Only Game 1 for Eagles' defense, but an alarming reality

BILL DAVIS is a guy who has been the beneficiary of the doubt throughout his two years as defensive coordinator, and Monday night's 26-24 loss to the Falcons offered further opportunity to afford him such courtesy. But before we attempt to talk ourselves through his unit's 2015 debut, let's start with an observation that nobody can dispute. The Eagles had the second-best defense on the field in its season opener, and for most of the night the competition was not close.

This observation is important because the first best defense on the field belonged to the Falcons, a team that last season was every bit as bad as the Eagles, and arguably worse. They finished last in the NFL in passing yards allowed, last in net yards per attempt, last in first downs allowed. They finished in the bottom third of the league in rushing yards allowed, while averaging a middling 4.2 yards per carry. They allowed an average of four plays per game of 20+ yards, tied for ninth most in the league.

The 2014 Falcons struggled to rush the passer, tackle the ballcarrier, and cover the receiver. It was not a good combination of weaknesses.

On Monday night, they looked like a different unit. They held the Eagles to 63 rushing yards on 16 carries. They hit Sam Bradford eight times, picked off two passes, and held the Eagles to fewer points than they managed in all but five games last season.

The Eagles, conversely, struggled in many of the same areas that plagued them throughout 2014. They allowed Julio Jones and Roddy White to combine for 13 catches, 225 yards and two touchdowns. They allowed six plays of 20 yards or more, including an inexcusable 20-yard run by Tevin Coleman on third-and-15 from the Falcons' 7-yard-line late in the third quarter that turned an opportunity for excellent field possession into a new set of downs on a drive that ultimately resulted in a pivotal field goal. They took an entire half to adjust to the Falcons' two tight end offense that often left six or seven blockers smothering a three- or four-man pass rush, thus enabling Matt Ryan to stand tall and wait for Jones and White to work free.

Another undisputed observation: In their attempt to remake their defense during the offseason, the Eagles focused on personnel, signing defensive backs Byron Maxwell and Walter Thurmond, trading for inside linebacker Kiko Alonso, and moving cornerback Nolan Carroll into the starting lineup. The Falcons focused on coaching, hiring former Seahawks defensive coordinator Dan Quinn to replace Mike Smith as head coach.

From this point forward, we are walking in the land of open interpretations. One can argue that few defensive coordinators would have been able to scheme around Maxwell's struggles in pass coverage. Two plays in particular raised serious concerns, the first a pass-interference call on a deep comeback route on the Falcons' second drive, the second a 44-yard completion in which Jones shook Maxwell at the line of scrimmage with a simple shimmy to the inside that left him two steps ahead of the coverage before the deep safety even had a chance to take a step in his direction. The Eagles paid Maxwell a handsome sum in free agency with the thought that he would, at the very least, not be a liability, even against one the five most talented wide receivers in the game. Perhaps it is unfair to fault Davis for operating under such an assumption.

Falcons offensive coordinator Kyle Shanahan seemed to be two steps ahead of his opponent for the entire first half. Yesterday, head coach Chip Kelly was talking about the Eagles' looming matchup against the Cowboys when he noted that his defense would need to adjust to Dallas' offensive game plan as it revealed itself, particularly given the absence of star wideout Dez Bryant.

"What are they going to do? Are they going to play with two tight ends, and is it going to be Escobar and two receivers most of the game?" Kelly said. "So you can't sit there and say, 'Well, Dez is out, they're going to do this,' because we don't dictate what they do, we have to react to what they do."

The topic of conversation wasn't the Falcons, but you couldn't help but note that it took Davis two quarters to adequately adjust to the game that Shanahan was calling, which featured plenty of two tight end sets and misdirection play-action fakes that left Ryan with more than enough time to pick apart the Eagles' secondary.

"They just had a good plan, man, in the first half," linebacker Brandon Graham said yesterday. "I just take my hat off to them guys, because they game-planned us in the first half."

The adjustment came in the second half, when Davis started sending a variety of blitzers who spent much of the first two quarters drifting around open expanses of field with nobody to guard. Ryan looked much more mortal with defenders in his face, throwing an interception to Thurmond and a couple of other rushed throws that bounced incomplete off the backs of defenders. By that point, though, the Eagles were playing with no margin for error, which turned Jones' catch in front of Maxwell and Coleman's third-down run into outcome-deciders.

Divvying up the blame is always a tricky business when working without the knowledge of the exact nature of play-calls. This is particularly true in the first game of a season against an opponent that is much more talented than its 2014 record suggests. Nevertheless, the NFL is a results-based business. And Monday's result was tough to dispute.

On Twitter: @ByDavidMurphy

Blog: ph.ly/HighCheese