After two series, it appeared that the Atlanta Falcons offense was poised to score a lot of points against the Eagles on Sunday.
Atlanta had drives of 72 and 74 yards, but Philadelphia kept them from scoring touchdowns. The Falcons would not score again after their second scoring drive, and Philadelphia would defeat Atlanta on the road 32-6.
The Eagles allowed 260 yards of total offense(102 total yards in the second half) and sacked Matt Ryan three times. Philadelphia allowed only 114 yards after the Falcons’ first two offensive drives.
On Tuesday, Eagles defensive coordinator Jonathan Gannon discussed the team’s adjustments on defense after the first two drives.
“I think the main two things that changed were we cleaned some technique issues up after the first couple series there,” Gannon said. “I think guys settled in a little bit better and started trusting their keys. We talk about alignment, assignment, key, technique. If you don’t have those, if one of those four things is wrong, it’s hard to play good team defense.
“I think really it’s a credit to our players; they settled down and just started getting back to the basics of that. That’s really pre-snap that we can control everything. The technique part is post-snap. But alignment, assignment, where they put their eyes, that’s all pre-snap. I think we kind of settled down and did a better job of that.
“We got to some different things we had in our back pocket that we knew we were going to run and got to some of those calls. They executed well.”
Give Philly’s defense a lot of credit. They played very well on Sunday and deserve just as much recognition as the offense for the Eagles defeating the Falcons on Sunday.
Let’s see if the defense can keep it going against the 49ers on Sunday at Lincoln Financial Field.
