Why Eagles are hoping the ‘floodgates’ for this are open after Sunday’s win

CINCINNATI – Eagles cornerback Isaiah Rodgers was being tested by Cincinnati Bengals quarterback Joe Burrow in the fourth quarter. Rodgers, who replaced an injured Darius Slay, was running with wide receiver Ja’Marr Chase. As the ball descended, Rodgers batted it away from Chase and toward safety C.J. Gardner-Johnson, who got both feet inbounds to complete the interception.
After weeks of dropped interceptions and nearly recovered fumbles, the Eagles defense forced two turnovers in Sunday’s 37-17 win. Gardner-Johnson’s interception and three forced fumbles, one of which was recovered by linebacker Nakobe Dean, highlighted the performance. The Eagles had preached patience with their turnover numbers, and their faith was finally rewarded.
The interception was a play that the Eagles defense had been waiting to make for a long time, and Gardner-Johnson thought it was the right time to celebrate, making sure he gathered the entire defense and simulated pouring a drink into each player’s cup, celebrating the elusive turnover the unit had been seeking.
“Everybody drinks and everybody eats,” Gardner-Johnson said. “It’s just like when you go to the bar with your homeboys. You’re just proud of everybody because that interception wasn’t possible without Zay. I’m just grateful to have my teammates. Everybody gets some love, and everyone gets a shot.”
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Dean, Zack Baun, and the rest of the linebackers had been discussing who would be the player to poke the ball out of an opponent’s hands. Baun forced the fumble that Dean collected. Dean said he knew the defense would start forcing turnovers and that they would come in bunches given how much they had worked on creating them.
“We opened the floodgates finally,” Dean said. “It was like we had some beavers building a dam, and we came with a river of takeaways. We finally cleared the dam out a little bit because we had a pick and a forced fumble. Shoutout to Zach for the forced fumble. We’ve been talking about who was going to get the forced fumble for weeks in our room, and he was able to get it. All the takeaway drills and everything we worked on all came to fruition, so we’re going to just continue to try to get better, continue the takeaway drills, and try to get more.”
Defensive tackle Jordan Davis has seen the defense starting to develop its identity, which is helping them achieve their goal of creating turnovers.
“We work as we try to find that identity,” Davis said. “We say we want to be the most physical team, but I think our identity is just continuing to be physical, continuing to work, and then working like we don’t have an identity yet—like we’re still trying to find it. We just try to keep that chip on our shoulder. Whether they love us or they hate us, we want to make sure we’re consistent and getting better and just playing together. When it shows, you have guys celebrating together. Everybody is making plays around the field. It doesn’t matter who makes the play; we just need to make it.”
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Chris Franklin may be reached at [email protected].