The Eagles defense did a lot of the heavy lifting in a 31-6 win over the Jets in Week Five, but the unit couldn’t find the same kind of success against the Vikings on Sunday.
After 10 sacks and two touchdowns in the win, the Eagles spent Sunday giving up four touchdown passes in a 38-20 loss that dropped them to 3-3 on the season. Two of those scoring plays were on long passes from Kirk Cousins to Stefon Diggs and the breakdowns in the secondary were a big talking point after the game.
The Eagles have dealt with several injuries to cornerbacks, but head coach Doug Pederson said the team is “not going to use that as an excuse” for poor play. Safety Malcolm Jenkins said that the last two weeks are a sign that the defense is still working to get a sense of itself this season.
“You can go three seasons without seeing a kind of game like that, so I don’t think we look to last week as a benchmark of who we are,” Jenkins said, via the Philadelphia Inquirer. “But I do think we got to play more consistently, and I think we’re trying to figure what our identity is. Obviously, with the rotation and the personnel changing every week, it’s hard to find what you are defensively.”
Next Sunday brings a date with the 3-3 Cowboys and that would be a good time for the defense to swing back toward the kind of performance that carried them to a win in Week Five.