The Philadelphia Eagles entered the Week 8 game against the Detroit Lions as one of the NFL’s more successful running teams, but they drove their fans crazy with their reluctance to run the ball more frequently. Ranking third in yards-per-carry but 27th in rushing attempts per game will do that to a fanbase of a 2-5 team.
The Eagles broke the tendency to abandon the run in their 44-6 blowout win over Detroit. The Lions defense couldn’t stop the Eagles at all. An absurd 46 carries produced 236 yards on the ground for Philadelphia.
When asked to explain what went wrong for the Lions defense, Detroit defense tackle Nick Williams talked about some issues with technique.
“We were all playing high,” Williams told reporters via Zoom during the Lions bye week media time. “Across the board. I take part in that. I had some plays that I was high on, fundamentally.”
The film review backs up Williams’ observation. The Eagles offensive linemen routinely won the leverage and pad level battle against Williams and his defensive linemates.
Williams was then asked if anything changed during the week of practice or if he could find anything that indicated why the line played so poorly after a decent game against the Rams in Week 7. Los Angeles ran for 47 yards on 19 carries.
“We just have to get more consistent in our play,” Williams stated. “We were in L.A. the week before and they couldn’t run it at all. We just have to not hang our hats on our last performance and come on out and put it together on tape again.”
Getting the bye week could help the team, according to Williams.
“Guys need to get away, refocus, refuel,” he said. “Think about what they want to be known as in the latter part of the season.”
He did admit that it would have been nice to work out some of the issues from the Eagles game right away, too.