Washburn effect: Babin still producing
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Washburn effect: Babin still producing
Sheil Kapadia, Philly.com
The Eagles' defense allowed 13 points against the Redskins, forcing four turnovers, picking up two sacks and hitting Redskins quarterbacks nine times in their second win of the season.
Jim Washburn's unit took advantage of a banged-up Redskins offensive line and dominated up front - both against the run and the pass. The Eagles appeared to make a slight adjustment to the wide-nine, although as I argued earlier this week, the main difference seemed to be simply better tackling.
On the season, the Eagles have 18 sacks (second behind only the Giants) and are fifth in sack rate.
Here's the weekly look at the defensive line's performance, starting with snap counts from a week ago:
| Player | Pct. of Snaps |
| Jason Babin | 73.6% |
| Cullen Jenkins | 71.7% |
| Darryl Tapp | 69.8% |
| Mike Patterson | 64.3% |
| Trevor Laws | 37.7% |
| Phillip Hunt | 30.2% |
| Juqua Parker | 26.4% |
| Derek Landri | 26.4% |
Babin was on the field a little less this week, although he still had a heavy workload. He's played the most snaps of any Eagles defensive lineman, followed by Jenkins and Patterson.
The Eagles will have decisions to make when/if Trent Cole and Brandon Graham return after the bye. Hunt will almost definitely return to being an inactive, but that would still give the Eagles one too many defensive ends.
WHO'S PRODUCING?
Let's start with just last week. You can find sacks and QB hits in the box score, and the Eagles' coaching staff keeps track of hurries, so those are the three categories we'll go with:
| Sacks | QB Hits | Hurries | |
| Babin | 0 | 3 | 9 |
| Laws | 0 | 2 | 5 |
| Patterson | 1 | 1 | 4 |
| Tapp | 1 | 1 | 3 |
| Parker | 0 | 1 | 3 |
| Jenkins | 0 | 0 | 2 |
| Landri | 0 | 1 | 1 |
| Hunt | 0 | 0 | 0 |
Babin's performance is a great example of sacks not telling the whole story. His nine hurries were the most of any Eagles defensive lineman in a single game this season. Clearly, whatever tweaks the Eagles made up front did not affect Babin's production.
I can't remember the last time Patterson produced like he did Sunday as a pass rusher. He did a great job on the one sack and totaled a season-high four hurries.
Laws had just five hurries in the first five games, but he produced also with a season-high five hurries against Washington.
And here are the season totals:
| Sacks | QB Hits | Hurries | |
| Babin | 7 | 14 | 24 |
| Jenkins | 5 | 7 | 7 |
| Cole | 3 | 5 | 13 |
| Tapp | 2 | 4 | 7 |
| Hunt | 0 | 1 | 5 |
| Patterson | 1 | 1 | 9 |
| Laws | 0 | 2 | 10 |
| Dixon | 0 | 0 | 1 |
| Parker | 0 | 2 | 4 |
| Landri | 0 | 1 | 2 |
Babin leads the Eagles in sacks, QB hits and hurries. How about Laws? He's jumped up to third in hurries.
All 18 of the Eagles' sacks have come from defensive linemen.
As always, it's good to look at opportunities. Below are percentages on how often each defensive lineman has notched a sack or hurry, based on number of chances to rush the quarterback (provided by Pro Football Focus).
| Sacks+Hurries | Pass-Rushing Opportunities | Pressure Pct. | |
| Babin | 31 | 160 | 19.4% |
| Jenkins | 12 | 157 | 7.6% |
| Cole | 16 | 120 | 13.3% |
| Tapp | 9 | 54 | 16.7% |
| Laws | 10 | 76 | 13.2% |
| Hunt | 5 | 45 | 11.1% |
| Patterson | 10 | 142 | 7.0% |
| Dixon | 1 | 42 | 2.4% |
| Parker | 4 | 50 | 8.0% |
| Landri | 2 | 17 | 11.8% |
Once again, it's Babin on top. I know he's taken some heat for not playing the run, but I thought Babin was pretty good in that aspect too last week. He's clearly met expectations and is providing exactly what the Eagles were looking for at left defensive end.
Tapp has been solid, but the Eagles could definitely use Cole back on the right side. Even though he doesn't have the sack numbers, Laws has been a productive pass rusher at defensive tackle.
WHAT ABOUT THE BLITZ?
The Eagles blitzed the Redskins on five of 40 passing plays, or 12.5 percent of the time. Rex Grossman and John Beck combined to go 3-for-5 for 32 yards against the blitz. On four occasions, the Eagles sent five defenders, and on one occasion, they sent six.
Brian Rolle blitzed three times; Kurt Coleman blitzed twice; and Jamar Chaney and Nate Allen each blitzed once.
One new (or old, depending on how you look at it) wrinkle we saw from the Eagles was the zone blitz. Babin and Hunt each dropped back into coverage once, and Jenkins dropped back twice from the defensive tackle position.
On the season, the Eagles have blitzed on 31 of 202 passing plays, or 15.3 percent of the time. Opposing quarterbacks are 14-for-28 for 245 yards (8.75 YPA) against the Eagles. They've done a pretty good job of limiting big plays against the blitz the last two weeks though.
Overall, despite the tweak up front, the Eagles' pass rush looked good against the Redskins. And it should only improve after the bye week as players get healthy. It's clear that the front four is the best unit on this defense, and Washburn's group will have to lead the way if the Birds are going to make a run in the final 10 games.
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No doubt the addition of Babin in this defense has been a plus. Cole, when health will start seeing the benefit too. I like the way the Eagles squeezed the DE in a little for the Redskins game. I also think you mention a different positioning of the LBs. Small tweeks like that could be the key to the defense turning this season around as far as their run defense numbers.— PhillyFanSouth- They did not scrap the wide nine. They modified it by putting one of the DEs in the 6 position while keeping the other DE in the 9 position. They also moved the linebackers closer to the line which made a huge difference for Chaney and Rolle. Those were the two main changes they made.— soulman386
- The best sports info in Philly. Excellent work Sheil— camasbud
- Have we a chart on offsides penalties...and where does he stand.....and since he is looking right at the ball, is he dumb or jsut needs contact lenses.....— nuggett
- Great stuff, thanx— jjthree
- Compare Sheil's analysis of the defensive line with McLane/Tamari's in their bye-week grades article: "Defensive end Jason Babin (seven sacks) and defensive tackle Cullen Jenkins (five sacks) shot out of the gates but have since cooled off." Even the casual fan would figure out that Babin and Jenkins were getting more attention thanks to Cole's injury, right?
— Leegles 
I think the Eagles coaches read these blogs, but not often. I've been posting for a while to bring the lbs closer to the line and bring the des in a little. They listened about the lbs but only brought 1 de in. The question now, is can they sustain in the closer alignment against the run? As we all know they aren't that big and unless the offense can score points teams will just keep pounding on them.- Babin for $ack$— beerflow
- The Eagles should see how Graham responds as a LB when he comes back provided he is in shape. He should be in there on pass rushing downs only at that position. Given the fact they weren't able to get a solid veteran LB at the trade deadline, what else do they have to lose?— kwasi2323
- Sheil, why do you assume Hunt will be inactive? Isn't it possible that Parker would be deactivated (or cut, if Graham is ready)?— trixman
- Usually, Cole wears down late every season. Perhaps with these few weeks off rehabbing, he'll be a little fresher later down the line.— hhkal
- What happens when Abiamiri is ready to come back for his token one or two games late in season? Who is inactive then?— rockinrob
- This is a great column. I enjoy it every week and find it useful. But in addition to the disruption rate for each player it would be nice to know what percentage of pass plays are disrupted by the team as a whole. Also while the Eagles are fifth in sack rate I would like to know what the sack rate is.
I did some work on the Vikings of a couple of years ago when they had that great D-line and they disrupted about one of three pass plays. It seems that the Eagles are better than that. Remember that if you disrupt one of three pass plays and a team runs half the time than you are only going to disrupt one our of six plays. Thus to be really effective you might need to disrupt one of two pass plays or more. It would be interesting to know how some of the great defensive teams performed in this regard.— izzylangfan - Only out of desperation would the Eagles finally adapt. Castillo trusts his plan enough to realize it blows. Time to go to the not so wide 6-9. Next week, we scrap all this zone coverage for our strength, man-to-man coverage underneath.— beefbre
- Excellent article Sheil, thanks for the info. Great insight.— DGR
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