The defense was supposed to carry the team until the offense was ready. Guess what. Turns out the defense isn\u2019t ready either.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ve just gotta be better in all of the aspects,\u201d Jonathan Greenard said. \u201cIn the run game, pass game, everything.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Bears put a hurting on the Vic Fangio defense Monday night, and they did it with an emergency 38-year-old 3rd-string quarterback who hadn\u2019t played a snap since 2023. Case Keenum threw more touchdown passes vs. the Eagles than he had since 2021, and the Bears humiliated the Eagles 27-7 at Soldier Field.<\/p>\n
That\u2019s the most points the Eagles have allowed in their last 15 games \u2013 since the 34-17 loss to the Giants last October \u2013 and the 5th-most points they\u2019ve allowed in 42 games under Fangio.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey had a hell of a game plan, came out the gate swinging,\u201d Greenard said after his first game as an Eagle. \u201cWe just need to be on our P’s and Q’s. Obviously, the worst time to not be on your P’s and Q’s on Monday night, prior time, but here it is.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe just got a lot of things to clean up. We got to get clean up in the rush game. Clean up as a whole, not just on defense, offense, like the whole team. We just got to clean it up. They were fired up, and we just got to be better, man\u201d<\/p>\n
Unlike last year, when the Bears ran up and down the field on the Eagles for nearly 300 yards, this time they shredded the Eagles with the passing game, despite starting 38-year Case Keenum, who had won four of 12 starts since 2019.<\/p>\n
Keenum got rid of the ball quickly, threw accurately, spread the ball around and found the open man on nearly every snap. In his first appearance since 2023, he was 24-for-34 for 247 yards with two touchdowns and no interceptions.<\/p>\n
His 110.8 passer rating is his highest in seven years, since a 117.6 rating against the Eagles at the Linc in 2019 in a game the Eagles won 32-27.<\/p>\n
The Eagles had no answers.<\/p>\n
Bears coach and play caller Ben Johnson called a masterpiece against Fangio, mixing up the run and pass, changing up formations and personnel and keeping the Eagles\u2019 defense off-balance with all kinds of motions and movement.<\/p>\n
It seemed like the Bears\u2019 offense was just moving at a faster speed than the Eagles\u2019 defense. They played at a tempo the Eagles couldn\u2019t keep up with.<\/p>\n
\u201cGet the ball out quick, stick to their run game, and try to mix up a lot,\u201d Greenard said. \u201cThey had tons of toss, crack, reverses, stretch, you know, wham. They threw the whole book at us, but it was just a well executed game plan. We didn’t get enough negative plays to get them off track, so they were on rhythm pretty much the entire night.<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd it just can’t happen. We know that. We know what the standard is, we know we got to be better. And we will be better, so I’m not worried. We can go look at his tape and clean up and all. The tape and clean up in all aspects. So everybody understands it, and we’re just ready to take on that challenge next week.\u201d<\/p>\n
The same things the Eagles got away with the first two weeks \u2013 escaping with wins despite no takeaways, minimal pass pressure, leaky run defense and poor tackling \u2013 showed up again. This time the Eagles didn\u2019t get away with any of it.<\/p>\n
For the first time in franchise history, the Eagles haven\u2019t forced a turnover in their first three games of a season. Their vaunted defensive line has two sacks in three games, none on Monday night.<\/p>\n
For only the second time since 1973, they\u2019ve allowed four touchdowns both rushing and receiving through three games.<\/p>\n
They haven\u2019t done anything well.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe gotta do a better job of forcing more takeaways,\u201d Jihaad Campbell said. \u201cWe work at it in practice every day, and we’re gonna continue to work at it and then at some point, it’s gonna go our way. So we just gotta stay patient, it’s gonna happen.\u201d<\/p>\n
The tackling is as big of an issue facing the Eagles\u2019 defense right now as anything. It\u2019s something Nick Sirianni harps on constantly, but they\u2019ve just been a terrible tackling team so far this year. And Monday night was embarrassing.<\/p>\n
\u201cFundamentals,\u201d Greenard said. \u201cWrapping up and driving the legs. They had a lot of leaky yardage. We made contact in that game (and they\u2019d get) an extra three or four yards. It changes the game. You go from potentially 2nd-and-8 to 2nd-and-6, those two yards matter. We know that. We just got to be better overall.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The defense was supposed to carry the team until the offense was ready. Guess what. Turns out the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":296191,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[6107,69,71,70],"class_list":["post-296190","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-philadelphia","tag-eagles-blog","tag-philadelphia","tag-philadelphia-headlines","tag-philadelphia-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/296190","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=296190"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/296190\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/296191"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=296190"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=296190"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=296190"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}