Physical and Nasty: How the Eagles Found Their Identity

Physical and Nasty: How the Eagles Found Their Identity originally appeared on NBC Sports Philadelphia

Throughout the season, head coach Nick Sirianni took the opportunity to show video clips of plays that epitomized the Eagles’ physicality at team meetings.

All-Pro linebacker Zack Baun has a favorite.

“The Cooper DeJean over Derrick Henry, definitely,” Baun said. “This is the epitome of who we want to be and what we want to achieve.”

In Week 13, the Eagles’ rookie nickel cornerback powerfully slammed the 250-pound running back onto the turf in Baltimore. It didn’t matter that Henry DeJean weighed around 50 pounds, it didn’t matter that DeJean was a rookie, it didn’t matter that he was a cornerback.

DeJean still delivered a highlight hit.

“When you talk about physicality, you think about defensive line and offensive line and running backs and linebackers,” Baun explained. “But when DBs do things like that, it sends a message to the team. You see (Darius) Slay get in there, you see Quinyon (Mitchell) on the front line and Reed (Blankenship) coming and flying downhill. It’s great to see.”

The Eagles’ physicality has stood out this season. At the beginning of the year, the team searched for an identity and found it. On both offense and defense, these Eagles will smack you in the face. When you play them you will feel it on the field and the next day.

This team is a bully.

“We’re a physical, mean group of moms,” Sirianni said to his team in the locker room after their 22-10 win over the Packers in the wild-card round.

Of course, to be a strong and physical team, you also have to have strong and physical players. General Manager Howie Roseman and his staff deserve credit for this. The Eagles were looking for a guy and Roseman delivered.

But the Eagles’ insistence on physicality extends beyond the player acquisition phase. There was a lot of emphasis on physicality and the added emphasis from the coaching staff underscores the mission. There’s a reason Sirianni wants the entire team to sit down and watch these types of physical plays on tape.

“Yes, we’re talking about a strong football team,” Sirianni said this week. “What we mean by tough is the physical part of the game, the blocking, the block destruction, the tackling within the fundamentals. We talk about tireless commitment to football because that is a form of hardship. And we talk about the mental strength to be able to play the next move.

“Of course, my best experience in being good at these things, exactly what you said, is thanks to the people who are in this building. But every time you as a coach try to reinforce things that you really admire and want for the program and the culture, you enforce those things on tape. To be honest, in our tape today and in our daily tape, we talk about it every day and every time we have a team meeting we talk about it.

“We will demonstrate our physical moves there. We will make our tireless efforts there. We will use our mental strength there to reinforce it, for better or for worse. Just so we always have it in our minds. So I can’t emphasize enough how strong our team is in all three phases: physically, mentally and performance-oriented.”

It can be argued that the Eagles’ transformation into this physically formidable team only occurred when they returned from their bye at the start of Week 5. At least that was the moment when the offense really got on the defense’s nerves.

After a 2-2 start, some offensive linemen went to Sirianni and asked the offense to lean on her, Saquon Barkley and the running game. Since then, the Eagles have had one of the best rushing attacks in football and Barkley surpassed 2,000 yards rushing. They can impose their will in any game and of course that requires physicality.

“If you’re able to do that, yes, you can wear down defenders,” Lane Johnson said. “Sometimes it doesn’t work right away, but as the game goes on you see some big plays, some big plays in the run game because guys are tired or worn out or missing assignments. It basically wears them down.”

When Dallas Goedert was asked about the team’s physicality, he immediately pointed to the O-line and said that pretty much all five of those guys ended up making a play that was shown to the entire team. Jordan Mailata made a block on the front of an inside zone run last week that caught his eye. And then there’s the big Mekhi Becton, who punishes linebackers at the second level. And Johnson, Landon Dickerson and Cam Jurgens all made plays like that in their Pro Bowl seasons.

The Eagles’ physicality doesn’t stop with their linemen.

“I think that’s where it starts,” said Goedert, who made a terrible play with a couple of stiff-arms on his way to the end zone last week. “And I think the offensive line loves it when someone else does it, too. Smitty (DeVonta Smith), he’s great at finishing on the sideline. Saquon with his powerful runs. I think that’s really contagious when people play physically.”

The cool thing is that there are a lot of plays like this this season and everyone seems to have their favorite.

While DeJean’s hit on Henry from the Ravens game might be at the top of the list, DeJean said his favorite actually came last week against the Packers when Nolan Smith faced pulling tackle Elgton Jenkins and Nakobe Dean played insert block, to stop the Packers for a short gain.

DeJean liked this so much because it wasn’t just about one guy behaving physically. It was a group effort.

As long as the Eagles are making these types of plays, Sirianni will be showing them off in front of the entire team. And as long as Sirianni shows them off in front of the entire team, the players will keep trying to do them.

“Everyone gets pretty excited when we see these plays,” DeJean said. “You can really see with the people we have in the building that everyone wants to play the game that way. To be the most physical team on the field. This has been talked about since training camp.”

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