The Eagles defense has been helped by great performances by its backups like Najee Goode here against the Redskins. Photo by Todd Bauders/ contrastphotography .com

With 11:01 left In the fourth quarter against the Green Bay Packers at the iconic Lambeau Field, Nick Foles was sacked and fumbled the ball away at the Eagles 13-yard line.

The score was 27-13, Eagles, plenty of time for two scores to tie the game.

The Packers were down to third string quarterback Scott Tolzien, who had played well in place of Seneca Wallace who left the game midway through the first quarter with a groin injury. Wallace was in for Pro Bowl signal caller Aaron Rogers who is out with a shoulder injury.

The Eagles defense gave up just six yards and got the ball back four plays later when Tolzien’s pass to Jordy Nelson fell short right and the Pack turned the ball over on downs.

The Eagles offense, starting on the eight-yard line, held the ball for the final 9:32 of the game. Those two possessions may end up as the the Eagles signature on the 2013 season.

LeSean McCoy, who accounted for 41 rushing yards on final drive, said when the defense plays well it take the pressure off them to score on every possession.

“Every series, it’s not like we have to score, where you’re pressing and pressing,” McCoy said. “We’re just going out there and playing ball. We know that if there is a mistake, the defense can kind of have our backs and cover for us.”

If you take a close look at the Eagles defense, it is not a unit that is still getting its act together. The Birds defense has become a consistent asset and many consider the main reason they are in the hunt for the NFC East title.

After their 24-16 win over the Washington Redskins, breaking the 10-game losing streak at Lincoln Financial Field, the Eagles went into the bye week with a 6-5 record, a three-game winning streak and first place in the NFC East with five games remaining.

When told at a recent press gathering, his defense had not given up many points since the 52-20 loss to the Denver Broncos back on September 29, Eagles head coach Chip Kelly set the record straight for the defense.

“14 of those points were given up on special teams,” he chimed referring to the Bronos game. “We had a punt block for touchdown and kickoff return for touchdown. But I think our defense just this year has improved on a weekly basis. The more familiarity our coaches have with our players, our players have with our coaches, they keep going on a weekly basis, and we have improved. And that’s what we stressed since day one here.

“We knew it wasn’t going to be come in on day one and this is how it’s going to be, whether it’s offensively, defensively or special teams, but there’s been a weekly improvement with them. And I’m really happy with where they are now. And I know we can get better. I think they know they can get better. And that’s what we’re working on every day in practice.”

For the purposes of this article, we are going to start with the game after the Denver loss.

In the seven games since Denver, the Eagles have allowed just 122 points total (17.4 per game). The Birds are 5-2 in that run and could have been better if the offense had not struggled so badly in the Dallas and Giants games that were both played at home.

The play of middle linebacker DeMeco Ryans surely is a big reason for the success of this unit. He is undeniably the leader of his squad.

“DeMeco is the leader of our defense and he’s having an outstanding Pro Bowl year and we couldn’t be happier with everything DeMeco is doing for us,” Defensive coordinator Bill Davis said recently. “He quarterbacks the defense – we give him a lot of leeway. He can get us in and out of defenses. Gets us in the best defense possible, and as the season has gone on we as a staff have gotten more and more comfortable in his ability to put us in good situations, and he has, and from there he’s done a great job playing the middle linebacker position, between tackle to tackle, he is a force. Whether it’s crossing routes he’s knocking out or his inside run game that he’s tackling. He had one of the best form tackles I’ve seen in a long time last week (Green Bay). We couldn’t be happier with DeMeco.”

Helping the Eagles defense has been the play of in-season signings of players like defensive back Roc Carmichael and linebacker Najee Goode.

Because of recent injuries to cornerback Bradley Fletcher (pectoral), linebacker Mychal Kendricks (knee), linebacker Jake Knott (hamstring), safety Earl Wolff (knee) and S Micheal Chung (Shoulder), these two were pressed into duty and performed well.

“The one thing I love about Roc, he’s an unbelievable competitor,” said Kelly referring to Carmichael who is generously listed at 5-foot-10, 197 pounds. “From the first day he got here he’s kind of shown up and he rises to the challenge that’s presented to him. Obviously we’d like all our corners to be 6-2 plus and long and that’s the ideal world. But that’s not the makeup. There’s not a ton of them out there. But what Roc does is he competes, and I think that was very evident when we first got here just from how he was playing on special teams. And then when you start to get him out there on one-on-ones and seven-on-seven in practice, you watch him continue to compete against DeSean [Jackson] and Riley [Cooper] and watching him make plays and seeing him to continue to develop.

“And I was really excited with how he played against Green Bay in his first start up there,” Kelly continued. “And it helps. It helps because you’re never going to make it through the season with everybody healthy. When we lost Fletch, to have a guy like Roc available to us, I think it was a great addition for us.”

Davis spoke about Goode and the backups stepping in as well as his coaching staff.

“He (Goode) had a nice game with limited reps,” Davis said. “The guys that had to step in, it says a lot to the position coaches and how well they had these guys prepared. We had two or three guys that had to step into a major role and they stepped up and handled their own, and Najee was one of them. I think he had a good start this week. Taking more of the reps will help and just continue his growth. But we were very impressed with the way he played one game so far.”

Still the doubts are there and will remain until this team wins a division or makes the playoffs. Defensive lineman Cedric Thornton was asked recently why some people do not take this unit seriously.

“We don’t make excuses for ourselves and we don’t let anyone make excuses for us,” said Thornton, who has emerged as one of the best linemen on the team. “We could make a lot of excuses too. We definitely want to become a playoff defense, then go from there to win a playoff game. For now we just take it one game at a time.”

That’s all they can do.