Eagles' hopes rest on defense stopping Drew Brees

THE COACHES and players will tell you football is a week-to-week thing. They will tell you each Sunday is another opportunity to forget everything you think you know. They will tell you that numbers like the ones you are about to read are irrelevant within the context of the next game on the schedule.

And, to a certain extent, they are correct.

Yet amid all of the talk about Sam Bradford and Chip Kelly's offense is a question that will need to be answered if the Eagles are to avoid a 1-4 start.

How do you stop the other guy under center?

For the most part, the Eagles haven't been able to do it, not when the guy in question has been a legitimate guy, a franchise guy, a guy capable of winning a game with his arm alone. A guy like Drew Brees, for example.

Since Bill Davis took control of this defense, the Eagles are 1-8 against quarterbacks who rank in the Top 10 in the NFL in passer rating during that stretch (minimum: 300 attempts). They are 1-8 against the seven quarterbacks who have completed at least 66 percent of their passes over the last three seasons. They are 1-3 against Tony Romo, and 0-1 against Philip Rivers, Peyton Manning, Matt Ryan, Aaron Rodgers and Brees.

(BONUS STAT: The Eagles are 3-15 in their history against Brees, Rodgers, Manning and Tom Brady).

In addition to Romo, the Eagles have defeated Andrew Luck, Eli Manning and Cam Newton. Otherwise, the vanquished include Ryan Fitzpatrick (twice), Zach Mettenberger, Austin Davis, Kirk Cousins, Chad Henne, Kyle Orton, Josh McCown, Jay Cutler, Matthew Stafford, Carson Palmer, Robert Griffin III (twice), Scott Tolzien, Terrelle Pryor and Mike Glennon.

One way or another, Sunday's game against the Saints will be a defining day for Davis' defense. While Brees is playing through a shoulder injury that caused him to miss a start two weeks ago, and while New Orleans is 1-3, with losses to the Bucs, Panthers and Cardinals, the Eagles are coming off a loss to the Redskins in which they allowed Cousins to orchestrate four scoring drives of 10 or more plays. Arm strength is not a prerequisite for beating this defense.

Besides, the Eagles will tell you the Brees they saw on tape in a win over the Cowboys on Sunday night is the same guy they saw two seasons ago in a playoff loss.

"You watch him Sunday night, he looked like the normal Drew Brees," said Eagles safety Malcolm Jenkins, who spent the first five years of his career watching Brees work as a member of the Saints. "He was getting the ball out quick. He's still really good in the pocket, as far as his movement with the ball. He still looks off defenders, still knows what he's doing at the line of scrimmage. He looks like the normal Drew Brees."

The conventional wisdom is that beating Brees is the only way the Eagles can save their season, but look around the NFL and you get the sense 2015 could be one of those years in which conventional wisdom need not apply. Heading into Week 5, 12 teams had at least three losses. As bad as we think the Eagles have looked, they still lead those 12 teams in point differential, at minus-8. That shouldn't diminish their current straits, but it should adjust the narrative slightly. Sunday is as much an opportunity as it is a last stand. Look down the schedule and you see four games against division opponents and three against teams that look worse than we might have thought at the beginning of the season (Lions, Dolphins, Bucs). Apart from a game in New England, do you see an opponent that should scare even a team that has been as underwhelming as the Eagles?

A season split with Washington, Dallas and the Giants and a sweep of the Lions, Dolphins and Bucs would leave them with seven wins, with four games unaccounted for: the Panthers, the Bills, the Cardinals . . . and the Saints. Thus far, the Eagles have lost to two teams that beat them last season and a Falcons team that again looks like a Super Bowl contender.

I know, I know. That's some Federer-level spin. The point is, if the Eagles were 3-1, we would be analyzing this game for what it might tell us about their legitimacy as a contender. Sure, a loss at 3-1 is a lot different from a loss at 1-3. But the process still matters to anybody who is interested in figuring out what, exactly, this team will be at the end of the season. If the offense again disappears for two quarters, any question about the defense is probably moot. But if the defense still can't hang with a quarterback such as Brees, all of the other questions we've spent the last week considering might have been irrelevant anyway.