Philadelphia Eagles They have won six straight games since the bye week to take a healthy lead in the NFC East. After an uneven 2-2 start, the Eagles have emerged as legitimate Super Bowl contenders, and that’s due to their impressive defense.

Since the Week 5 bye, the defense ranks No. 1 in the NFL in a variety of advanced statistics, including EPA/playback (-0.235), strikeout rate (36.3 percent), and dropback success rate (37.0 percent) .

During the six-game winning streak, Philadelphia allowed just 13.8 points and 211.3 yards per game. It’s fair to say the Eagles faced middling QBs Deshaun Watson from the Browns, Daniel Jones from the Giants and Cooper Rush from the Cowboys during that stretch, but they also shut down Cincinnati’s Joe Burrow and Washington’s Jayden Daniels .

In Week 8, the Eagles limited the Cincinnati Bengals to 17 points and 4.8 yards per play. On Thursday night, they held the Washington Commanders to a season-low 18 points and were only able to get to 18 points due to a garbage time goal and two-point conversion when the game was already decided.

Led by Eagles’ first-year coordinator Vic Fangio, the defense ranked first in the league in yards allowed per game (273.1) and yards allowed per play (4.7), fourth in opponent completion percentage (61.5 percent) and ranked first in opponent red-field percentage. It ranks sixth in red points. zone touchdown percentage (46.4 percent). It’s a stark contrast to last season’s disappointing defense.

In 2023, Coordinated by Sean Desai, the unit ranked 26th in yards allowed per game (356.1), 31st in yards allowed per game (252.7) and 30th in points allowed per game (25.2) . Things got so bad defensively that Eagles head coach Nick Sirianni took playmaking duties away from Desai midway through the season and handed the responsibility to Matt Patricia..