Les Bowen: Further review: Red light in the red zone

MAYBE THE MOST surprising thing about the Eagles' 45-19 victory over the New York Jets was what happened in the red zone.

The Jets came in with the top red-zone offense in the NFL. The Eagles had the 30th-ranked red-zone defense. So the Jets made it to the Birds' red zone five times. And scored only twice, one of those a meaningless late TD to Plaxico Burress, setting the final score.

Until the past few weeks, the Eagles' inability to improve significantly on their historically bad 2010 red-zone defense, despite adding Jason Babin, Nnamdi Asomugha, Cullen Jenkins, and several other guys, was the most damning indictment of Juan Castillo's brief tenure as defensive coordinator. Suddenly, the defense seems to be coming together, overall and in the red zone. Going on the road and holding the Dolphins to 1-for-3 was encouraging, but it was the Dolphins, after all. The Jets, with Shonn Greene, LaDainian Tomlinson, Dustin Keller, Santonio Holmes and Burress - that was different.

The Eagles still came out of the weekend ranked 30th, but 2 weeks ago, their opponents were 24-for-34 on red-zone touchdowns. Three-for-eight since then gets them to 27-for-42. Six teams, including the Patriots and the Giants, actually have given up more red-zone touchdowns than the Eagles now, some of them just have better percentages.

The first Jets red-zone possession Sunday set the tone. New York had the ball on the Eagles' 14 after a Jets punt took a strange bounce and hit the Eagles' Curtis Marsh, who was blocking for DeSean Jackson. A Greene run went for no gain. On second down, Mark Sanchez threw a little high for Holmes, who whiffed on the catch, batting the ball to Asante Samuel.

It was 28-0 before the Jets got into the red zone again, thanks to a 41-yard pass to Keller. They had second-and-5 from the Birds' 15 when Phillip Hunt sacked Sanchez, who then threw a pass that nickel linebacker Keenan Clayton broke up, forcing Nick Folk's 39-yard field goal. The Eagles called timeout before the third-down play, then seemed to have it schemed perfectly, not something often said about critical situations earlier in the season.