Physical and nasty: How the Eagles found their identity

Throughout the season, head coach Nick Sirianni has been taking the opportunity during team meetings to show video clips of plays that embody the Eagles’ physicality.

All-Pro linebacker Zack Baun has a favorite.

“The Cooper DeJean on Derrick Henry, for sure,” Baun said. “That’s the epitome of who we’re trying to be and what we’re trying to do.”

Back in Week 13, the Eagles’ rookie nickel cornerback forcefully slammed the 250-pound running back into the turf in Baltimore. It didn’t matter that Henry out-weighed DeJean by 50 pounds, it didn’t matter that DeJean was a rookie, it didn’t matter that he’s a corner.

DeJean still delivered a highlight-worthy hit.

“When you talk about physicality, you think about defensive line and offensive line and running backs and linebackers,” Baun explained. “But when you got DBs doing stuff like that, it sends a message to the team. You see (Darius) Slay getting in there, you see Quinyon (Mitchell) up at the line of scrimmage, Reed (Blankenship is) coming and flying downhill. It’s awesome to see.”

The Eagles’ physicality this season stands out. Early in the year, the team was looking for an identity and they found it. On offense and defense, these Eagles are going to hit you in the mouth. When you play them, you’re going to feel it on the field and the next day.

This team is a bully.

“We are a physical, nasty group of motherf—ers,” Sirianni said to his team in the locker room after their 22-10 win over the Packers in the wild-card round.

Obviously, being a tough and physical team starts with having tough and physical players. For that, general manager Howie Roseman and his staff deserve credit. The Eagles have been looking for a type and Roseman has delivered.

But the Eagles’ insistence on physicality goes beyond the player acquisition phase. There has been a preoccupation with physicality and the added emphasis from the coaching staff hammers home the mission. There’s a reason why Sirianni wants the entire team to sit down and watch these types of physical plays on tape.

“Yeah, we talk about a tough football team,” Sirianni said this week. “What we talk about with tough is the physical part of the game, the blocking, the block destruction, the tackling within the fundamentals. We talk about relentless effort to the football, because that's a form of toughness. And we talk about mental toughness of being able to play the next play.

“Obviously, my best experience with being good at those things is because of, exactly what you said, the guys that are in this building. But any time as a coach that you're trying to reinforce things that you really admire and want for the program and for the culture, you enforce those things on tape. So in our tape today and in our tape every day, to be quite frank – we talk about this every day and every time we have a team meeting, we talk about it.

“We will put our physical plays up there. We will put our relentless effort plays up there. We will put our mental toughness plays up there to reinforce it, good, bad. Just so it's always on our mind. So, yeah, can't say enough of how tough our team is, in all three of those phases: physical, mental and effort.”

You can argue the Eagles’ transformation to being this physically-imposing team happened as they came back from the early Week 5 bye. That’s at least when the offense really began to step on the necks of defenses.

After a 2-2 start, a few offensive linemen went to Sirianni and asked for the offense to lean on them, Saquon Barkley and the run game. Since then, the Eagles have had one of the best rushing attacks in football and Barkley went over the 2,000-yard mark. They get to impose their will every game and it obviously takes physicality to do that.

“When you’re able to do that, yeah, you can wear down defenders,” Lane Johnson said. “Sometimes it doesn’t work immediately but as the game goes on, you can see some huge chunks, some huge games in the run game from guys getting tired, worn down or missing assignments. It basically wears them down.”

Dallas Goedert, when asked about the physicality of the team, immediately pointed at the O-line and said pretty much all five of those guys have ended up making a play that gets shown to the entire team. Jordan Mailata made a block on the front of an inside zone run last week that stood out to him. And then there’s big Mekhi Becton punishing linebackers a the second level. And Johnson, Landon Dickerson and Cam Jurgens have all made those types of plays in their Pro Bowl seasons.

The Eagles’ physicality doesn’t end with their linemen.

“I think it starts there,” said Goedert, who had a beastly play last week with a few stiff-arms on his way into the end zone. “And I think the offensive line also loves when somebody else is doing it. Smitty (DeVonta Smith), he’s excellent at finishing on the sidelines. Saquon with his powerful runs. I think that’s really contagious when people play physical.”

The cool thing is that there are a bunch of those types of plays this season and everyone seems to have a favorite.

While DeJean’s hit on Henry from the Ravens game might top the list, DeJean said his favorite actually came against the Packers last week when Nolan Smith took on pulling tackle Elgton Jenkins and Nakobe Dean played the insert block to stop the Packers for a short gain.

DeJean liked that one so much because it wasn’t just one guy being physical. It was a group effort.

As long as the Eagles make these types of plays, Sirianni is going to show them in front of the entire team. And as long as Sirianni shows them in front of the entire team, players are going to keep trying to make them.

“Everybody gets pretty excited when we see those plays,” DeJean said. “You can really see with the guys we have in the building that that’s how everybody wants to play the game. To be the most physical team on the field. That’s something that’s been talked about since training camp.”

Tune in to Mission 59 specials all playoffs long on NBC Sports Philadelphia, presented by Toyota.

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