Legge's Thoughts: The Philadelphia Eagles Like What Kirby Smart and the Dawgs Are Doing
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ATHENS - It isn’t hard to see what’s coming for the Philadelphia Eagles - we just saw it in Athens. Kirby Smart’s Georgia Bulldogs have done one thing better than anyone else - defensive domination.
Over the last three years college football fans have watched as Georgia’s defense has led the nation in run defense two of those three years. Scoring defense? The Dawgs have been top five both years.
The best defense in the country the last three years? Going 37-3, winning an SEC title, the Peach Bowl (twice), the Orange Bowl and two national titles kind of answers that question. The Eagles, which have been a very good franchise for a while now, decided a year ago at this time they wanted some of what Kirby and his Dawgs were doing defensively.
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So the franchise spent three first round draft picks on Georgia defenders. When Jalen Carter fell in the first round the Eagles went up to get him. When 2021 Butkus Award winner Nakobe Dean fell to pick No. 83, the Eagles were there to select him.
The Eagles get it. They’ve seen what’s going on in Athens, and they believe they need some of that in the City of Brotherly Love. Put more simply, and perhaps more bluntly, the Eagles came up three points short of winning the Super Bowl, and they thought the best way they could help their franchise was by adding Georgia players.
That’s a heck of a statement.
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It makes sense, though. I am on the field for all Georgia football games. You see up close (and in the case of Nolan Smith you hear) what this group does each week. You just can’t run on them. The only chance a team has of winning is “effectively” running on them - like the Gators did in 2020 (97 yards rushing) or Alabama in 2021 SECCG (115 yards rushing).
It is very difficult to run on Georgia, and that is one of the major reasons they’ve been so good for so long. Nolan Smith, Jordan Davis, Jalen Carter and Dean are a foursome the likes of which we probably won’t see again soon in college football. That’s three first round draft picks on the field at the same time with the Butkus winner… that’s not common.
Then again, that’s what Georgia has been of late - uncommon.
Are the Eagles the best fit for Carter considering what’s been reported about him over the last 18 months? It sure appears that way. Constantly having Smith and Dean chirping in your ear might be annoying, but it sems to work.
Here’s a question that might be hard to answer: What is the more impressive accomplishment for Kirby and company - signing those players to start this run of national titles, or replacing 15 of them and going undefeated a year later?
I bet coaches around the country are asking themselves that now. Neither answer is good for them.