How Darius Slay turned the calendar back to save the game originally appeared on NBC Sports Philadelphia
His birth certificate says he’s 33 and turns 34 in three weeks.
On the biggest play of the game Sunday, Darius Slay turned the calendar back about a decade.
The Panthers, trailing 22-16, found themselves with a 4th-and-9 on the Eagles’ 37-yard-line with 37 seconds left Sunday at the Linc.
Panthers quarterback Bryce Young had already converted three fourth downs, two on completions to Adam Thielen, and that’s where he went on the pivotal fourth down with the game on the line.
For a moment, Thielen was open, and for a moment the ball was headed his way, and for a moment it looked like the Panthers would have a fresh set of downs inside the Eagles’ 20-yard-line with all the momentum in the world and a chance to win the game.
And then Slay came out of nowhere.
“Shoot, you know, Bryce was making a play, he was trying to scramble and make a play, he was trying to scramble and make a play,” Slay said. “He’s doing a great job of that, but I just knew one thing about Thielen, man, playing him so long at Minnesota that he’s great at scramble drill, just keep working toward the quarterback.
“So I came from all the way on the other side (of the field). I was gassed, and I was like, ‘Hey, if he throws this ball, I’m making a play. Thankfully, I did, because – woooooo – he was about to score that post ball.
“I was gassed. I was so gassed. He ran a good route. I was trying to guess. Guessed wrong. But then the Lord blessed me to give me another chance to make another play.”
Slay closed on Thielen in the last few desperate seconds before the ball arrived and batted it harmlessly away. The Eagles had their ninth straight win and an 11-2 record and later Sunday afternoon, they clinched a playoff berth for the fourth straight year.
Slay has dealt with a lot of injuries this year. Since week five, he’s missed two entire games and left three others early. But the Eagles really needed him Sunday, more than usual with Reed Blankenship out with a concussion. And he responded with his best game of the year. He had six tackles and two breakups, the other also coming on fourth down on the Panthers’ previous 4th-quarter drive.
When Nick Sirianni elected to punt with three minutes left instead of asking slumping kicker Jake Elliott to attempt a 54-yard field goal that could have given the Eagles a two-possession lead, he was essentially saying he trusts the defense more than the kicker.
Which is understandable considering Elliott is now an NFL-worst 0-for-5 from 50 yards and out.
Slay said he and a few others urged Sirianni to punt and leave the game in the hands of the defense.
“We about playing ball, we’ve been playing great defense, we should have played better, but at the end of the day we want that pressure on the defense,” he said. “The offense, they do a great job at doing what they do, but we want the endgame.”
This was Slay’s first game since he suffered a concussion in the second quarter against the Rams.
He gave up a 13-yarder to Thielen in the first quarter and a 19-yarder to David Moore in the second quarter but didn’t give up anything after that.
“They got me two catches early, but other than that I was locked in,” Slay said. “That’s football. Everybody’s going to make plays, but it’s about who’s going to be the toughest longest and I was the toughest longest.”
Slay hasn’t had an interception in his last 18 games and he has just two in his last 34 games going back Week 6 of the 2022 season. He’s not the elite corner he used to be. There won’t be a Pro Bowl for Slay this year for only the second time in the last eight seasons.
But he’s still a solid pro. And with the game on the line Sunday, he came up huge.
“Our guys played their butts off for 60 minutes,” Nick Sirianni said. “It’s the NFL. It’s tough. But our guys played hard, and they played hard for 60 minutes and it showed up on that last play.”
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