Eagles, Chiefs have played opportunistic football to reach Super Bowl LIX

The Eagles protect the football, and they have mastered how to take it away.

“Yeah, first the players going out there and being able to do it is incredible because you’re taking chances at times, too,” Eagles coach Nick Sirianni said to the Philadelphia media recently. “Because we’ve tackled well, too. I think sometimes you see in those scenarios that teams take chances there, but they don’t make tackles.”

The Eagles want to make the tackle first, but they’ve also mastered attacking the football.

“Well, we’ve been in the top 10 of missed-tackle percentage in the NFL, which we take a lot of pride in,” Sirianni said.

The Eagles studied the master of attacking the football, former Bears and Panthers cornerback Charles “Peanut” Tillman, who finished his career with 44 forced fumbles. He played for the Bears from 2003-14 before finishing with the Panthers for a season (2015).

“This year, (vice president of football technology) Pat Dolan, our video guy, got me every ‘Peanut Punch’ that he forced a fumble with (over) his entire career,” Sirianni said. “We watched that on a loop as coaches. Then we showed that to the players as well.”

Turnovers normally come from errant throws or mishandling the ball. But the intentionality of forcing it off the ball carrier is a strong weapon. Falcons safety Jessie Bates III had four such “punch-outs” last season and has 10 over his career.

Tillman had 10 forced fumbles to lead the league in 2012.

“So, we emphasize the crap out of it because we know it’s such a telling stat in this game,” Siranni said. “Our guys have done a nice job protecting it. Our defensive guys have done a good job taking it away, as well as our special-teams guys.”

In the NFC Championship game victory over the Commanders, the Eagles had two key forced fumbles that helped them blow open the game.

Running back Will Shipley, a former Clemson standout, got one on kickoff coverage.

“We drilled the heck out of it, but you’ve got to have talented players to be able to do both because it is a skill to be able to tackle and take the ball away,” Sirianni said. “I think the other thing it shows is the effort to the football.”

The Eagles also forced a fumble by Washington running back Austin Ekeler. He caught a pass and used one hand to get up, leaving the football vulnerable.

“We had our second man in with (linebacker) Zack Baun,” Sirianni said. “(Cornerback) Cooper DeJean had him tied up. Zack was able to come in and get a hit on the ball on the one.”

The Eagles were 2-2 after their first four games of the regular season, including a 22-21 loss to the Falcons on Sept. 16 on “Monday Night Football.” They were minus-6 over those four games.

The Eagles 12-1 the rest of the way in the regular season and finished plus-10 in turnover margin. They beat the Packers, Rams and Commanders in the playoffs with a plus-10, with no turnovers.

In the three playoff wins, they did not have a turnover and had 10 takeaways. Overall, they didn’t have a turnover in 12 of their 20 games.

“There are moments when the ball is at risk,” Siranni said. “One of the moments when the ball is at risk is you getting up off the ground, and vice versa. Another time the ball is at risk when you’re going to the ground. Because naturally your body, as you get up, tends to loosen up on that. When you’re going down, the same thing, you tend to brace.”

The Chiefs got off to a slow start taking care of the ball, as the Eagles did. They were minus-4 over the first eight games. They were plus-10 over their final 11 games. The Chiefs did not have a turnover in nine of their 19 games.

“Those are things you can’t do in the spur of the moment unless those are your habits,” Sirianni said. “That’s why the habits are so, so critical. It’s like, we can talk about it all we want. But unless you’re practicing that, unless you’re emphasizing it after you practice it — it’s got to be part of who you are. They’re split-second situations where these things happen.”

Credit: TNS

Credit: TNS