Nick Sirianni on Friday claimed he wasn’t concerned about the Eagles tackling issues.
The Eagles’ head coach said they would work to correct those issues like they did after the Detroit game in Week 1. And they’d have an extra few days to do it this time around.
With the benefit of a mini bye week — the Eagles played on Thursday in Week 9 and will play on Monday in Week 10 — Sirianni told the WIP Morning Show on Monday that the defensive coaching staff used this weekend off, in part, to pinpoint why they’ve had some struggles in the tackling department.
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“You want to get that fixed,” Sirianni said to Angelo Cataldi. “Because that’s a fundamental and at the end of the day players and fundamentals win this game.”
The Eagles are 8-0 so this might seem a tad nitpicky but there’s no doubt they’ve had some tackling issues. They’ve missed 82 tackles this season, including 14 against the Texans, according to ProFootballFocus.
They are ranked as the worst tackling team in the NFL by PFF. Even if you don’t believe that ranking, it’s clear the Eagles haven’t been as good a tackling team as they’d like to be.
And with some tough running teams coming in the second half of the season, it could end up hurting them.
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“One thing that we saw is that there are some fundamental errors with the way we’re striking the back,” Sirianni said to WIP. “And I will let you in on a couple of the nuggets that we got when we did this.
“One of the other things is we do want to cause turnovers and we’ve done a good job of causing turnovers. We gotta secure the tackle before we go for the strip attempt. We’re going for strip attempts at times, trying to be aggressive, trying to be fast and physical and we’re missing some tackles because of it.
“Part of it is a fundamental thing that we need to get fixed as coaches and the other part, as far as myself, I take full responsibility when they’re going for the strips. Because I’m talking about taking the ball away more than anybody. We gotta be able to be aggressive, be fast, go after the football, try to get the strips, while also securing the tackle.”
The Eagles are +15 in turnover differential this season — by far the best mark in the NFL — but there’s always a fine line when teams are going for takeaways to make sure fundamentals don’t suffer.
Sirianni declined to get into the “other nuggets” the self-scout revealed about the team’s tackling but said the Eagles are confident they identified what needs to be fixed. Now they just have to actually correct those issues.
The Eagles were in a bit of a unique situation this weekend on the mini bye week because they had just two games since their actual bye week in Week 7. But Sirianni values the self-scout process and vowed to get better during the weekend off.
Sure, the coaching staff was able to finally get some rest, but they were also working on improving a team that is already 8-0. Shoring up their tackling would go a long way.
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