‘Soft Defense’

The Philadelphia Eagles seemingly had no answers to score on or stop the Tampa Bay Buccaneers in their 33-16 defeat.

On the latest episode of “Q&A” on “Inside The Birds,” former Eagles standouts Jason Avant and Quintin Mikell recapped the lowlights from the team’s Week 4 loss.

GETTY IMAGES: The Philadelphia Eagles defensive backs struggled in the 33-16 los to the Tampa Bay Buccaneers.

Run Defense

Quintin Mikell: “When teams run 11, you pretty much have to match the personnel. That means Avonte Maddox is on the field and you are taking one of your linebackers off the field. And so you have an undersized player that is more of a cover corner playing in the box and they are forcing all of the corners in positions where they have to make tackles, and we’re missing a lot of tackles. We’re already undersized at Mike linebacker with Nakobe Dean.”

Jason Avant: “We have Darius Slay who is not known to be a tackler, you have (C.J.) Gardner-Johnson who can come up and hit you but is not a sure tackler. You have Avonte Maddox who hasn’t been tackling well, you have Quinyon Mitchell who is not a sure tackler. None of these guys are sure tacklers. The best tackler we have is Zack Baun. Outside of that, we don’t have a bunch of sure tacklers. That means we need more hats to the football.”

Defensive Backs

Mikell: “They are playing off, soft defense. I don’t think I saw one guy press at all during the game…the biggest thing I noticed with this secondary is all of them play with their eyes in the backfield way too much.”

Avant: “I’m wondering if it’s the coaching or the players’ reluctance to get up there and challenge people. Here’s the thing about bend and don’t break: you have to be in great position on tackles and they are not. I wish they would at least challenge them.”

Defensive End

Mikell: “The biggest thing that needs to change personnel wise is we need help at the defensive end position. Interior line is doing well, we just need some help on the edge. They’re climbing up on our nickelbacker, getting outside and capturing the edge, getting manhandled one-on-one by tight ends, that’s not supposed to happen. B.G. [Brandon Graham] is the only one that has been kicking butt against those tight ends.”

Avant: “I think Howie (Roseman) knows that and I’m pretty sure he’s in overdrive right now trying to find someone that can come in and plug that hole. Right now Nolan Smith is one dimensional, (Josh) Sweat finally got home with the sack this past week but still is able to get the edge captured, (Bryce) Huff had one tackle so that is two tackles in four games.”

Jalen Hurts

Avant: “Jalen had a perfect opportunity here. This was how you prove it to all the haters, get the fans on your side here in Philadelphia, is that in the moments where they take away your weapons, you rise above and make your teammates better and put us in position to win the ball game that we shouldn’t be in offensively. But what did we do? We got the receivers 34 yards, threw for 158, turn the ball over again, that’s not helping the case. The most challenging part is you have no answer for the blitz still.”

Offense

Avant: “I would take the ball of Jalen’s hands much more than not. I would make this a run-first offense, make people stop Saquon Barkley and make sure that he’s the featured person and limit the type of possessions that I’m giving Jalen Hurts.”

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