The defense propped the Eagles up all season. On Sunday, it bent, broke, and the 49ers advanced.

In the days leading up to the Eagles’ Dec. 28 road game at the Buffalo Bills, defensive assistant Jeremiah Washburn, who coaches the Eagles edge rushers, handed out a new accessory to the entire defensive line.

The green bracelet has “Isaiah 6:8″ and the phrase “send me” written in white. In the Bible verse, the prophet Isaiah hears the voice of God ask: “Whom shall I send? And who will go for us?” Isaiah responds: “Here I am. Send me.”

That, defensive tackle Moro Ojomo said, was the mindset of the entire defensive line. And the entire Eagles’ defense.

“Send us,” Ojomo said as he fiddled with the bracelet on his left wrist. “We want to be the ones to get the job done.”

For most of the 2025 season, especially after the Eagles’ Week 9 bye, the defense answered the call. Vic Fangio’s unit propped up an inconsistent offense. It stifled good offenses and carried the team to victories that maybe it didn’t deserve. The Eagles beat Green Bay 10-7. They beat Detroit 16-9. They won that Bills game, 13-12. They entered the postseason, in what was a wide-open NFL playoffs, with a puncher’s chance to repeat as Super Bowl champions in large part because they had the talent on defense and Fangio, the mastermind, calling the shots.

The season ended in abrupt fashion Sunday for myriad reasons, but the San Francisco 49ers advanced to the NFC’s divisional round in part because the Eagles didn’t have enough answers defensively down the stretch. The 49ers scored two fourth-quarter touchdowns. They had a 10-play, 66-yard touchdown drive that lasted more than five minutes and ended with less than three minutes on the clock.

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The strength of the Eagles defense was its ability to limit explosive plays and clamp down in the red zone.

The 49ers threw the first haymaker. Lincoln Financial Field roared after Will Shipley crunched Brian Robinson on the opening kickoff and then the Eagles stuffed Christian McCaffrey’s first rushing attempt on San Francisco’s first play for a loss of one yard. But then Quinyon Mitchell allowed a 61-yard catch-and-run from Brock Purdy to Demarcus Robinson that set the 49ers up in the red zone at the Eagles’ 16-yard line. Four plays later, Purdy hit Robinson, who beat Mitchell for a 2-yard touchdown and the game’s first points.

“I got to start the game off faster,” Mitchell said. “Maybe that could’ve changed the game in a way.”

Mitchell would eventually atone. The Eagles forced punts on the next two San Francisco drives before allowing a field goal and then later stopping the 49ers as the second quarter ended. Mitchell then picked Purdy off on the 49ers’ first drive of the second half. He had another interception in the fourth quarter, too, but after the 49ers added another score.

San Francisco, which was already banged up and lost star tight end George Kittle to an Achilles injury in the second quarter, dipped into the bag of tricks to open the fourth quarter. Out of the timeout, Kyle Shanahan dialed up a trick play, a reverse that found the ball in the hands of Jauan Jennings, who threw on the move to a streaking and wide-open McCaffrey for a 29-yard score.

“We knew they liked to do some sort of trickery down in the red zone,” safety Reed Blankenship said. “We were just in a different call that allowed him to sneak through.”

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The Eagles took the lead back on a Jake Elliott field goal with eight minutes to play. The defense needed to deliver one final stop. Instead, the 49ers moved the ball with ease. The Eagles, who sacked Purdy once on the day, applied pressure at times, but not enough. Purdy felt the pressure and was excellent in escaping it. The 49ers didn’t face a third down on that 10-play, game-winning drive until the play they scored on, a 4-yard pass from Purdy to McCaffrey on third-and-goal. The 49ers converted six of their 11 third-down attempts.

“They just made more plays than we did,” Blankenship said.

Shanahan, Ojomo said, “is a hell of an offensive play-caller.”

“At the end of the day, he kind of had a better plan and we should have executed at a higher level,” Ojomo said. “You got to play complementary football. After our scores, we needed to stop them. When we get turnovers, we need scores. We didn’t do that at a high enough level to win. That’s kind of the result when you’re in the playoffs. You’re playing good teams every week. You can’t have any hiccups.”

Especially not with an offense that rarely allowed for wiggle room. It was a lot to ask if the Eagles were going to try to repeat. The offense did not permit much in the way of a margin for error. It is a taxing way to play football, and it’s taxing on a defense that got better as the year went on. Ojomo, though, wanted to look only internally.

“You could always get one more stop, one more turnover,” he said. “At the end of the day, we fell short as a defense. They don’t score, they don’t win. We didn’t get the job done.”

The defense will look different next season. Blankenship is one of a few key free agents. The loss, he said, was tough.

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“This is one of the toughest things about football and about life,” he said. “You go through the challenges throughout the year, training camp, whatever. You create this relationship and these bonds and it ends so fast. You’re not really prepared for it and it’s tough.”

How will the 2025 defense be remembered? It was the year of Jordan Davis’ breakout. Mitchell and Cooper DeJean, both second-year players, were named first-team All-Pros. Brandon Graham came out of retirement. Ojomo stepped in for a key free agent, Milton Williams, and shined.

“I think everybody will just remember this game,” Blankenship said. “That’s the last game we played in and it wasn’t us.”

You’re only as good as your last, they say.

“You lose in the first round of the playoffs, I don’t think you’re remembered much,” Ojomo said. “That’s effed up. This defense played our tail off all year, young and hungry and filled with a bunch of guys who are selfless.”

Washburn, Ojomo said, handed those bracelets out to provide some perspective. The message, he said, was received. The defense wanted to be the unit that carried the Eagles.

“It’s sad,” Ojomo said. “I loved being on this defense.”