At the end of their regular Tuesday meeting, as coaches and players spread out at the NovaCare Complex, Philadelphia Eagles safety Kevin Byard privately addressed Sean Desai and presented a new plan to the defensive coordinator.
“Hey, let’s do the scouting report this week,” Byard said.
By “us,” Byard meant the defensive backs. By “the scouting report,” he meant the position-by-position breakdown of the Seattle Seahawks, their upcoming opponent.
It's a job typically handled by the Eagles' coaching staff. From Nick Sirianni to Desai to the most unknown assistant, staff members spend the first few weeks of their season developing comprehensive game plans that they begin implementing in the first few days of practice.
The scouting report represents just a percentage of what rookie linebacker Nolan Smith described as “work days.” Some days are dedicated to one or two phases. A round of meetings on first and second down situations, followed by a drill. A session on third-down situations, followed by a drill. A round of red zone meetings followed by a drill. And at every meeting, the coaches give the players “dissertations on everything,” Smith says.
Remarks. tendencies. Expectations.
“We do a really good job of detailing all the details,” Smith said. “To the outside world, it might not look like that.”
This last observation was the catalyst for Byard's proposal. The Eagles have obviously been disastrous on defense, and Desai, the team's first-year coordinator, bears much of the blame. But even after the San Francisco 49ers and Dallas Cowboys scored on 10 straight possessions (missing a game-ending knee) and Philadelphia's 30th-ranked third-down defense degraded to the NFL's worst level, Sirianni said he wouldn't change anyone's rules – and he remained confident that his staff would find solutions.
“I feel good about the people we have in this building,” Sirianni said. “We’re 10-3. We are in control of our own destiny and we will move forward and find answers with the people we have.”
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Sirianni made a small change this week. With the Eagles now playing the Seahawks in the NFL's first-ever “Monday Night Football” flex game, they have been granted an extra day on their schedule. So Sirianni opted for a full practice on Thursday, a day that would normally have included a walkthrough, because he felt the Eagles needed to “work on our fundamentals.” Poor tackling compounded the 49ers' home loss and the Eagles lost three fumbles to the Cowboys.
But Byard and some veteran defensive backs believed the players, at least those in the secondary, also needed to take on more responsibility. There were too many breakdowns in coverage and too many players beaten in critical scenarios. In the last three games against the Buffalo Bills, 49ers and Cowboys, Josh Allen, Brock Purdy and Dak Prescott combined for a perfect passer rating (158.3) on third and intermediate situations (4-7 yards) and completed 12 of 13 passes for 212 yards and three touchdowns.
Desai and his staff did not lack creativity. You have configured the secondary in three different ways. They put cornerback Darius Slay on the opponent's No. 1 receiver. They used Bradley Roby at slot corner on short third downs and Eli Ricks on longer situations. They debuted rookie Kelee Ringo at outside corner in dime packages.
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Nevertheless, the leaks persisted. While Desai told reporters on Tuesday that checking for improvement “always starts with the play call,” it's important to note, he added, “at least for me.” By persuading Desai to hand the scouting report over to the defensive backs, Byard ensured that a young secondary that includes three rookies also did its part in finding solutions.
“There is ownership in all of this,” Byard told The Athletic. “We all take responsibility. When the coaches do their interviews (with the media), that's one of the first things they say: 'Hey, I've got to do better.' It's the same for us (as players). We all have our hands in the same pot. At the end of the day, we can all do more. We are in the solutions business. Not the plaintiff company. We don't want to complain here. We all stick together. We will fix it together. We will play better.”
Desai agreed to the agreement. Byard passed the message on to the rest of the defensive backs and they divided scouting duties.
“Everyone picked a player,” Byard said.
Byard brought in quarterback Geno Smith. Safety Reed Blankenship took over as Seattle's tight ends. Other defensive backs The Athletic spoke with this week — veteran cornerback James Bradberry, rookie corners Ricks and Ringo and rookie safety Sydney Brown — have taken over at certain wide receivers and running backs. Slay was absent from practice and the locker room because he was listed with a knee injury.
They spent Wednesday (a scheduled rest day for players this week) delving into their film study. Byard observed Geno Smith's tendencies. (“I’m not going to give you everything, of course,” he said.) Bradberry watched his receiver’s last three plays and took detailed notes. Was the receiver lined up inside? Outside? Where did his goals come from? Which moves revealed the wideout's technical strengths and weaknesses? Blankenship said he sat down at home, turned on music and typed pages of notes on his iPad. Ricks did a breakdown that included a player's 40-yard dash time, height and weight, as well as the routes he liked to run and those he didn't.
The defensive backs arrived Thursday and presented their findings during their position group meeting, an all-secondary meeting that included defensive backs coach DK McDonald, assistant defensive backs coach Taver Johnson and nickels coach Ronell Williams. The coaches, Byard said, “obviously gave their own scouting report” during the team meeting, but they also “let us have the floor” as they broke into their individual position group meetings.
“The guys had some really good stuff,” Byard said. “You could tell the guys really watched a lot of film and really studied these guys. I would just hope it helps us play faster. But I also understand how these guys want to play. That's what this league is about. It’s a players’ league and you have to know the people you’re competing against.”
“Just hearing from other guys, young guys like Sydney and Kelee, it was cool to see what they picked up from watching film based on the players they saw,” Bradberry added. “They had a breakdown. … It was cool to hear them talk because they don’t talk much.”
Ringo, who played a career-best 22 defensive snaps against the Cowboys, said he has mastered the depth veterans look for in their approaches.
“Little things like downs and distances, what type of players you’re playing against, splits and things like that,” said Ringo, a fourth-round pick. “Certain routes that can be driven at certain points on the route. The more you repeat that, like protecting someone, the easier it can be to protect them.”
Rookie cornerback Kelee Ringo played a larger role in the Eagles' Week 14 loss to the Cowboys. (Tim Heitman/USA Today)
These are habits that Byard and Bradberry had already developed. Byard, who the Eagles acquired from the Tennessee Titans on Oct. 23, has developed a process over eight seasons that has earned him two first-team All-Pro selections. Bradberry, a second-round pick of the Panthers in 2016, admitted he “didn't really watch film my first two years.” But eventually he watched seven-time All-Pro linebacker Luke Kuechly's routine in Carolina, threw himself into the work and began to understand the bigger picture once he was on the field.
When Bradberry signed with the New York Giants after his rookie contract expired, the cornerback said then-head coach Joe Judge required players to do their own scouting reports. They were assigned a specific player, researched, prepared a report, and then gave an on-site presentation at team meetings. Bradberry was selected to the Pro Bowl in 2020 and in 2021 his four interceptions with the Giants ranked 12th in the NFL.
The judge made it mandatory what Bradberry believed players should already be doing themselves.
“Obviously you get so much information here that you feel like once you get the information here, you have everything you need,” Bradberry said. “But you just apply the information you get by watching the film. “Oh, that’s a tendency.” Or, “Oh, that’s how he’s going to do it.” You have to visualize it.”
These are the tidbits that add needed perspective in game plan meetings, Byard says. Bradberry, Blankenship, Ricks and Brown all expressed their strong belief that the NFL is a “players' league” and they enjoy the “back and forth” relationship that players develop with their coaches. Brown says he's learning how players can provide the key information to make the program the best fit. But they must seek out this information and speak up when they find it.
“It really builds confidence in everyone, right?” said Brown, a third-round pick who started three games and played 25.8 percent of the defense's snaps. “Because if someone doesn’t do their job, everyone in the room will know about it. I think that's more difficult in the film room than on the field. On the field, you just move on to the next move. When you’re in the film room, you’re in place until you figure it out.”
Therefore, there is sometimes a risk that such meetings can lead to tension, especially during a losing streak. The Eagles' defenders agreed, Brown said, that “we have to approach it differently.”
“I felt like it brought us closer together just to be able to hear everyone's voice,” said Blankenship, who is in his first year as a full-time starter after signing with the Eagles as an undrafted free agent in 2022. “I feel like it would also be good for the younger people who maybe haven't seen as many films. Hold everyone accountable. That's the biggest part. That is the leadership role. In difficult times, you want to hear everyone’s voice to make sure they have confidence in what they see and do.”
There is optimism among defensive backs that they are better prepared for the Seahawks, who enter the weekend with the NFL's 15th-ranked passing offense (232.9 yards per game). Several said they would continue to provide player-commissioned scouting reports for the remainder of the season.
“We're just trying to find more ways to prepare better and harder – especially being at the track we're at,” Byard said. “This is very important. The only thing I'm really worried about is just our preparation, our process, how we approach things. So it's just a matter of doing more. Obviously I've been here for a while. I “Just try to do as much as I can as players to make sure we're prepared out there. Hopefully that will really show in the games.”
(Top photo of Reed Blankenship and Kevin Byard: Mitchell Leff / Getty Images)