There has been a degree of improvement in the Eagles’ defense lately, but coordinator Todd Bowles isn’t going to take credit for it, or suggest that making it sooner would have turned a 4-10 season around.
“No, as a football coach you go every week, and every week is a different week . . . you can’t look back at the season until after the season,” Bowles said, via Les Bowen of the Philadelphia Daily News. “Things happen during the year that you have to adjust and adapt to, and you just move forward.”
The difference in the Eagles defense has been stark in recent weeks. They’ve held their past two opponents to sub-80 passer ratings, after six straight weeks of allowing 120-plus ratings. It’s easy to draw the line between the improvement and the firing of defensive line coach Jim Washburn and his “wide-nine” scheme, but Bowles wasn’t taking that bait either.
Asked if the Eagles defense could look this good if he’d had the chance to do it his way all season, Bowles took the Carnac defense.
“If I knew the answer to that, I’d be sitting here with a turban and a crystal ball,” Bowles said.
And if he had one of those, he could use it to tell where he’d be working in two weeks.