The good news for McDermott was that his injury-ravaged unit, which already has had eight starters and key role players miss a total of 28 games this season, didn't suffer any more debilitating injuries against the Bears or have anyone else nabbed by the NFL's steroids police.

Asante Samuel already had pretty much recovered from the neck stinger he incurred attempting yet another poor-form tackle. And Sheldon Brown's strained hamstring, which he somehow managed to play with Sunday night, hadn't been aggravated any further. Which is to say that while you and I wouldn't be able to get out of bed with it, he'll likely suit up and play.

McDermott is also a little closer to getting weakside linebacker Akeem Jordan, who's missed the last two games with a hyperextended knee, back. If Jordan doesn't play Sunday, he'll almost certainly be back for the next game on Dec. 6 in Atlanta.

Despite all of the injuries (and cornerback Joselio Hanson's four-game suspension for violating the league's steroid policy), McDermott's defense still has played pretty well. They're eighth in the league in yards allowed, tied for 13th in points allowed and second in sacks and takeaways. Just two of their first 10 opponents have scored more than 20 points against them.

"I would love to have continuity," said McDermott. "I think the players would love to have continuity. The challenge for us right now is we don't have the resources available from an injury standpoint to have the continuity that we would like. But the credit goes to the players. They come in every week, and some may be playing a new position. But they take the challenge head on and look to improve."

When strongside linebacker Chris Gocong injured his quad and hamstring in Week 8 against the Giants, rookie seventh-round pick Moise Fokou started against the Cowboys. When Jordan got hurt against the Cowboys, middle linebacker Will Witherspoon moved to WILL and Gocong slid over to the middle, a position he hadn't played since high school. Against the Bears, Gocong moved back to SAM and little-used Jeremiah Trotter and Joe Mays ended up splitting up the reps at MIKE.

When Samuel got hurt Sunday night, the Eagles went with a gimpy Brown on one side and inexperienced Dimitri Patterson on the other. Rookie Macho Harris, who had opened the season as the team's starting free safety, was the nickel corner. Maybe if the opposing quarterback had been somebody with a little better aim than Jay Cutler, things would've been different. But they held the cockeyed Cutler to 3.97 yards per attempt and a .558 completion percentage.

"Dimitri's done a heck of a job," McDermott said. "Sunday night, he played on just about every special team. And then he turned around and played corner for the majority of the game, playing all three downs at [left] corner. He's a tough-as-nails kid who just needs more and more playing time. He's really stepped up."

So has McDermott. Following a legend is never easy. Particularly when you're only 35 and the legend was as revered a coach as Jim Johnson.

When McDermott was named Johnson's successor in late July, a lot of people wondered whether he was ready to be an NFL coordinator. Hell, I wondered too.

The guy knew Johnson's defensive system inside and out. He had been a human sponge, soaking up everything the old man had taught him. But sometimes, knowledge isn't enough.

Could he get the players to play for him the same way they played for Johnson? And what kind of battlefield general would he be? Would he be able to adjust as quickly as Johnson when something wasn't working? Would he be able to decipher what opposing offensive coordinators were trying to do to his defense as quickly as Johnson could?

So far so good.

"He's done a marvelous job handling Jim's death and taking over as a defensive coordinator following a legend," head coach Andy Reid said. "That's a tough thing to do. But he's done it very gracefully and graciously.

"And he has the players' respect. He's earned that respect. He's getting them all involved because we've had quite a few injuries. So he's had to overcome that part of it. But the guys that have stepped in have given all they've got for him. That's a tribute to him."

McDermott hasn't had a honeymoon since replacing Johnson. Less than 2 weeks after he officially became Reid's top defensive lieutenant, he lost his best defensive player, middle linebacker Stewart Bradley, to a season-ending knee injury. The turbulence at that position wouldn't quiet down until the Eagles traded for Witherspoon at the trade deadline last month.

The Eagles opened the season with the deepest group of cornerbacks in the league. They had Samuel and Brown. They had Hanson, who is one of the league's best slot corners. And they had Ellis Hobbs, a 3-year starter with the Patriots, who they had acquired in a draft-day trade.

Then, 2 weeks ago, Hobbs suffered a season-ending spine injury and Hanson was slapped with a four-game suspension by the league for taking a banned diuretic, and suddenly, the Eagles weren't so deep at corner anymore. Brown's hamstring injury in the game against the Chargers exacerbated the problem even more.

But McDermott has handled these crises with the same even-keeled approach as his boss.

"With any job there's going to be challenges," he said. "You prepare for those challenges while you're preparing for the job. If we didn't have a great staff, if we didn't have great leadership in players that come to work every day, it'd be a lot tougher. But this is an opportunity I've worked hard for. And I'm not going to balk at this opportunity just because we're facing a few challenges right now.

"Our staff has worked tirelessly to get the guys who are filling in ready to step up for us. There's extra meetings. I don't know if there's a defense in this league that worked as hard as we did last week. We're here to outwork people. You don't get anywhere in life without working hard."

Injuries have forced McDermott to scale down his game plans a bit to decrease the chances of execution and communication breakdowns. But he has remained aggressive, blitzing almost as much as the Eagles did last season under Johnson.

"When you play defense, regardless of what your scheme is or what your concepts are or what [coaching] family tree you come from, you've got to be aggressive," McDermott said. "That doesn't mean you have to blitz every play. But you play an attacking-oriented defense. That puts pressure on the offense.

"The quarterbacks in this league are too good to let them sit back and rush them with four guys all the time. It becomes seven-on-seven for them. I don't care if you have the greatest cornerbacks in the history of the game, they will complete passes on you and drive the ball incrementally down the field. When you apply pressure, sometimes you force them into situations that they're not accustomed to or comfortable with, and all of a sudden, they're not the same people [they were with no pressure]. And then that creates turnovers for us." *

Send e-mail to pdomo@aol.com