"Hit him hard. Hit him high. Hit him low," the Eagles defensive end said yesterday.

First, though, the Eagles will have to carve out a few pathways to get to the 23-year-old Flacco, the Ravens' first-round draft choice from Audubon High and the University of Delaware.

The best way to do that, the Eagles know all too well, is to disrupt Flacco's comfort by keeping the Ravens' running attack under control.

Baltimore's running game ranks third in the NFL, with Willis McGahee, Ray Rice, and 260-pound fullback Leron McClain working behind a big, physical offensive line. No one appreciates those guys more than Flacco because they frequently put him in third-and-short situations, which gives him several options and keeps a defense guessing.

The Eagles' defense, tied for the NFL lead in sacks with 36, thrives on third and long because that's when the blitzes designed by defensive coordinator Jim Johnson can be most effectively employed.

"I think right now we're saying we've got to get this team in third down and long," said Johnson, pointing toward Sunday's critical game at M&T Bank Stadium in Baltimore. "You want to make sure you stop the running game, which is a good running game. This quarterback is very good - a lot of quarterbacks are good when it's third and 3, third and 4, third and 5. They're doing a good job with that, and that's why they're one of the NFL's top teams in third-down conversions. Yeah, we've got to force him into third-and-long situations, and that means stopping the run."

The Eagles have taken this approach in three games against teams with powerful running games. It didn't work against the Giants and Redskins, who bullied them for 219 and 203 yards on the ground, respectively. The Eagles lost both games. It worked against Atlanta. They held the Falcons to 77 rushing yards and won.

The difference? Like the Ravens, the Falcons have a rookie quarterback who also happens to have local ROOTs - Matt Ryan, who played at Penn Charter and Boston College. By holding down Atlanta running back Michael Turner, the Eagles forced Ryan to beat them, which is a lot to ask of any rookie quarterback against a quality defense. Ryan was intercepted twice and sacked twice, and the Falcons were held to 14 points.

"Any time you have a quarterback who's new in the league, you want to come after him," Eagles safety Quintin Mikell said. "When we play good against the run, we play well overall. If we come out and do whatever it takes to stop the run, we should be all right."

In planning against the Eagles' blitzes, Flacco has the luxury of learning from Ravens coach Jim Harbaugh, who worked under Johnson as secondary coach before taking the Baltimore job before this season.

"Jim has got a pretty exotic [blitz] package," Harbaugh said. "Now, if he comes up with a new blitz we haven't seen before, it'll be a new blitz nobody's seen before. He's got them all. We're going to have to anticipate a little bit how he's going to attack our protections, a what-if type of deal. He'll have a couple of blitzes ready for every type of protection we've run, so that's part of the guessing game."

For the most part, rookie quarterbacks have been confounded by Johnson's blitz schemes. The Eagles are 9-3 against rookie quarterbacks since Johnson became defensive coordinator in 1999, holding them to a 50.9 percent completion rate. Those quarterbacks have combined for 11 touchdowns and 12 interceptions.

Nonetheless, Johnson sounded genuinely impressed by Flacco, as he was with Ryan. He said he's never seen a rookie quarterback with Flacco's arm strength.

"I haven't seen this guy in person," Johnson said. "I hear he's 6-6. Yeah, he's got a gun. We always emphasize getting our hands up, but I'm not sure our hands are long enough, or our arms. He hasn't had any batted balls. He's just got a rocket.

"Him and Ryan, I can't believe how well they're playing. Really. They're not making many mistakes. The thing that complements them is they've both got good running games, and they're managing the game. They're not getting themselves in trouble."

Cole, who has three sacks in the last two games, boiled down the Eagles' strategy to the basics.

"We have to see if he can handle the pressure from us," he said.

Contact staff writer Ray Parrillo at 215-854-2743 or rparrillo@phillynews.com.