Against Chip Kelly, Joe Barry’s unit looked like the one led by a genius
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Version 0 of 1. It is with some trepidation that I offer the following praise about a particular unit of the home team at FedEx Field on Sunday that helped keep the Philadelphia Eagles from plucking a victory. For next weekend, when Washington is scheduled to play in Atlanta against the Falcons, it could be rendered fool’s gold. The Falcons on Sunday in their home nest dropped nearly half a hundred on the Texans. Their offense is suddenly one of the league’s most prolific, with quarterback Matt Ryan throwing to wide receiver Julio Jones in an attack coordinated by its new assistant coach (cough, cough) Kyle Shanahan, who was run out of the nation’s capital in 2013 with his dad, Mike, as head coach, after a third losing season in four years. But through four weeks this season, what the Washington defense has accomplished is more noteworthy than what Atlanta’s offense has done. The best evidence was what Washington did for the first half — and the fourth quarter, when it mattered most — against the visiting Eagles on Sunday. It kept Chip Kelly’s offense more of a dud than the explosive it was billed as coming into this season. It staked Jay Gruden’s offense to a 13-0 halftime lead by allowing the Eagles just 95 yards and four first downs. And in the fourth quarter, after being wobbled by three Sam Bradford touchdown passes and relinquishing the lead, it steadied to force two punts. The second punt was turned into a 90-yard drive by the Washington offense. It took more than five minutes and ended in the end zone with a go-ahead score and just half a minute left in the game. The defense finished the game with five sacks and two takeaways. Pressuring the quarterback and forcing turnovers were the two areas where the Washington defense needed to improve headed into Sunday’s matchup. One could argue, of course, that it was no big deal containing what has been an unexpectedly impotent Eagles offense. After averaging 33 points per game in the (pointless) preseason — experimenting with new toys like Bradford, two-time Pro Bowl workhorse running back DeMarco Murray, and scatback Darren Sproles — midnight descended on the Eagles’ offense with the advent of games that count. Their scoring promise turned into a mirage. The Eagles averaged fewer than 20 points in their previous three games, two of which resulted in losses, before coming to FedEx. But what should be highlighted Sunday is that Washington’s defense hounded Kelly’s offense into continued ineffectiveness and outright ineptness in a 23-20 Washington win. “We just wanted to limit their explosive plays,” Washington nose tackle Terrance Knighton said somewhat matter-of-factly. The Eagles managed two big plays that wound up in the end zone, a 62-yard pass to Riley Cooper and a 39-yard throw to Miles Austin. This time, it wasn’t Atlanta Coach Dan Quinn, once the builder of Seattle’s championship defense, who befuddled Kelly, a coach who hasn’t publicly disputed our (media) endorsement of him as an offensive genius. Instead, it was Washington defensive coordinator Joe Barry, a coach who, when he was hired this season, most of us in the media recognized ignobly as the architect of Detroit’s defense in 2007 and 2008. Both of those seasons, Barry’s defenses were worst in the league. In 2008, Barry’s defense anchored an 0-16 campaign and sunk his job. The defense Barry sicced Sunday on Kelly, however, had grown into the stingiest in the league in time of possession allowed. The Eagles discovered as much by holding on to the ball for less than 20 minutes. [Barry gives Redskins defense a shot in the arm] Barry’s defense after Sunday is the fourth-most-stout unit in the league in yards allowed and is second in the league in allowing scores inside the 20-yard line, the red zone. A year ago, the defense Barry inherited and tinkered with ranked in the 20s in key defensive categories: yards and points allowed. Who would’ve thought that after Sunday’s matchup, it would be Barry who looked like a genius and Kelly who looked like he hadn’t a clue? [Kelly has taken the Eagles from pretty good to pretty awful] Barry imported Knighton into the defensive line, and now it is top five in the league in stopping the run. Kelly got Murray from Dallas, where last season he set all manner of rushing records, but on Sunday touched the ball just 10 times for 48 yards. Thirty of those came on one scamper. “He’s not a side-to-side runner,” Knighton said, shaking his head disapprovingly of Murray’s employ in Kelly’s scheme. “He needs to be in the I-formation.” By the time Murray got outside on the few opportunities Kelly gave him, Washington’s outside defenders were there to catch him. And Barry’s design succeeded Sunday despite starting cornerback DeAngelo Hall and starting linebacker Perry Riley Jr. sidelined with injuries. On top of that, cornerback Chris Culliver, who captain Trent Williams said couldn’t bend his knee as recently as Saturday, played as best he could, which was only good enough to inspire his teammates. “He gritted it out,” Williams said. “That was truly a game-time decision.” Indeed, while much of the credit for Washington’s come-from-behind win over the Eagles must go to Kirk Cousins for executing that 15-play drive nearly the length of the field to win the game, the defense was heavily responsible. It so consistently kept sending the Eagles’ offense back to the sidelines that the Eagles defense had been on the field for roughly 36 minutes when Cousins’s offense took over for its final drive. By then, the Eagles’ defensive front seven was worn down and Alfred Morris found soft spots in it that weren’t there before. And the brilliant Kelly never used a timeout to spell his defense. It all turned out to be a strategy that kept the Eagles looking like a bumbling last-place club and Washington with a reliable defense — at least for a week. Kevin B. Blackistone, ESPN panelist and visiting professor at the Philip Merrill College of Journalism at the University of Maryland, writes sports commentary for The Post. |