If you didn't know that Jim Johnson had passed away, you might have thought that he was at Bank of America Stadium in Charlotte, dialing up blitzes at breakneck pace on Sunday, just as usual. Instead, though, it was young Sean McDermott, Johnson's successor, as Eagles' defensive coordinator, and you barely could tell the difference. The Eagles lambasted the Panthers with a series of Johnson-esque blitzes, controlling the action and negating a good Carolina run game, in a 38-10 win that was capped off by one final goal-line stand. For Jim, you might say.

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The defense logged five sacks, forced seven turnovers and held the Panthers to 169 yards (2.4 yards per play). After the first drive of the game, in which they allowed the Panthers to drive down the field 70 yards on 13 plays, the defense was relentless. It appeared as if McDermott was getting comfortable, feeling out the Panthers a bit. And as scouts will tell you, the Panthers typically come out with a very good "first 15" with offensive coordinator Jeff Davidson but often will struggle to adjust after that. That's exactly what happened.

Down 7-3, the Eagles turned up the heat immensely. They lined up in a formation with DEs Victor Abiamiri and Darren Howard as three-techniques, the only down linemen, and with Akeem Jordan and Omar Gaither as stand-up outside linebackers. Inside, Trent Cole — normally a defensive end by trade — was lined up in a "Joker" role, as a pseudo middle linebacker, and another end, Juqua Parker, was lined up directly to his left, overloading the gap that was manned by ORG Keydrick Vincent, who is considered the weak link on the Panthers' line in terms of handling quickness and speed.

It is a variation on the old "Okie" defense founded by Bud Wilkinson. Johnson did this for years with different players in the Joker spot: Jevon Kearse, Parker and Chris Clemons all have run it. And now McDermott was giving Cole a look there, a wonderful wrinkle on an old Johnson classic. The idea is for the Joker to just run full speed up into the "A" gap (on either side of the center, whichever one is most vulnerable) and go right at the quarterback. There are ways to stop it, but the Panthers clearly were caught with their pants down here.

Cole blitzed hard, and Panthers C Ryan Kalil was asked to pick his poison. He chose to help out on Parker with a screen play called, thinking that QB Jake Delhomme would be able to get rid of the ball quickly enough that Cole would not get there in time to disrupt the play. Kalil was wrong. Delhomme was stripped by Cole before he could throw the screen, and Abiamiri (allowed to release freely by Vincent, who was blocking for the screen) came in and scooped it up for the score.

The play set the tone for the entire game. Johnson made a living of pressuring opponents when they had crossed midfield, but McDermott also sent five- and six-man rushers on the Panthers' side of the 50-yard line once it was clear that Delhomme was out of rhythm and that his confidence was shot. They saw him become a turnover machine in the Panthers' playoff loss to the Cardinals and knew they had to pressure him early and often to get into his head again.

It didn't hurt that even when Delhomme had time to throw, he missed an open Steve Smith, who had gained a step on coverage (usually CB Asante Samuel). The Eagles ran bracket coverage on Smith — and rushed only four on the play — on 3rd-and-7 from the Panthers' 33-yard line, knowing that Delhomme probably would try to force the ball to his best receiver, with Smith having caught only one pass to that point. McDermott was right: Sheldon Brown, who already had one pick, grabbed his second interception of the game when Delhomme couldn't muster the arm strength to get the ball over the top to an open Smith.

The final blow was delivered early in the second half when the Panthers were down 31-10, facing 3rd-and-18 from their own 27. Why sit back when you can go after a wounded duck? The Eagles showed an all-out blitz, eventually sending five rushers, and forced Delhomme into a horrible throw, which was intercepted by Jordan. Cole provided the primary pressure on the play. The Eagles scored three plays later, although it would be the Donovan McNabb run on which he suffered a broken rib. Still, it capped off the scoring for the day and put a final stake into the Panthers.

McDermott was faced with a lot in his first official game calling the shots: MLBs Stewart Bradley and Joe Mays being out, the Panthers' strong run game and physical offensive line, a rookie starting in Brian Dawkins' old FS spot (fifth-rounder Macho Harris, a college cornerback) and the specter of Johnson hanging over him. He eliminated all of those hurdles and drew up a great game plan.

And in a nod to his mentor, McDermott inserted the starting defense for the final play of the game, on 4th-and-goal from the Eagles' 1. The game was out of hand by that point, but he wanted to keep the Panthers' score at 10. Johnson always wanted to hold his opponents to fewer than 17 points, something he once did for 21 straight games. Panthers RB DeAngelo Williams, who knows a thing or two about finding the endzone after scoring 20 TDs a season ago, was stung by Brodrick Bunkley and Parker for a one-yard loss to cap off the win. So much for that preseason talk that the Eagles' defense was going to take a step back this season. Not in the first game, anyway.