The Eagles have lost their last two games, but the club has had significant issues defensively over its last three.
After letting up 505 yards and 34 points to the Bills in the Week 12 overtime win, Philadelphia surrendered 456 yards and 42 points in a loss to the 49ers in Week 13. Then it was 394 yards and 33 points against the Cowboys last Sunday night.
In his Wednesday press conference, defensive coordinator Sean Desai was specifically asked what concerns him most about the way his unit has performed over the last two games.
“I think it’s just we have been inopportune,” Desai said. “We have not been able to get off the field when we need to get off the field. Yeah, in third down and situational football we got to be better, third down, red zone. Those have been our bugaboos. Not going to lie to you. That’s been our Achilles’ heel right now.”
The 49ers were 8-of-11 on third down in Week 13 while the Cowboys were 9-of-16 last Sunday. In the red zone, San Francisco was 4-of-4 and Dallas was 3-of-3.
The Eagles are now last in the league with teams converting 48.1 percent of their third-down opportunities. They’re No. 30 in allowing touchdowns on 70.5 percent of red-zone drives.
Still, Desai spoke positively about the way he’s expecting the defense to respond.
“I feel really good about where we’re going with it, feel really good about our planning process towards it, and our players’ mentality in approaching that situation, being able to put guys in spots to go win those,” Desai said. “Again, we won a lot of third downs early in the year. We just haven’t been able to do that this year. That’s hurting us as [a] defense. Increases our play counts. But it hurts us as a team.
“Our job as a defense is to get the ball back to the offense as fast as we can, and we haven’t been able to do that effectively enough.”
Philadelphia’s next opponent is Seattle, which has struggled in both categories on offense. The Seahawks enter Week 15 at No. 26 in third downs (33.3 percent) and No. 22 in the red zone (50 percent). We’ll see if the Eagles can get right against the NFC West opponent on Monday night.
