Finally Some Leadership On The Eagles Defense

The comments made by Jamar Chaney yesterday were very eye-opening for me. Chaney talked about how he’s starting to assert himself in the huddle as the leader on the defensive side of the ball.

“Right now, I think I’m more comfortable in my position and knowing more than just the Mike,” Chaney said. “When you know what everyone else is doing, it makes you feel more comfortable and you can do those kinds of things and make those checks that [defensive coordinator Juan Castillo] wants you to make.”

Defensive end Jason Babin was one of the defensive players who noticed how Chaney was taking leadership in the huddle.

He (Chaney) snatched up a guy by the facemask, then he said something, “Hey, quiet down”, Babin said. “He called it ‘his huddle’ a few times. I’m not going to tell him to his face but he’s doing a good job.”

Early in the season when the Eagles coaching staff made rookie Casey Matthews the starting middle linebacker, I knew they were taking a huge risk. The middle linebacker calls the defenses in the huddle, therefore whether he likes it or not, he’s a leader on the defense.

There’s no way an unproven player like Matthews could be an effective leader on the defense if he’s struggling to do his own job. Many times when an offense drives or make a big play to score a touchdown against an NFL defense, the defensive line starts pointing fingers at the defensive backs, and the defensive backs start pointing fingers at the defensive line.

The middle linebacker’s job is to restore control in the huddle to the defense. He’s got to tell some very good players to “Shut The …. Up”. They will listen to him if he has their respect, but if he doesn’t then you’ve got a very big problem. I can tell you for a fact that Casey Matthews didn’t have the respect of his defensive teammates.

“Sometimes, we’ll be playing around in the huddle and coach Juan always tells him ‘This is your defense and you have to run it,’” Fokou said. “So we’ll get out of hand every now and then and he’ll stomp his feet or yell or grab somebody’s facemask and say, ‘Listen up!’ So it’s kind of exciting to see him take ownership of the defense.”

“You want to make sure the guys are having fun but you want to make sure they’re taking it serious, too,” Chaney said. “We need to be on the same page. If we’re not, then we won’t look good and that comes back to me. When it all is said and done, if somebody messes up or doesn’t get the call, it comes back on me.

When the defensive players saw that Matthews wasn’t making any plays and that he couldn’t get off of blocks. His chances of being a leader were gone. The coaches put him in a bad position, by starting him immediately before he proved himself. Here, he was a rookie in a “Wide Nine” defense and trying to figure out what he needed to do, while making the defense calls and “leading the defense”.

That’s too much to ask of an unproven rookie. He really had never played the middle linebacker position and he was being asked to do it in a defense which he wasn’t familiar with. They should have let him cut his teeth out of the spotlight, then promoted him as he proved himself.