What were the keys to the team’s victory this week?
Playing turnover-free football was honestly our focus in practice this week. As a coaching staff, we've noticed that if we are able to limit turnovers, our offense is fully capable of insuring that we are in games. We also feel as if we can score against anyone so we are fully confident in second year QB Bo Nix's ability to get the ball into the endzone. The Eagles rushing attack is one of the best in the league, so it was also important to limit long touchdowns and force him to drive down the field. We were able to get a few redzone stops as a result of trusting our personnel to hold them as the field shortened.
Can you summarize what it was like playing against the Saints last week?
The Saints are a very tough team to play. They beat the brakes off of us last year, even shutting us out. So it was very important for us to get out to a quick start last week and continue to score. Turnovers destroyed us in that game as well, and it's becoming a growing theme that if we can limit interceptions, we can stick around in games. Bo Nix was very very important in that win and he did everything we asked of him. The defense was also able to get off the field and force a Maalik Murphy turnover. Moving forward we want to have a better gameplan to limit a mobile QB, as he had success against us both through the air and on the ground.
Can you talk about the development of Ethan Burke so far?
Ethan has been trending upwards all season. We are very excited for what he brings to the table and hope to be able to get him more involved as the season goes on. He's arguably our best pass rusher and is learning well from incumbent rusher Uchenna Nwosu. He's got 2.5 sacks and 3 tackles for loss on the season up to this point in backup duty. We will continue to train him every week and as he gets more comfortable, he will become the full time edge rusher in nickel situations.
