Charles Tillman Philadelphia EaglesAssociated Press photo

Nine minutes into the NFC Championship Game last week, Jayden Daniels hit Dyami Brown on a short pass. Tied up by Eagles rookie Cooper DeJean, Brown never saw it coming. Instead of assisting DeJean on the tackle, linebacker Zack Baun delivered a textbook Peanut Punch — the first turnover of the playoffs for Washington.

Reed Blankenship recovered Brown’s fumble and, six plays later, Saquon Barkley was in the end zone to give the Eagles took a 14-3 lead. After that key play, Philadelphia never looked back in a 55-23 win. Last week, Nick Sirianni said Baun’s punch was something the Eagles coach on a weekly basis with help from VP of football technology Patrick Dolan.

“Every team meeting, we’re looking at good strip attempts or missed strip-attempt opportunities,” the Philadelphia head coach said Tuesday. “This year, Pat Dolan, our video guy, got me every Peanut Punch that he forced a fumble with over his entire career. We watched that on a loop as coaches, and then we showed that to the players as well. So, we emphasize the crap out of it because we know it’s such a telling stat in this game. Our guys have done a nice job protecting it. Our defensive guys have done a nice job taking it away, as well as our special-teams guys.”

That’s news to the namesake of the signature move, a humbled Charles “Peanut” Tillman. The former cornerback played 12 years with the Bears before finishing his career with the Panthers in 2015 and, incredibly, forced 45 fumbles (including playoffs). On Monday, Tillman told Jamie Erdahl on Good Morning Football he was unaware the Eagles had been showing his highlights all season. He also shared the origin of the game-changing play, which started his first year at Louisiana. Just two hours from the site of Sunday’s Super Bowl LIX, Tillman got some good postgame advice after outlasting Wofford in overtime, 37-34, and the team’s triple-option offense.

“I remember I played free safety in that game and I had about 20 tackles and all I did was just run the alleys and nobody blocked me. And one of my coaches, Coach Rodney Southern, he coached me in high school … he basically just said my guy was the pitch guy; that was my responsibility. So, I just kept getting the pitch guy. And he goes, ‘Man, if you just want to punch or swat it, you’d have 10 forced fumbles along with your 20 tackles.’

“So, in college, I was notoriously known for running guys down, securing the tackle, and punching it out. I was so good at it, I would purposely take bad angles just to get behind the guy and punch it out so he wouldn’t see it coming.”

NFL players could see it coming, though, so Tillman knew he had to adjust to next-level speed after the Bears selected him in the second round of the 2003 NFL Draft.

“My very first game we played in San Francisco, I was a gunner,” he said. “I was a really good gunner. … First game of the season, and whoever the return man was, making his moves, didn’t see me coming and the ball was kind of up here and I was just kind of punching it and I got it out and I was like, ‘Oh yeah, I can do this.’ It just gave me even more confidence.

“I started it in college and just kind of over the years perfected it, got pretty good, got good with my left hand. So, it was like a boxer; you got to have a good right, got to have a good left. So, yeah, it’s become a part of me.”

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By Zak Gilbert

Since his freshman year at the University of Colorado, Zak Gilbert has worked 30 years in sports, including 18 NFL seasons. He's spent time with four NFL teams, serving as head of communications for both the Raiders and Browns. A veteran of nine Super Bowls, he most recently worked six seasons in the NFL's New York league office.

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