Eagles newcomers Kevin Byard and Bradley Roby turned away the Chiefs offense in a second-half shutout

KANSAS CITY, Mo. — Moments before he trotted out of the tunnel on Monday night at Arrowhead Stadium, home to the defending Super Bowl champion Kansas City Chiefs, nickel cornerback Bradley Roby slipped on his jersey bearing a number he wasn’t keen on initially.

Faced with slim pickings among the available jersey numbers when he signed with the Eagles’ practice squad in early October, Roby settled on No. 33, coming around on it when he realized it belonged to two-time Pro Bowl cornerback Charles “Peanut” Tillman of the Chicago Bears. In the fourth quarter on Monday, when the Chiefs were driving at the Eagles’ 14-yard line, looking to add to their 17-14 lead, Roby made a play reminiscent of the Bears great represented on his back.

Roby executed a perfect “Peanut Punch” and stripped the ball out of tight end Travis Kelce’s hands to force a fumble. Inside linebacker Nicholas Morrow recovered the ball, marking one key play of many that led to the Eagles’ second-half shutout of the Chiefs’ offense. By keeping the Chiefs off the scoreboard in the final 30 minutes of the game, the Eagles managed to claw back from a 10-point deficit at halftime to a 21-17 victory.

“If I can’t get close to the ball in the pass game, I always try to go for the ball with a punch-out,” Roby said. “So I just got lucky. And it was great timing, just where we were at on the field.”

Overall, quarterback Patrick Mahomes and the Chiefs’ offense had a decent night moving the ball, picking up 336 net yards. But they floundered in the red zone, scoring only twice on their four trips past the Eagles’ 20-yard line. Entering the game, the Eagles’ defense had struggled in the same area of the field, allowing opposing offenses to score on 64.3% of their trips (No. 28 in the league). Roby, who played his first game in three weeks after dealing with a shoulder injury, came up with a critical red-zone turnover.

A second newcomer to the Eagles’ defense this season, safety Kevin Byard, contributed another red-zone turnover earlier in the game. Again, when the Chiefs were at the Eagles’ 14, Mahomes threw an interception in the end zone to Byard, whom the Eagles acquired at the trade deadline from the Tennessee Titans. Neither turnover led to points for the Eagles offense, but both plays kept the Chiefs off the board.

“Honestly, if they don’t make those plays, who knows what the score looks like,” edge rusher Haason Reddick said. “Even if it came down to field goals. We only won by four. So if those two possessions turned into two field goals, they’re up six at the end of the day. So they made excellent plays both, KB, Roby, man.”

Before Monday night, the Eagles ranked No. 29 in passing yards against (257 yards per game). The secondary held the Chiefs to just 168 passing yards, which marks their lowest total since Week 6 against the New York Jets (155 passing yards) and their third-lowest of the season.

Byard was also a part of defensive coordinator Sean Desai’s scheme to limit Kelce’s impact in the passing game. The eight-time Pro Bowl tight end had seven receptions for 44 yards and a touchdown, but his longest gain was for just 13 yards. Of his 64 receptions this season, Kelce has six for 19 yards or more, including a 53-yard reception against the Los Angeles Chargers in Week 7.

“We know their offense runs through Kelce,” Byard said. “And obviously Mahomes making plays, scramble plays, off-script plays. I think we had a really good game plan as far as trying to take Kelce away. Obviously, he’s going to make plays. He’s a Hall of Fame tight end. He scored a touchdown there. But I think we did a good job of kind of neutralizing him as far as getting those. ... It’s catch, tackle. Catch, tackle. He wasn’t really getting those big gains and things like that.”

The secondary wasn’t the only group that had a notable night — the Eagles’ pass rush also came up big, especially on the Chiefs’ final drive of the game as they attempted a comeback. On third-and-10 at the Chiefs’ 49-yard line, edge rusher Josh Sweat nearly sacked Mahomes as he escaped the pocket. But Mahomes tossed the ball out of bounds and it did not reach the line of scrimmage, so the quarterback incurred a penalty for intentional grounding and a loss of down.

“I want the sack,” Sweat said. “But we won the game. That’s all that matters. However I can come through at the end of the game or in big moments.”

While the secondary surged and the pass rush closed out the game with Sweat’s big play, the Eagles’ run defense was uncharacteristically porous. Before the game, the Eagles boasted the league’s best run defense in terms of yards and points allowed, just 66.3 rushing yards per game.

But in the first half alone, the Chiefs racked up 121 yards on the ground on 20 carries, and Vineland native Isiah Pacheco led the way with 66. The run defense tightened up in the second half, limiting the Chiefs to just 47 yards on 10 carries.

“It was just more about us just being in our spots and being gritty,” defensive end Brandon Graham said. “It was going to be one of those where they were trying to get on our edges. We knew that. I think that we started doing a good job of just making sure that we stay with it, pressing.”

The Eagles are 9-1 and seldom have had easy wins, and Monday’s was as ugly as they come. But a win’s a win, and the gritty nature of the Eagles’ comeback filled Byard with pride.

“I think it’s just the belief and the resilience of this team to say, hey, no matter what type of game we’re being faced with, whatever adversity we’re faced with, we’re going to fight through it,” Byard said. “For the defense to get a shutout in the second half against those guys and obviously the offense coming on late there, that’s the definition of a team victory.”