‘Not Talented Enough’

Time is running out for the Philadelphia Eagles to fix their issues after losing four out of their last five games.

On the latest episode of “Q&A” on “Inside The Birds,” former Eagles standouts Jason Avant and Quentin Mikell discussed the team’s latest loss to the Arizona Cardinals and the biggest concerns plaguing the organization.

Getty Images: The Philadelphia Eagles defense was unable to contain a previously struggling Arizona Cardinals offense.

Run Defense

Jason Avant: “[The Cardinals] averaged 5.5 yards-per-carry as a team for 40 carries. When you get bludgeoned like that, that is a toughness issue. It is also a contain player issue. When they are pulling and pinning, you have to be able to stop that guard from reaching you, therefore turning the run back inside where all of your help is. They were never able to turn them back inside. Missed tackles, undisciplined gaps, contain player.”

Defensive Playcalling

Quintin Mikell: “The thing that is confusing is, is this (Sean) Desai’s defense and (Matt) Patricia is calling it? Or is it Patricia’s defense? This is why I was not on board with the whole demotion thing because now there is no identity for this defense at all. I don’t think they even know what the identity of their defense is. At least with Desai making the calls and progressing through, you at least had an idea of what this is supposed to look like.”

Defensive Personnel

Avant: “The defense is not talented enough to be completely fixed this year and I am tired of giving them the benefit of the doubt saying if they get this person back and do this and that, their tape just doesn’t prove that they are sound enough this year to compete with the better teams in the league. They need to get younger at the cornerback position, they need to get more physical and faster linebackers and they need dominant pass rushers.”

Mikell: “At the midpoint of the season, I had a lot of faith. But there’s one game left and to go out and play the way they did in the last couple of weeks, all of the weird changes we spoke about before, I don’t think this defense can be fixed yet. It is going to take a whole offseason of going back to the drawing board.”

Brian Johnson

Avant: “That second-to-last drive was the only drive that came down to bad playcalling. I know everyone wants to fire Brian Johnson, but when you really look at it, the offense had the ball seven times and he scored on four out of seven possessions. He went three-and-out twice and the first series wasn’t Brian Johnson, there were people open on that particular play.”

Mikell: “You can tell Brian Johnson scripts his plays. The first 15 plays, you see motions, shifts, and misdirections. Once he gets past that part of the script, he does not go back to it. Early in the game, it is a lot of different moving parts and then from that second quarter on it is very basic and very vanilla.”

– Benjamin Paul is a staff writer for InsideTheBirds.com.