Jalen Carter and Jordan Davis play like first-rounders as the Eagles defense pounds the Saints

NEW ORLEANS — Jalen Carter sat facing his stall as Jeffrey Lurie walked past him and circled back.

"I'm looking for Jalen," Lurie said.

The owner found Carter and gave the hulking defensive tackle a warm embrace and a fatherly pat on the head as they spoke. Lurie will typically single out players at their stalls after victories, and the Eagles' gutsy 15-12 win over the Saints offered him plenty of opportunities to give additional gratitude.

He went over and shook the hand of the nearby Fred Johnson, the tackle who jumped in ably for the concussed Lane Johnson , after he sought out Carter. Jordan Davis , another first-round draft pick out of Georgia, also had a significant impact on the Eagles' defensive improvement on Sunday.

But Lurie wanted to individually congratulate Carter, who physically dominated the Saints' offensive line for much of the game.

"He said, 'Good game' and that he was proud of me," Carter said. "That we just got to keep going."

» READ MORE: Eagles grades: Jalen Carter and the D-line stood out vs. the Saints. What about the coaching performance?

It took the entire defensive unit to shut down an offense that was high-powered, one that had pounded the Panthers and Cowboys on the ground in the first two weeks. The Eagles, conversely, had one of the worst run-defending groups through two games.

On paper, it was a lopsided matchup. But defensive coordinator Vic Fangio challenged his players and he helped them, too, by tweaking his scheme and personnel. And the combination of the two resulted in the Eagles holding Saints to just 3.1 yards per rush.

The dangerous Alvin Kamara had to earn almost every one of his 87 yards on 26 carries.

"We just played with an edge today. [Bleepers] was angry," Davis said. "We knew we had a job to fix. We knew we had to fix that issue. Just play with tenacity, everybody across the board."

The front won at the point of attack and clogged gaps in the middle. The ends mostly set the edge. Off-ball linebackers Zack Baun (a team-high 13 tackles) and Nakobe Dean (eight tackles) flowed to the ball in space. And safety C.J. Gardner-Johnson, in facing his former team, was a reliable last line of defense.

"They worked their [butt] off. I'm going to get emotional," Eagles coach Nick Sirianni said of his defense. "They worked their [butt] off all week. Vic Fangio put them in a great spot all week. [Defensive line coach] Clint Hurtt put them in a great spot all week with the way he drilled them ... "

Carter said Hurtt focused on hand placement in preparation. Dean said the inside linebackers were drilled repeatedly in fending off the sort of chop blocks that gave them problems last week against the Falcons.

But the Saints' differences in personnel usage also aided the Eagles. Atlanta gashed Fangio's light boxes in nickel by running out of three-wideout sets. But New Orleans often rushed the ball in heavy sets which allowed the Eagles to rely on their five-man and sometimes six-man fronts.

"If it takes us playing in the five-man front, then so be it," Davis said. "We playing to win the game. We don't give a damn how pretty it is. We don't give a damn how it looks."

Fangio also tightened up his gaps and had Dean and Baun a touch closer to the line. He also moved defensive tackle Milton Williams outside occasionally in favor of end Bryce Huff, who may have been the lone defender to struggle vs. the Saints.

The coordinator said last week that he had to do a better job of teaching the defense the proper technique against the run. Fangio didn't change much in his messaging, though, except for one small request.

"All he said was, 'Can we bring a little more D this week?'" defensive end Brandon Graham said.

"It was like, 'Just bring a little bit more.'"

Bringing a little more to stop the run meant that the secondary was going to be stressed. But Gardner-Johnson & Co. kept quarterback Derek Carr and his receivers in check for most of the day. Carr averaged just 5.1 yards passing on his drops and was intercepted by safety Reed Blankenship on his last throw.

"How many deep balls we give out today?" Gardner-Johnson said.

The answer was two — one that occurred after cornerback Darius Slay left with an injury and Carr went at his replacement, Kelee Ringo, and another that came on a Kamara wheel route vs. Baun.

Gardner-Johnson did allow receiver Chris Olave to get behind him for a 13-yard touchdown, a blown coverage he took responsibility for. But the safety otherwise had his best game since returning to the Eagles this season, and had another important run stop when he met Kamara in the hole on a third-quarter Wildcat run.

Gardner-Johnson was questionable heading into the game because of a foot injury. But he didn't want to miss a third chance — he was injured the two previous times — to face the team that drafted him and traded him just before the 2022 season.

"Personally, to be honest with you, it's a big relief off my back," Gardner-Johnson said. "I ain't got to worry about these jokers no more."

We'll see about that. The last time the Eagles had traveled here for playoff game in 2019, they had already met them in the regular season. They lost both meetings. They prevailed five years later, though, despite quarterback Jalen Hurts ' early turnovers and Sirianni's dubious decision-making.

» READ MORE: Nick Sirianni and the Eagles never make it easy on themselves, do they?

And it was mostly because of their defense. Carter, who finished with two batted passes, two tackles for loss and a quarterback hit, made sure to let the Saints know when he taunted them from the sideline after Blankenship's pick with two thumbs pointed down.

Hurtt was smiling when he initially held him back, but Sirianni and Dom DiSandro eventually came over to calm down Carter.

"It really wasn't nothing serious. Just getting lit," Carter said. "I was staying composed. The game wasn't over, but we still got to stay composed."

Carter and Davis took a lot of heat for the early-season defensive struggles. Williams was the only lineman to record a sack in the first two games. But Davis got his first sack off a stunt in nearly a year and Carter won many of his pass-rushing battles when not double-teamed.

Last week, Carter labeled his effort in the first two games as "trash." He said the same of his performance here.

"I gotta be like Khalil Mack, get six sacks in one game," Carter said. "No, I'm playing, but I love sacks. I know that's big. I love tackles. ... But just just getting a 'dub' as a team makes me happy, but I still got to see more out of myself."

Davis, meanwhile, wasn't seen in the locker room last week. Normally one of the Eagles' more outgoing players, he said he stayed away from reporters for a reason.

"It's being more focused, man. I've got to focus up," Davis said. "As much as I love the media, I just had to take a step back and really work, really reassess. Just come back different."

Graham knows the pressure the former first-rounders face as well as anyone. He also knows what it's like to rebound from early career issues and to alter narratives a critical fan base can form about being a bust.

"I told them boys, 'You gotta be together. We all accountable here,'" Graham said. "Boys showed up today."

They did, but so did the rest of the defense. Carter said they played as one and did so by shutting the outside noise out.

"I love it," Carter said. "Our Philly fans are crazy. They with us sometimes and they against us sometimes. At the end of the day, it's all love. We know that we got each other in this locker room. As long as long as everybody in this locker room is connected, we could be as great as possible."

Can the Eagles build off this effort? Is the defense more like this one or the one from the first two weeks or somewhere in the middle? Time will tell.