Eagles Defense Delivers Against Marquee QB

The Eagles started poorly against Joe Burrow and the Bengals before an impressive course correction.

Cincinnati Bengals wide receiver Ja'Marr Chase (1) makes a catch for a first down as Philadelphia Eagles linebacker Nakobe Dean (17) guards him in the first quarter of the NFL game at Paycor Stadium in Cincinnati on Sunday, Oct. 27, 2024. / Albert Cesare/The Enquirer / USA TODAY NETWORK via Imagn Images

The start wasn't great.

The Eagles won the coin toss attended by identical twin captains for the day, Sidney and Chase Brown, and did what has become almost organizational writ. They deferred.

Joe Burrow and the Bengals promptly went on a methodical 17-play, 70-yard drive featuring five third-down conversions that took up over two-thirds of the first quarter, 10:04 minutes to be exact, the longest opening drive in the NFL this season.

It was going to be a long day for the Philadelphia defense right?

Instead, the Eagles went on an impressive course correction, allowing only 10 points the rest of the way en route to an easy 37-17 win, the organization's first-ever in Cincinnati.

"Y’all think they’re gonna score that much on us?" middle linebacker Nakobe Dean asked rhetorcially. "… It was a good game. We knew who we were playing. We knew (Burrow) can make a whole lotta throws, and their playmakers can catch, and make a whole lotta plays. For us just to hold them to 17 points, which to our standards, that’s baseline. But there’s a lot of things we can clean up.

"That first drive, they held it for 10 minutes. We couldn’t get off the field on third down. So there was a lot of things we can clean up – offense and defense."

Vic Fangio's unit recovered to keep the Bengals under 300 yards of total offense (280) and also generated two turnovers in which the Eagles flashed their growing chemistry on defense.

On a go route to superstar Ja'Marr Chase, Isaiah Rodgers, in for an injured Darius Slay, tipped the Burrow ball right into the hands of C.J. Gardner-Johnson. Later with Cincinnati in desperation mode, a Burrow completion to Mike Gesicki was knocked out by a short left-handed "Peanut Punch" by Zack Baun that Dean jumped on.

"That was big, just because we’ve been harping on takeaways." Dean said. "I mean, harping on takeaways – turnover drills, punching at the ball out, getting interceptions. It was definitely big when Zack got the forced fumble punchout to me. It’s something we worked at in the linebacker room like crazy. It was something we were trying to see who would get the first one. So for him to punch the ball out, I was excited. I picked up the ball. I went to go celebrate. Then I ran back on the sideline. I wasn’t giving (the ball) to no one but him because we worked on that."

The Eagles' defense is now expecting success after two consecutive games without allowing a TD followed by limiting a Burrow-led offense.

"Win, dominate, execute," said Dean. "I don’t really know how to feel … To us, it’s the same thing every week. We’re going to come in, we’re going to dominate. We know we’re playing a real good quarterback, with a real good offense, probably one of the best we’ll face. We had a plan, we stuck to the plan, like we do every week."

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