Is the Eagles' defense among the NFL's elite?

The Eagles might not have the consensus best defense in the entire NFL — not yet anyway — but they have a case to make as one of the league's elite units.

After seeing the 49ers' mighty defense lose Monday night to the Vikings, allowing Kirk Cousins to carve them up not all that long after the Browns' historic defense allowed 39 points to the Colts on Sunday, and just a month after the Cowboys' turnover machine faltered against the Cardinals — well, perhaps there is a little more parity than anyone thought.

And after the Eagles' defense made a statement against the Dolphins in  Sunday night's win, holding a 500-yard per game offense to just 244 total and 10 points (not including the pick-six of Jalen Hurts), the front office went for one more major upgrade, trading for two-time All-Pro safety Kevin Byard. 

Here are some really compelling figures that paint the Eagles as an elite group of disruptors and run-stoppers:

The biggest weakness on paper is that they allow a lot of yards through the air — the 15th most per game in the NFL right now. The Birds' secondary has allowed 12 passing touchdowns – the fourth most in the league – but they are so good at stopping the run that they actually make opposing offenses one-dimensional and particularly pass-happy, which has led them to see the fourth most pass attempts in football (266) and the fewest run attempts (123).

"They talk about every week, you’ve got to earn the right to rush the passer," Eagles defensive coordinator Sean Desai said Tuesday, proudly fielding questions after his most impressive performance on the job yet. "The way to earn the right is to knock the run out. That's a core philosophy of what they believe in, what I believe in, what we believe in as a defense and as a staff and as players. They take a lot of pride in that."

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They also found a way to limit Miami — a team with 32 rushes of 10-plus yards this year (the NFL's most) and 17  passes of 25-plus yards (second most) to just three such plays, with a relatively mundane long of 29 yards.

"I think the big part was obviously playing physically up front, right?" Desai said, "Having great anticipation in terms of the coverages and the disguises that we presented, and the route distributions that we were expecting. Putting our guys in spots to make sure they understood that this is where these targets were going to come and where they were going to go, and we need to defend these parts of the field and these routes in these parts of the field."

It's a defense that looks like it's always having fun, which can sometimes be just as valuable as having sound fundamentals and game-planning. If the defense can stay healthy and continue developing chemistry together, there's a pretty solid mix of over 30 veterans and extremely talented early-round draft picks sharing the field together every week.

"I think you have to be able to let guys play freely and within the structure of the defense, knowing when they can take their shots," Desai said. "We've got playmakers, and so they've got to know when they can go make plays, and that's our job, is to provide them those opportunities to go make plays when we need them to...

"They're a team. They have to do it all together. It can't just be one guy saying, hey, this is my turn to go make a play. The other 10 guys better be understanding the same thing, and that's part of our preparation that we try to take them through."

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