YONG KIM / Staff photographer
Defensive coordinator Sean McDermott and defensive tackle Brodrick Bunkley celebrate win.
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Paul Domowitch: McDermott's defense asserts itself in Eagles' win over Panthers
CHARLOTTE - Anyone who wondered whether Sean McDermott would bring the same aggressive philosophy to the Eagles' defense as his late predecessor, Jim Johnson, got a loud and clear answer yesterday.
After showing little in the preseason, McDermott turned up the blitz volume in an impressive, 28-point Eagles victory over the Carolina Panthers in which his defense forced seven turnovers and registered five sacks.
Following a rocky start in which the Panthers opened the game with a 13-play, 70-yard scoring drive, the Eagles shut down Carolina's fearsome running game, then turned their full attention to quarterback Jake Delhomme.
McDermott blitzed Delhomme and the two poor saps who followed him behind center - Josh McCown and Matt Moore - relentlessly. He also added some clever little tweaks of his own that we never saw from Johnson, such as lining up defensive end Trent Cole at middle linebacker and having him blitz through the "A" gap, and having linebackers Omar Gaither and Akeem Jordan blitz off the edges.
"I had no doubt at all that he would be aggressive," said Gaither, who had half a sack, a hurry and four tackles. "He was under Jim. He doesn't know anything else but that. He hasn't been with any other coach.
"He drew those things up at Lehigh and we're like, 'OK, that's a little different.' But it worked. And we haven't even unveiled the total package yet. I'm anxious to see where it goes from here."
Where it goes from here is back to Philadelphia for a Week 2 matchup against the New Orleans Saints and their stud quarterback, Drew Brees, who will be considerably more difficult to befuddle than Delhomme, who has thrown nine interceptions in his last two games.
Brees warmed up for next weekend's battle yesterday by throwing for 358 yards and six touchdowns in a 45-27 win over the awful Lions.
"Brees is a great quarterback," strong safety Quintin Mikell said. "What'd they score, 45 points today? They're clearly no slouches. A completely different team from the one we played today. We have to be ready to make some plays and not give up too much stuff and not get too frustrated, because he's a good quarterback."
Can they afford to be as aggressive against Brees as they were against the Panthers?
"You have to stay aggressive," Mikell said. "That's what we do. We don't sit back on our heels. We play aggressive. Smart aggressive. Every game is going to be different. But we have to stay aggressive."
Carolina was the perfect foil for McDermott and his defense. It is a one-dimensional team that is lost if it can't run the ball. The Panthers ran it very well on their first possession, rushing for 55 yards on 10 attempts on the 70-yard scoring drive. But the Eagles held them to 31 yards on 20 carries the rest of the game.
"It was a step in the right direction," McDermott said. "I don't know if it's anything more than that. Whatever it takes to win on a weekly basis, that's what we'll do."
McDermott doesn't like it to be called "his" defense. Prefers "our" defense. As in the players. As in the rest of his defensive assistants. As in the man who taught him the system, Jim Johnson, who succumbed to cancer July 28.
"All of the players have ownership," he said. "With ownership comes accountability and peer leadership. And that's what we want. I know that this system works. I'm not going to come in and change a bunch of things. What we will do as a staff and as a team is make sure we're ready to go each week."
Neither McDermott nor the players talked a lot about Johnson at Saturday night's defensive meetings or before the game yesterday. But he certainly was on everybody's mind.
"I was thinking about him and I could see other guys were thinking about him," Mikell said. "It was one of those things where everybody just kind of understood and let it be. But at the end of the day, I think he's looking down on us and is smiling and is happy.
"We honored him by what we did today. Hopefully, we can continue each week honoring him and his legacy and taking what he taught us and what Sean's teaching us and take it to the next level."
Just wondering
-- Why did the Eagles keep seven wide receivers on their season-opening roster, then activated only five for the game? Reggie Brown and rookie Brandon Gibson were inactive.
Thumbs down
-- To Juqua Parker for grabbing quarterback Jake Delhomme's facemask on a third-and-9 play on the Panthers' first possession. Delhomme already had let the ball go, throwing an incompletion that would have forced a punt. Instead, the Panthers got a first down and went down and scored.
Did you notice?
-- Trent Cole had an outstanding game, with one exception. He and Quintin Mikell failed to protect the backside on DeAngelo Williams' 11-yard cutback run for a touchdown on the Panthers' first possession. Cole got caught inside and then got knocked down. By the time he got to his feet, Williams already had made it around the corner.
-- Cornerback Asante Samuel is a great ballhawk but a lousy tackler. He had two missed tackles on the Panthers' first scoring drive.
-- How open Kevin Curtis was on Donovan McNabb's third-quarter interception. Curtis found a huge hole in the middle of the field about 10 yards behind middle linebacker Jon Beason. But McNabb didn't put enough loft on the ball to get it over Beason's head.
-- Sean McDermott rotated cornerbacks Asante Samuel, Sheldon Brown and Ellis Hobbs in his base package much of the game. Joselio Hanson always came in as the third corner in nickel.
-- The death stare Andy Reid gave David Akers after his kickoff late in the second quarter went out of bounds. You might recall that Akers did the same thing in the Eagles' loss to Arizona in the NFC Championship Game.
-- Left tackle Jason Peters got flagged for two false-start penalties on the Eagles' first two possessions. Aside from those gaffes though, he had a pretty solid game. He and left guard Nick Cole had big blocks on Brian Westbrook's 17-yard run on a 10-play, 74-yard scoring drive in the second quarter.
