Bleeding Green Nation
Defensive analysis from Philadelphia’s Super Bowl LIX win over Kansas City!
THE PHILADELPHIA EAGLES ARE SUPER BOWL CHAMPIONS! This post needs no introduction. What an unbelievable performance against the Kansas City Chiefs. LET’S GO!
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Cooper DeJean. A rookie cornerback who the Eagles’ fans will forever know as the cornerback who intercepted Patrick Mahomes and returned it for a touchdown. He’s had a phenomenal year. His best trait is the ability to get physical at the line of scrimmage. He was outstanding in press coverage in this game, and his ability to blow up short throws, like this one, is a cheat code. The Chiefs’ offense desperately wants to stress you horizontally. They run a lot of stuff like this. They couldn’t get anything going on the edge at all, and a huge reason why was the Eagles’ young defensive back, Cooper DeJean. He has a fantastic tackler in space. It’s not the time to get into long-term projections, but I think DeJean is the perfect nickel for this defense. He has absolutely nailed this role. Playing nickel cornerback in this defense is complex, and he’s smashed it as a rookie.
The Eagles played single-high man coverage from their DIME package once during the entire game. It came on the first 3rd down of the game. I have no idea why, and I’d love to know if Vic Fangio did this to make Andy Reid think he would run more man coverage than he did. Fangio did not do this for the rest of the game! Regardless, what I love about this call is that Fangio did exactly what I wanted him to do. He got eyes on Travis Kelce in the middle of the field (in this case, it comes from the safety in a robber position), and he let his outside cornerbacks win on the outside. This was a fantastic rep of defense in so many ways. Remarkably, the defense didn’t play any more man coverage on 3rd down like this rep, despite the fact they did it this well in this rep! If the Chiefs had had more success against the Eagles’ zone coverage, I think the Eagles could have gone back to this style of defense if necessary. But, it wasn’t required!
I’ve already spoken about Cooper DeJean. DeJean is very good. However, Quinyon Mitchell is absurd. He’s ridiculous. He’s a rookie cornerback who barely ever gets beat. In this game alone, I watched him run down the field step-by-step with Xavier Worthy (who ran a 4.21 40 - and was in motion!) like it was easy. The fact that he can run with Worthy here is ridiculous. However, he already has the aura of a top cornerback....
