offenses, and 1/3 of the games against the Top 5 scoring offenses.

I think we present a uniquely bad matchup against Philly and McNabb with their over dependence on the big play and our man to man DBs and pass rushers. We can just play our safeties over the top and make McNabb throw precision intermediate passes in tight coverage against Newman and Jenkins, and McNabb is pretty horrible at making precision intermediate passes.

And as much as people focus on McDermott taking over for Jim Johnson, I think the Eagles miss Brian Dawkins in the lockerroom. Their defense just doesn't seem to have the same edge and attitude it used to. They miss Dawkins as much as we needed Brookings.

 

[Baileyneverfailey]

And as much as people focus on McDermott taking over for Jim Johnson, I think the Eagles miss Brian Dawkins in the lockerroom. Their defense just doesn't seem to have the same edge and attitude it used to. They miss Dawkins as much as we needed Brookings.

I fully believe this. Dawkins was their emotional leader on defense, and I for one am glad as hell he's gone. He got their defense pumped up every game, and now they lack the intensity he brought to that whole side of the ball.

 

[kmd24]

The defensive performance was very good, but it got a lot of leverage from the dominating offensive performance in the first half.

We had drives of 4:25, 7:09, 6:18, and 3:38 in the first half. That's 21:21 TOP, folks.

The Eagles entered the second half with a tired defense and a big deficit, and it gave us the chance to turn the screws on them.

I don't think the defense holds up as well when the offense isn't rolling also. Even though we didn't score many points against San Diego, we've been putting together solid drives for four games now. I don't think it's a coincidence that the defense has responded as well.

I think Tony Romo summarized it well in his post-game press conference: the two sides of the ball feed off each other. When the defense gets off the field quick, the offense gets to keep hammering, and when the offense is putting the other team in a hole, the defense can be aggressive without fear of losing the game on one play.

So, I think it matters quite a bit whether McDermott can figure out how to slow the Cowboys down.