Eagles brandishing a Super Bowl-level defense, but Lane Johnson has a warning for entire team

PHILADELPHIA — Lane Johnson told the cautionary tale of the 2023 season late Thursday night after the Eagles completed their short week by chalking up a sixth straight victory, this one behind another relentless defensive effort that made the betting favorite for NFL offensive rookie of the year simply look like a rookie.
“As good as things are going, I want people to remember last year,” Johnson said after a fourth-quarter offensive surge allowed the Eagles to pull away for a 26-18 victory over the Washington Commanders. “You’re 10-1 and you get that complacency feeling, you can find out quickly that this league will knock you on your ass if you let it.”
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The Eagles, after a 2-2 start that included a lopsided loss at Tampa Bay before the bye week, made us all wonder if last year’s collapse had extended into this year. Now, we know it has not. This year’s team is 8-2 and on top of the NFC East after beating the 7-4 Commanders with a brand of defense that brought back memories of the Eagles’ four teams that reached the Super Bowl.
This franchise has never reached the big game without a dominant defense as one of the ingredients and Johnson played on two of those teams — the one and only Eagles’ Super Bowl winner in franchise history in 2017 and the team that came oh so close in 2022.
He’s willing to say that this defense belongs in the conversation with those defenses.
“Yeah, man,” Johnson said. “We have some veterans, but a lot of it is young guns and their energy is high and they play well for each other. They’re friends on and off the field and I think that’s what shows.”
Much has been made about Johnson and Jordan Mailata going to Nick Sirianni at the bye week and telling the head coach that the offensive play calling needed to take more advantage of the fact that the Eagles have a dominating offensive line and a superstar running back in Saquon Barkley.
Since that conversation, the Eagles have become a run-heavy offense, totaling more than 200 yards on the ground three times in the last four weeks. The number was 228 against the Commanders with Barkley providing 146 yards and two fourth-quarter touchdowns that put the game away.
But the defense also had to do some soul-searching after the bye week. The Bucs had torched them for 445 yards and scored touchdowns on three of their first four possessions.
“I think at least with the defensive backs group it was about getting up and being more aggressive with receivers,” rookie cornerback Cooper DeJean said. “We had to be more physical at the line and stop playing soft. Our tackling has gotten better and we’re getting opportunities at the football and we’re getting turnovers.”
The Eagles got another one Thursday, giving them 13 in their last four games. They had just two in the first six games this season. Before their Week 8 game at Cincinnati, the Eagles had gone 14 games without winning the takeaway battle. Now, they’ve won it four weeks in a row.
“The last few weeks they’ve really played exceptional football,” Johnson said. “They’re creating turnovers, getting stops on fourth-and-ones, game-changing plays like the Nakobe (Dean) interception against Jacksonville that saved us the game. I really felt like we put them in a bind in the first half and they bailed us out.”
The most obvious game-changing play against the Commanders came in the fourth quarter after the Eagles had taken their first lead of the game on a Jalen Hurts touchdown with 12 minutes remaining. A missed extra point by Jake Elliott kept the score at 12-10, which meant Washington only needed a field goal to regain the lead.
Rookie Jayden Daniels took Washington from its own 29 to the Eagles’ 25, but that’s where the drive stalled. On second-and-one, Dean and Jalen Carter stopped Brian Robinson for no gain. On third-and-one, Zack Baun and Brandon Graham teamed up to take down Robinson for a 1-yard loss.
On fourth-and-two, Daniels bobbled the snap, then was shoved out of bounds by Baun short of the first down.
“That was huge,” Eagles coach Nick Sirianni said. “That’s a turnover in our eyes.”
The Eagles haven’t allowed 100 yards rushing for five straight weeks while on the flip side they’ve posted 100 yards rushing in every game this season.
“We’re tough on this football team,” Sirianni said. “We have tough guys. That’s so important. You can’t be tough if you don’t have guys that are tough.”
Sirianni is right. The Eagles have a lot of tough guys and some of them have surprised the hell out of us.
Nobody knew Baun was going to be great at inside linebacker, including Baun. It’s obvious he loves to take down opposing players, but he’s still not sure how to handle being one of the most prolific linebackers in the league. He said he was honored to be the NFC defensive player of the week last week, but he was glad it happened on a short week so he didn’t have to talk about it.
“I’m a pretty reserved guy,” he said. “I like to stay at home and be with my wife and my baby. I honestly never expected to be here in this position, but I’m just doing what I’m supposed to do.”
As is the entire Eagles’ defense. It looked special again Thursday night on an evening when the Eagles’ offense couldn’t manage a touchdown before the fourth quarter. Daniels was held to just 191 passing yards and 18 yards rushing. He also threw his third interception of the season. It fell into the hands of Reed Blankenship, who leads the Eagles with three interceptions.
The rookie of the game was Quinyon Mitchell. Tasked with covering Terry McLaurin, he held the four-time 1,000-yard receiver to just one catch for 10 yards.
“It’s a young group (in the secondary), but they feel like veterans,” safety C.J. Gardner-Johnson said. “Nothing is ever too big for them. They’re calm, cool and collected. It makes it easier for us older guys.”
CJGJ explained how the Eagles made Daniels look mortal by following defensive coordinator Vic Fangio’s game plan.
“He told us to just respect the quarterback,” Gardner-Johnson said. “Respect his game, but make him play quarterback and understand when he becomes an athlete he becomes very dangerous and tonight I think we did a great job making him play quarterback. Not taking nothing from him, but we had to understand it was the type of game that we had to limit something to get something.”
The Eagles’ defense limited everything and what it got was a sixth straight victory and control of the NFC East. The warning from Lane Johnson is that there’s still seven games to play and a lot to accomplish.
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Bob Brookover can be reached at [email protected]