Well this was a solid win against a bad football team. We saw some nice things from both sides of the ball and some things that would be a problem, especially on defense, against a team that actually plays like they belong in the NFL. The truth is that we won’t know how good our team is until the Giants game on November 1, and we may not even know until much later than that, since that is, after all, only one game. So here’s my best attempt (or best attempt I’m able to give in the midst of the exhilarating, exhausting Phillies playoff run) to glean some valuable insights from this past Sunday’s debacling (Oh, Emmitt).
The Eagles defense definitely had a weaker performance than the score suggests, although some of it may simply have been a case of playing down to their competition. It’s hard to get that intensity up game in and game out, especially when you can win without it. Still, I guess the defense bears a further look this week, keeping in mind that it is hard to complain too much about a 33 to 14 win.
Facing a quarterback whose head coach called him his “Jason Garrett” (by which Coach Morris meant his “career backup”— not his future disappointing offensive coordinator prematurely deemed the heir apparent by an obnoxious billionaire oilman owner whose team can’t win a playoff game [and can barely beat the lowly CHEFS—what a great snickers commercial that was back in the early 90s]), the Eagles’ D gave up a lot of passing yards, and that was with some real help from the Tampa offense, starting with Johnson’s 4th down fumble. The Gocong sack on the last play of the first quarter was completely a mental mistake on the part of the Tampa TEs. Johnson made a bunch of bad decisions when the pressure got there too. And on Trent Cole’s sack, that was a rookie mistake by Josh Johnson to not unload the ball out of bounds—although I guess it worked out for Johnson with the unnecessary roughness call on Macho Harris (an idiotic play) negating the stop. The Eagles also were blessed by boatload of Tampa drops (rumor is that Na Brown coaches the wideouts there—I kid).
At times the pressure seemed to be not as effective with the Eagles facing such a mobile qb . Nice pressure by Gaither on a couple passing downs though.
On the whole the line play was decent. Trent Cole looked great as usual. Bunkley looked great getting pressure up the middle as a run-stopper and then also doing a nice job breaking up a screen play to Cadillac Williams early in the first. Also a nice 4th quarter sack by Abiamiri, using a spin move from the tackle position on first down as the Eagles lined up a lot in the nickel once it became clear that it would be passing situations for the rest of the quarter.
Very aggressive blitzing DBs this week, teneded to work well on some plays, but the Eagles were burnt bad on a few plays too many.
As for the LBs against the run, Akeem Jordan looked better against the run than lately I thought, although he still got taken out of some plays. Trotter seemed to play ok against the run—rarely far out of position but not really making any great plays either.
The defense especially struggled to cover Winslow. Good fast TEs seem to give us trouble. Shockey partied all over the middle of our defense in the first half of the saints game, and Winslow did so much more, dominating nearly everyone we threw at him. None of our LBs could handle Winslow and we had some issues with their other TEs at times as well. Winslow beat Gocong to pick up a PI penalty and for a catch on another play. Even double covered by Hanson and Parker, Winslow caught a ball for a first down. Mikell seemed to handle Winslow the best, although he too got beat by Winslow on the Bucs’ second touchdown, but it was a pretty damn impressive catch on a ball only Winslow could reach.
On offense, McNabb looked real good, and the protection was pretty impressive on most plays, although I thought Justice had one of his shakier games of the season—giving up two sacks, although on the second half sack, it was partly the fault of D-Mac for holding it so long.
Maclin really looked great, even beyond his numbers, although some of the credit really should go to DeSean Jackson, whose statistically-quiet day masked some crucial contributions. A lot more double coverage for D-Jax then we’ve seen so far, but that meant a whole lot of open man on man looks for Maclin. This was why the Eagles drafted him. With him and Jackson and Westbrook/McCoy there’s just so much speed for which opposing defenses have to account. He showed great hands on the sixteen yard curl he ran on the first play of the 4th quarter too.
Maclin’s first two catches (long play action TD on the team’s second offensive snap and then a play off the middle) are both great routes and good catches. The third one (the second TD) was pretty nice too, although Will Allen might very well have picked that ball if he ever turned on it (although I guess one could say the same think about Macho Harris and Kellen Winslow’s TD).
Great route by Celek on his 38 yard 2nd quarter catch and love the hurdle move over Barber (a lot more than I liked watching Dexter Fowler reprise it the next night over Chase Utley). Celek is looking better and better every week. HE also did a nice job sealing off the edge a couple times as a blocker, including on the first Maclin TD which doesn’t happen if Celek doesn’t hold up as a blocker.
B-West has a way to go but he made some real nice plays, esp the catch and then the run on the TD drive in the 3rd qtr.
Clearly the jury is still out on the wildcat, but so far it seems to look best when McCoy takes the snap and carries it himself, with the end around action from Vick or Jackson serving simply as a decoy.
And the penalties were ridiculous!
Go Phillies, (oh yeah and Eagles, against the raiders [lower case intentional]).
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