Eagles v. Giants, Sunday 1/1/09

First of all, let me say how excited I am that you are reading the first post of this blog, which I hope to continue through next season. I wanted to get one in before Sunday's game.

The Eagles face off against the Giants sunday in what figures to be an icy, windy game with snow or sleet still possible at game time. Below I look at some of the keys to the game for the eagles.

1. The most important factor in this game for both teams will be Red Zone and Pink Zone (40 to the goal line) productivity. Neither team has been particularly strong in the Red Zone and weather conditions, coupled with the usual swirling winds in the craphole that is Giant Stadium, are likely to cause problems for the kicking game. For the Eagles I'd like to see quick passes, let the outside guys clear out the safeties and bring the slot receivers, B-west, Buck, and Celek across the middle where they can get some rac. The eagles need to continue to shut down opponents' TE's in the red zone and they need to be careful about staying disciplined against screen or draw plays to Ward. Also on less than 1 yard situations, please please please sneak McNabb.
2. RUN THE BALL. Last week Andy showed impressive discipline by sticking to the run even when B-West was averaging under 2 yards per carry. It is imperative that the play-calling continues to maintain some degree of balance to limit the Giants' ability to anticipate pass. The extra half step the Eagle offensive players can gain by forcing the Giants to analyze pass v. run will be crucial. Additionally this will hopefully open up some opportunities for play action pass. With the weather conditions, I'd like to see the play action used to set up some 10 or 20 yard in-breaking routes over the middle of the field instead of for deep go-routes. If they can run with some effectiveness, they should be able to get the Giants safeties (who are just average) to bite on play action and leave the seam open for some of our faster receivers (like Curtis or Jackson).

3. Click Early on Offense (and get touchdowns early). Brandon Jacobs is an average running back in this league. He does not cut that well and his field vision is average, but he wears defenses down. Like Marion Barber, he gets more effective as the game goes on. To shut down Jacobs, the eagles need to force the giants into throwing situations in the second half and limit Jacobs's carries as the defense grows tired. An early lead will help with this.

4. Beat the Giants receivers in Man-Coverage. The Giants have been without their best (if most idiotic) skill player for the last quarter of the season. This Giants team is not as good as the team that won it all last year. They miss Strahan and Osi, but the biggest difference is Plax. Plax completley changed what defenses could do against the Giants. Now the eagles don't have to worry about him; they can blitz much more if our corners can man-up against Hixon, Toomer, and Smith, and Mikell can take Boss out of the game. More importantly though, success in man coverage will enable us to shut down the running game by playing B-Dawk as an 8th man in the box. B-Dawk has experienced a resurrection in his career in the past two months, as has been widely noted. What no one seems to talk about, however, is how much his position has changed. Gone are the days of Dawkins coming from twenty yards across the field to separate a downfield receiver from a deep-ball (but that's ok, when Samuel, Brown, Mikell, and Hanson, are playing like beasts in coverage). Instead Jim Johnson has done a masterful job of redeploying B-Dawk up close to the line of scrimmage, where his punishing hitting, nose for the ball, ad general football instincts have once again made him an incredible asset to this defense and a player that opposing offenses once again have to account for, and often fear. If the Eagles can handle the G-men receivers in man coverage, we can blitz on passing downs and keep using B-Dawk as a hybrid d-back/linebacker in possible running situations, and this will make it very difficult for the Gaints to establish an offensive rhythm.

5. Make it impossible for the Giants to get pressure from the front four only. If the eagles do this as well as they did in the last game at the Meadowlands, Donovan should be able to pick apart the giants back 7.

6. Eagles DT play, plus Trent Cole. The starting DTs and Trent Cole have commanded such extra blocking help that they have opened all sorts of things up in the running game for blitizing Lb's and for B-Dawk. Bunkley has been a beast, regularly eating up two blockers and still holding the point of attack. Bradley, Jordan, and Gocong flow nicely to the ball, but it has been the line play that has made this team so much better at defending the run than last year's and especially the team from two years ago that lost to the Saints b/c of their run defense. On passing downs, Cole continuing to be dominant coupled with continued strong pressure up the middle from Howard and hopefully Abiamiri will force Eli to move around more than he would like in the pocket and hopefully produce errant throws. (A couple drops like the one by Hixon in the first quarter of the last game would help too).

7. Do not overpursue against Derrick Ward. Derrick Ward is a good, shifty weapon on screens and draws. Bradley and Gocong need to be careful not to overpursue. On the long A.P. TD last week Bradley hit the b-gap blitz too hard, but even more problematically, Gocong seriously overpursued (watch him on the end zone camera replay if you have the game on tape) and dove to make a tackle. When Gocong missed, he left the whole middle of the field open for Peterson.

8. As always win the turnover battle and win on special teams. If Rocca, Demps, and Jackson keep doing how they been, the latter should not be a problem.

Everyone enjoy the game. Go birds!
E-A-G-L-E-S Eagles!