I was surprised Arizona settled on Jonathan Gannon as its next head coach. His defense came up awfully small in the Super Bowl.
I understand that Philadelphia had a great year, with a defense that piled up 70 sacks (tying for 3rd-most all-time). But I’m not sure that Gannon was a key factor in that production. It’s a defense that benefitted from working with a crushing offense, tilting the field in terms of time of possession, field position and pass-rush opportunities.
And it was a unit with unusually good personnel. Especially up front, with four different players with double-digit sacks (Haason Reddick, Javon Hargrave, Josh Sweat, Brandon Graham), along with a host of other talented contributors – Fletcher Cox, Milton Williams, Ndamukong Suh, Jordan Davis, Linval Joseph. An embarrassment of riches, leaving me wondering if there’s a coordinator in the league who wouldn’t have put together a top-10 defense with that group.
Despite all that talent, Philadelphia’s defense wasn’t able to have much of an impact in Sunday’s game. They finished with zero sacks, and they couldn’t get any stops in the second half. Kansas City’s last two touchdowns both came on the same play, with communication issues in coverage leaving Kadarius Toney and Skyy Moore wide open. In general, it looked like they were outcoached.
They go down as the 14th defense (out of 114) to finish a Super Bowl with no sacks, and they had the most regular-season sacks of that group.
| SACKLESS IN THE SUPER BOWL | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Year | Defense | Opponent | Score | R.S. |
| 1968 | NY Jets | Baltimore | W 16-7 | 43 |
| 1970 | Dallas | Baltimore | L 13-16 | 41 |
| 1974 | Pittsburgh | Minnesota | W 16-6 | 52 |
| 1979 | LA Rams | Pittsburgh | L 19-31 | 52 |
| 1980 | Oakland | Philadelphia | W 27-10 | 54 |
| 1991 | Buffalo | Washington | L 24-37 | 31 |
| 1997 | Green Bay | Denver | L 24-31 | 41 |
| 1998 | Atlanta | Denver | L 19-34 | 38 |
| 2002 | Oakland | Tampa Bay | L 21-48 | 43 |
| 2003 | Carolina | New England | L 29-32 | 40 |
| 2009 | New Orleans | Indianapolis | W 31-17 | 35 |
| 2013 | Denver | Seattle | L 8-43 | 41 |
| 2017 | New England | Philadelphia | L 33-41 | 42 |
| 2022 | Philadelphia | Kansas City | L 35-38 | 70 |
By my count, the Eagles have played 10 games against high-level quarterbacks in the last two years. They’re 2-8 in those games, allowing 78 percent passing, with 25 TD passes versus 9 interceptions, and with only 20 sacks. (On the chart below, I’m leaving out Dak Prescott throwing 5 TDs against them in Week 18 a year ago – the Eagles were resting a bunch of starters in that one.)
In the chart below, the final four games are from the 2022 season. There were 2-2 in those games, coming up big against Kirk Cousins and Aaron Rodgers, but not so much against Prescott and Mahomes.
| EAGLES AGAINST GOOD QUARTERBACKS | |||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Player | Result | Com | Att | Yds | TD | Int | Rate |
| Dak Prescott, Dall. | W 41-21 | 21 | 26 | 238 | 3 | 0 | 143.3 |
| Patrick Mahomes, K.C. | W 42-30 | 24 | 30 | 278 | 5 | 1 | 131.0 |
| Tom Brady, T.B. | W 28-22 | 34 | 42 | 297 | 2 | 1 | 102.1 |
| Derek Carr, L.V. | W 33-22 | 31 | 34 | 323 | 2 | 1 | 113.6 |
| Justin Herbert, LAC | W 27-24 | 32 | 38 | 356 | 2 | 0 | 123.2 |
| Tom Brady, T.B. | W 31-15 | 29 | 37 | 271 | 2 | 0 | 115.2 |
| Kirk Cousins, Min. | L 7-24 | 27 | 46 | 221 | 1 | 3 | 51.1 |
| Aaron Rodgers, G.B. | L 33-40 | 11 | 16 | 140 | 2 | 2 | 95.8 |
| Dak Prescott, Dall. | W 40-34 | 27 | 35 | 347 | 3 | 1 | 124.3 |
| Patrick Mahomes, K.C. | W 38-35 | 21 | 27 | 182 | 3 | 0 | 131.8 |
The Cardinals, of course, analyzed and interviewed a ton of candidates. They obviously were impressed by what they heard from Gannon. But I’m taking more of a wait-and-see approach. He’s not going to have the same kind of talent around him, and I don’t think anybody in the NFC West is too concerned about the Cardinals right now.
—Ian Allan