DeMeco Ryans Says Eagles Defense Was Jealous Of The Offense
By Spike Eskin
PHILADELPHIA (CBS) – The first quarter of Monday night's Eagles game was a whole lot of Eagles offense, and not that much Eagles defense. That's a compliment to both units, as the offense was operating at a high efficiency, and the defense was able to get the ball back rather quickly with a turnover and a safety.
Though the defense played well overall, it was the offense that was the marvel, at least for the first half, of Monday's game. The speed and precision was something that hasn't been seen that often in the NFL.
It was so exciting, it had some of the defensive players a little jealous.
"They [the offense] were driving for so long I was just wondering when we were going to get our opportunities. Seems like the offense was out there, they were having so much fun," Ryans said Tuesday night on 94WIP. "They were eating up a lot of the clock, just driving the defense, and as a defense we were sitting on the sidelines, like man when are we going to get our opportunity to go out there and have a crack at it."
Though everything seemed to go right for the Eagles in the first half, the second half was a different story. Washington was able to drive the field, and score 20 straight points, putting what at one point seemed like a sure-win in doubt.
Ryans says that part of Washington's success was be design; the design of the Eagles defense.
"You definitely change the philosophy [with a big lead], you don't get as aggressive because you don't want to give up the big plays in that point of time. You want them [the defense], to like you say, drive the field, drive the field, burn time off of the game clock and just don't let anything get beat," Ryans said.
One thing that did seem to be a theme for the Eagles defense was an aggressive nature that seemed to be missing since the loss of former defensive coordinator Jim Johnson. Billy Davis made it a point to send extra players at Robert Griffin III on numerous occasions.
"That's our mentality. We want to be an aggressive, attacking defense flying around to the ball and when your defensive coordinator calls an aggressive game plan it allows the players to fly around and make plays, the way we did last night [Monday night]," Ryans said.
