The start was not great.

The Eagles won the toss that featured identical twins for the day, Sidney and Chase Brown, and made what became almost organizational. They postponed.

Joe Burrow and the Bengals promptly went on a methodical 17-play, 70-yard drive with five third-down conversions that took up over two-thirds of the first quarter, 10:04 minutes to be exact, the longest opening drive in the NFL this season.

It was going to be a long day for the Philadelphia defense, right?

Instead, the Eagles went on an impressive course correction, allowing just 10 points the rest of the way en route to an easy 37-17, organization-first victory in Cincinnati.

“You all think they’re going to beat us that much?” middle linebacker Nakobe Dean asked rhetorically. “… It was a good game. We knew who we were playing. We knew (Burrow) could make a lot of throws and guys who make their game can catch and make a lot of plays. For us just to keep them at 17 points, which according to our standards is the base point. But there are a lot of things we can clean up.

“That first lead, they held it for 10 minutes. We couldn’t get off the field on third down. So there were a lot of things we can clean up — offense and defense.”

Vic Fangio’s drive recovered to hold the Bengals to under 300 yards of total offense (280) and also generated two punt returns where the Eagles showed their growing chemistry on defense.

On the way to superstar Ja’Marr Chase, Isaiah Rodgers, filling in for an injured Darius Slay, threw the ball from the Burrow right into the hands of CJ Gardner-Johnson. Later, with Cincinnati in desperation mode, a Burrow layup by Mike Gesicki was taken out by a short left-handed “Peanut Punch” by Zack Baun that Dean pounced on.

“It was big, just because we fought over food.” Dean said. “I mean, the drills we took — turnover drills, snaps, interceptions. It was definitely big when Zack forced my balloon. It’s something we’ve been working on like crazy in the linebacker room. I was trying to see who would get it first. So for him to set the ball rolling, I was excited to go celebrate. the ball) to no one but him because I worked on it.”

The Eagles defense now looks for success after two consecutive games without allowing a TD followed by limiting a Burrow-led offense.

“Win, dominate, execute,” Dean said. “I don’t really know how to feel. . . . For us, it’s the same every week. We’re going to come in, we’re going to dominate. We know we’re playing a really good quarterback, with a real quarterback. Good offense, probably one of the best with that we’re going to face. We had a plan, we stuck to the plan, like we do every week.”

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