Philadelphia Eagles Proving They’re More Than Just Carson Wentz

As good as Philadelphia Eagles rookie quarterback Carson Wentz has been at points this season, the defense has driven the team’s success. 

This became obvious when Philadelphia bested the 5-1 Minnesota Vikings, 21-10, at Lincoln Financial Field to improve to 4-2 Sunday. 

Previously, the story wrote itself: Team offers a king’s ransom to acquire its franchise quarterback, said signal-caller is thrust into the starting lineup and exceeds all expectations as the squad wins its first three games. 

No wonder everyone wanted to anoint Wentz the next great quarterback before he even had a chance to sample all of Philadelphia’s wonderful cheese steaks. 

However, this Rocky-esque script of underdogs hit a snag in recent weeks. The Eagles lost their next two contests by a combined score of 51-43 against the Detroit Lions and Washington Redskins. 

Wentz threw his first interception against the Lions and completed only 50 percent of his passes against the rival Redskins. Similarly, Philadelphia’s offense didn’t help the team’s cause against the Vikings with only 239 yards. Meanwhile, the Eagles defense dominated. Coordinator Jim Schwartz’s crew created four turnovers and sacked quarterback Sam Bradford six times. 

“It was fun to watch our defense today,” head coach Doug Pederson said after the contest, per the Eagles’ Twitter feed. “That’s the defense we expect to see every week moving forward.”

The juxtaposition of the unit’s previous performances compared to Sunday’s shows how much Philadelphia’s success hinges on its play. A week ago, Washington’s offense amassed 493 yards, and the Eagles front didn’t sack quarterback Kirk Cousins. 

“We got no sacks in the game. That’s not us,” Schwartz said last week, per ESPN.com’s Tim McManus. “We got to have pressure.”

In identifying the problem, the defensive coordinator didn’t just blame his players. He made adjustments to his approach that improved the unit’s overall play. 

CSN Philly’s Reuben Frank noted the primary differences between the defense that showed up during the previous two weeks and the one that dominated Sunday’s contest: 

I know how much Jim Schwartz hates blitzing. It’s just not in his nature. He wants the front four to get all the pressure, and the last two weeks, when that wasn’t happening, he didn’t dial up enough blitzes to make Matt Stafford and Kirk Cousins uncomfortable in the pocket. Sunday, he mixed in the perfect number of blitzes, bringing safeties Rodney McLeod and Malcolm Jenkins and linebackers Jordan Hicks and Nigel Bradham, and the blitzes did a terrific job keeping the Vikings’ front …

continue reading in source www.bleacherreport.com