Kirk Cousins appears to be shot. He’s 36. He had surgery on a torn Achillies in November 2023—a mere 10 months ago, and cannot, it seems, throw with any force off his back leg. The Falcons will need a heavy dose of Bijan Robinson, if they have any plans on beating the Eagles in their official home opener this Monday night.
It may fit right in with what the Eagles showed defensively in their season-opening 34-29 victory over Green Bay last Friday.
The Eagles permitted the Packers to rush for 163 yards on 21 attempts, translating into an NFL-high 7.8 yards a carry, and a league-high three rushes for over 20 yards. If the Eagles thought they had problems with Green Bay’s Josh Jacobs, Emanuel Wilson, and Jayden Reed, they could be facing a nightmare in Robinson, who rushed for 68 yards on eight carries in the Falcons’ season-opening 18-10 loss to the Steelers, who did not score a touchdown.
Reed’s 33-yard, second-quarter touchdown run that gave the Packers a 12-7 lead has to be concerning.
“Yeah, on the long run they had for the touchdown, we didn’t quite fit it right and got the guy in the open field, and we missed a tackle there, which is tough when you’re in the open field,” Eagles’ defensive coordinator Vic Fangio said. “So that was one there. Then their first scoring drive, which I think that one was the final one, we had a couple there that we could have played better. I could have been in a better call, et cetera.”
What could be more concerning for the Eagles is that hardly anyone even touched Reed on the long TD run. It was a jet sweep in which the Eagles failed to protect the edge. To their credit, the Packers blocked it well, but linebacker Zack Baun, who had played a tremendous game, had a crack at Reed at the Eagles’ 22 and fell off. Then, it was open ground for Reed. The only Eagle who put their hands on Reed was Baun.
“Yeah, sometimes I wasn’t in a good enough call, sometimes we didn’t fit it early enough correctly, and particularly the long run there, the touchdown run,” Fangio said.
Fangio said this week he will be starting Nakobe Dean and Baun at inside linebacker and hopefully the pair will be completely up to speed with Fangio’s schemes in putting a stop to long runs.
The only major mistake Baun had the entire game was his failure to take down Reed on the second-quarter TD run.
“Well, first off, he did good,” Fangio said about Baun. “Just when I watched his play in New Orleans, like I think I said to you guys before, the way they adjusted their defense in New Orleans, on occasion he would end up as an inside linebacker, not very often, and from those few plays, I thought he could do it. Was I going to bet my life savings on it? No, but I had a good feeling that he could do it. And he can. And he’s got the versatility to — from his experience of being an on-the-line guy, to use that with him, also. I think he’ll just keep getting better and better.”
Fangio’s optimism on Baun’s superior play in the season opener is hopefully a good sign of things to come, because the Eagles had hardly any pass rush, other than Baun’s two sacks, and they could be faced with a heavy influx of Robinson, considering how poorly Cousins looked, on Monday night.
Joseph Santoliquito is a hall of fame, award-winning sportswriter based in the Philadelphia area who has written feature stories for SI.com, ESPN.com, NFL.com, MLB.com, Deadspin and The Philadelphia Inquirer/Daily News. In 2006, he was nominated for an Emmy Award for a special project piece for ESPN.com called “Love at First Beep.” He is most noted for his award-winning ESPN.com feature on high school wrestler A.J. Detwiler in February 2006, which appeared on SportsCenter. In 2015, he was elected president of the Boxing Writers Association of America.
