A fourth quarter to remember for the Eagles’ defense
Three drives. Three stops. One quarter. One massive win.
When the 5-2 Dallas Cowboys visited town in the fourth quarter, the Eagles’ defense was the main attraction.
With a 28-17 lead heading into the last quarter, the Philadelphia defense was sure to be put to the test.
The Cowboys possessed the ball on the Philadelphia 1-yard line with 10:10 remaining in the game. They believed that tight end Luke Schoonmaker, a quarterback, had found him for a 1-yard score. The officials determined that the ball had crossed the plane when safety Reed Blankenship made the tackle on the goal line.
The replay was shown on the big screens at Lincoln Financial Field, and the 69,876 spectators let up a yell.
What observed were they? The ball did not reach the goal line before Schoonmaker’s knee went down. The call was reversed after review, and Blankenship had just executed the game’s most spectacular defensive play.
“Making such a positive impact feels good,” Blankenship remarked. “Our mindset is to get the ball in our offense’s hands as much as possible, and luckily, we were able to do that.”
Prescott attempted to run for a score the previous play, but was stopped at the 1-yard line by linebacker Zach Cunningham and cornerback Darius Slay.
Following a couple of hurried and fruitless offensive drives and a Cowboys touchdown, it was once more time for the Eagles defense to take center stage.
Brandon Graham showed up with a 7-yard sack of Prescott on first-and-10 from the Philadelphia 31-yard line with 2:47 left. For Graham, it was his first complete sack of the year.
Graham scored again on the very next play, sharing the sack with rookie defensive lineman Jalen Carter this time.”One play at a time,” stated Graham. “You have no idea when your play will be released. I constantly emphasize that to the boys. Making the plays we needed was cool.”
“BG’s been here for a long time,” Jason Kelce said. “I do not think it is his most historic sack by any stretch of the imagination. He is a veteran player and in crucial situations like that, he can draw on experience. He has still got great physical ability, so yeah, those sacks were huge.”
Two plays later, on fourth-and-8 with 1:22 left in the game, James Bradberry arrived on the scene.
The veteran cornerback deflected a pass away from the hands of wide receiver Jalen Tolbert, giving the ball back to the Eagles’ offense and once again stopping the Cowboys from finding the end zone.
The Cowboys got the ball back with 46 seconds left in the game after forcing a three-and-out.
Just 14 seconds later, the Cowboys found themselves on the Philadelphia 25-yard line after starting on their own 14-yard line. That was thanks to a pass interference penalty on Bradberry and a roughing the passer penalty on Haason Reddick.
With 27 seconds left, Josh Sweat took flight.
The edge rusher beat right tackle Terence Steele, as Sweat and Reddick flipped sides late in the game, throwing Prescott to the ground as he tried to escape the collapsing pocket.
With no timeouts left, this pushed the Dallas offense back to the Philadelphia 22-yard line for a loss of 11 yards.
Sweat took inspiration from Graham, who, just mere minutes before, made crucial plays for the defense.
With five seconds left in the game and the ball 27 yards from the end zone, the Eagles’ defense had one more big play up its sleeve.
Prescott found wide receiver CeeDee Lamb at the 5-yard line, but he was quickly swallowed up by Slay and safety Sydney Brown. As Lamb was fighting for the game-winning score, Slay knocked the ball free and it was recovered by Blankenship with no time left on the game clock.
“The last drive was crazy,” Slay said. “My thought process is if he catches it, you have to tackle him, knowing they had no time left. We did a great job getting him down and got the dub.”
Three massive defensive stops in the fourth quarter propelled the Eagles to a win over their rivals and their eighth win of the season. – Owen Boyle
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