"Know what is behind you, and pay particular attention to anything out of place" -- Jeff Cooper

If you're a fan of the fading Philadelphia Eagles, you—like a lot of others—are asking, "Hey, what's wrong with the defense?"

My take on it all would be, "Hey, why can't an All-World offense take the air out of the ball and kill the clock with a lead at the end of games?" Maybe that's just me, though.

But where there's smoke, there's fire. And some of the smoke emanating from the defense of rookie coordinator Juan Castillo [helmetless above, left]is coming from his own locker room.

Dominique Rodgers-Cromartie—big on name, but small on play—may be the softest guy in a uniform at an Eagles game since Santa visited, but his words after last Monday night's devastating loss to the Bears are instructive:

"Yeah, I would like to be [playing on the] outside. At the nickel, it's a lot of thinking. Any time as a player, you go into the game and you're always thinking, you tend to play slower. In some calls, I'm a little confused."

Okay, let's set aside the fact that he's admitting that his understanding of the playbook isn't what it needs to be. And that he still hadn't practiced the plays enough—after 8 games—for them to become second nature yet. Or that his pissing and moaning here worsens the fact that he doesn't appear to be giving a full effort on the field. Let's hear him out:

"There's a lot of communication errors, I can tell you that. Certain combinations coming out, and then you don't get the [defensive] call out in time. And then when the plays come, it's too late to get [the call] out."

Who knows if any of that is true, or just mega-excuse-making? Still, would he dare to even say that if he was playing for a well-respected, veteran defensive guru. He plays for newbie Juan Castillo, though. Why take the blame for your own play yourself when the inexperienced D.C. is a sitting duck for blame?

Castillo may not totally stink, as many have written, but he clearly isn't commanding a lot of respect. Here's a quote from Joselio Hanson that's not exactly a ringing endorsement of Castillo's strategies:

"I'm not the boss here. I'm just a worker. When they tell me to go in, I go in."

To be fair, let's hear from Castillo himself, these particular quotes made after the Birds went belly up to the 2-6 Cardinals at home, with Phoenix playing their back-up quarterback:

"I gotta do a better job, man. I gotta do a better job. Simple as that."

When pressed about the coverage on the game's big play, a 37-yard catch by Pro Bowler Larry Fitzgerald who was being covered by untested rookie Jaiquawn Jarrett, Castillo remarked:

"Sometimes you play man underneath with a safety behind."

Safety Kurt Coleman's take on the play:

"We were in a combination coverage on the play. Not everyone made the right response. We just didn't get it done. We had a mental error and didn't get it done."

So who blew the coverage?

Pro Bowler Asante Samuel:

"It was kind of a zone. We had one guy on the inside [Hanson], one guy on the outside [Samuel himself] and one guy over the top [Jarrett]."

Right there, it sounds like Samuel was the one who played the wrong coverage and released the dangerous Fitzgerald to a rookie in the Red Zone with no help.

It doesn't really matter, though. It's crystal that all of these guys—after 9 full games—are not on the same page.

And until everyone is playing the same defense on the same play in the same game, and possibly playing it with some urgency and even some malicious intent, figure to continue seeing the Eagles cough up late leads into the foreseeable future…