PITTSBURGH (93.7 The Fan) – The Eagles won a world championship last year, but one of their starters, now with the Steelers, says there are similarities right now between the teams.
Philly was 1-1 after two weeks in 2024, giving up 51 points with only three sacks on a defense with high expectations. The Eagles reached the bye week at 2-2 with losses to Atlanta and Tampa Bay.
“I just came from that in Philly,” Slay said. “Same kind of schedule, the first four weeks we didn’t play as well as we needed to. Then we had a bye week coming up, same thing in the schedule, we have a bye week in Week 4.”
“We were not living up to the standard in Philly at the time, right now we as a group, we aren’t playing to our full potential either. We ended up being the number one defense and the Super Bowl champion.”
“High hopes for the same thing with this team as well. Thankfully it’s early and we can learn from our mistakes and keep getting better and keep building off each and every week to prepare to be great.”
Philadelphia would lose one more game the rest of the year and their defense only gave up more than 23 points one time, including only 22 to the Chiefs in the Super Bowl.
Slay said what inspired the turnaround after the break was a ‘good talk with each other as men’. He said they sat down and talked about their main goal, to win. It doesn’t matter how it happens, they have to win. The defense took it upon themselves to led the way to a championship.
He said the same qualities are here.
“We got a lot of guys in this building that are great veterans, Hall of Famer guys,” Slay said. “Everybody knows what it takes to get to the next level. Everybody just had a different way of getting there. Guys have to put their collective minds together and try to find a way to help this team get better.”
Communication has been an issue and not just with a point person signaling in a play, he said all have to talk more. They are not on the same page. He noted having guys in different positions due to injuries to Joey Porter, Junior and DeShon Elliott. Safety Chuck Clark, who started against Seattle, wasn’t with the team until a couple of days into training camp and the potential to add Jabrill Peppers to the mix after he was just signed last week. He said they aren’t going to blame that, rather they have to get past it and communicate better.
“Dialing in, it’s more of a want than anything,” Slay said. “Go out there and know your assignment. Do a little extra work extra, meetings, whatever needs to be done. Everyone in here is a professional.”
He said he’s seen the extra effort. The guys continue to meet after practice and meetings. The 34-year-old said they need to keep working, keep practicing and build off every day.