What more can you say about this game ... Well, below is what I can say.
The Redskins are just a total joke and the ESPN commentators encapsulated that nicely. My favorites were when Gruden responded to Antwan Randle-El’s muffed punt by saying, “Lightning continues to strike.” Later Mike Tirico reacted to the Redskins fumbled snap on 4th and goal: “And that summarizes the Washington Redskins”
With several quick drop plays early, Mcnabb looked crisp at first, although he did rush the throw on the Eagles’ first failed third down conversion. I really thought Andy Reid scripted some good plays early. He got Westbrook on the field a lot before he got concussed, and the Eagles had a lot of good scripted plays designed to get the ball in the hands of the playmakers: Westbrook, Maclin, Jackson, but after the first couple series, things broke down.
On the whole, Donovan rushed way too many throws. Really a weak game by McNabb after the first six or eight throws. Over a third of McNabb’s passing yards were on the one TD throw to Jackson, and even that ball was a bit underthrown. Mcnabb also underthrew McCoy on the 3rd quarter swing pass that went for a loss, but they got a facemask on London Fletcher anyway. McNabb really has struggled with accuracy and he seems to be jittery when there’s a strong pass rush, not giving himself a chance to set up his feet and deliver the ball accurately. Right now not throwing intereceptions just isn’t enough.
I did love Andy's call of FB dive for Weaver on the 3rd and one situation midway though the first quarter. Let’s do more of this.
On Vick’s designed run for first down on 3rd and 2 in the fourth quarter, Leonard Weaver also made a great block to take out a DE, which enabled Herremans to pull and block for Vick at the second level. That Weaver block just is not made by Josh Parry or Thomas Tapeh (and don’t even ask me about Tony Hunt)
On defense, I liked the blitz packages, and Mikell played a great game both blitzing and tackling and holding down his assignments in the run game.
Witherspoon was on the field a whole lot and looked quite good, doing a lot of different things, and he definitely showed that he can blitz. McDermott blitzed withersppoon quite a bit. On the Babin sack in the 3rd, Witherspoon attacked the same gap as Babin enabling Babin to release from his man.
Even more impressive was Witherspoon's heads up play to come down with the batted ball to score a TD. This play also really showed the creativity of McDermott. On that Witherspoon TD, Babin lined up in 2 point stance over Patterson who lined up at LDE. Then Babin, Trent Cole, and backup tackle Dixon (all 322 pounds of him) dropped back into coverage which took away any checkdown plays over the middle. With only four rushers, I suppose it’s not really a blitz, but it was impressive and in created major confusion for the blocers who failed to drive the rushers back enough to give Campbell a throwing lane. With Bunkley, Witherspoon, Mikell and Patterson coming in, Mikell did a great job to take advantage of the confused redskins protection to get a hand on a ball that ultimately became a pick-6 for Spoon Jr. (as Eagellectual reader Dan the Student has taken to calling him).
On Witherspoon’s strip of Campbell, it was just a great overload call by McDermott, Witherspoon followed Mikell and Gocong (who basically lined up as a DT) in and there was no one to block him. The announcers talked about the simplicity of the Eagles blitz packages, but what I saw was a lot of mixing and matching personnel in new and interesting places, and it all seemed to work.
All those sacks were certainly fun. Great coverage on Bunkley’s late 3rd quarter sack. Really a coverage sack. Good blitz design early in 4th quarter to get Cole one on one with a TE. Fred Davis cannot handle Cole, come on now.
The Eagles run defense really was stout and that played a big role in the win. Patterson and Bunkley both seemed to be around the ball carrier whenever he went down, but Clinton Portis is a far cry from where he was a couple years ago.
Also, a great play by blitzing Sean Jones to bat a Campbell pass in the late 3rd. Jones disengaged from FB Sellers to chase Campbell, and Trent Cole did a great job of covering up Sellers when he released from Jones and went into a checkdown route. McDermott’s comfort, and success, using Trent Cole in coverage situations just further opens up the pass rush playbook.
Still you’d like to see the Defense hold a little better in the Red Zone (not counting the botched snap the Eagles had little to do with). Devin Thomas’s TD was inexcusable. I’m not sure whether it was Samuel’s or Mikell’s responsibility to hold down the back of the end zone, but one of them definitely needs to stay back there and not bite on the pump fake (a possible theory is that it was Mikell’s responsibility but he came up on the short throw pump fake b/c he didn’t trust Samuel to make a goal line tackle, but that’s just a theory).
This team’s inability to close out a game is a real concern. This was a real problem for last year’s team and seems likely to become one for this year’s team when. You’d like to see the defense just shut these guys down, but again, these problems must be pinned (like the tale on a DONkey) on the offense.
The second half made clear what the two big Jackson plays masked in the first half—the complete stagnation of our offense once Westbrook went out. The team had a ton of trouble establishing the run in the second half. McCoy looked like he was running OK, but the blocks just weren’t there. McCoy did, however, struggle in pass protection a couple times.
Overall, the pass blocking was not the disaster it was against the Raiders, but it still needs real work. Peters seemed to get beaten multiple times by athletic DE Andre Carter. Herremans seemed to have even more problems. He had a penalty in the pass game that almost gave Washington a safety, struggled to keep Hayneworth from collapsing the pocket (a tall order though), and on at least one running play—which went for a McCoy two-yard gain—Herremans failed to push his man out of the hole. Also, though, Jamaal Jackson needs to help Herremans out against a guy like Haynesworth when there’s no A-gap blitz. Would like to see better awareness from the veteran center.
The only real offensive bright spot that half was Maclin working to extend the play on the 3rd quarter third-down catch to move the sticks. Maclin did a nice job breaking off his route to come back away from the coverage when Mcnabb scrambled to his left. Maclin is definitely showing flashes of why he will, soon I hope, be a very nice NFL starter … and perhaps much more.
The offense will have a tough challenge next week against the New York Football Giants, who desperately want to avoid a three-game losing streak. On top of all that, it seems almost definite that Westbrook will miss this game (the signing of Saints practice squad rookie PJ Hill pretty much advertises this). It’s hard to see our offense sans B-West keeping the Giants D off-balance (or on the field), but maybe, just maybe, our D can keep us in this by making Eli Manning (is he the most overpaid American there is?—watch out former AIG execs!) throw three interceptions. He did it last week! All this is so much less frustrating thanks to the Phightins, though! Thank you Clifford Lee.
Thursday, October 29, 2009
Tuesday, October 20, 2009
Almost too disgusted to blog--Or the day the Eagles scored less than the Phillies
I can’t bear spending too much time on this blog entry, but as promised, here’s at least a weekly look-see at some of what went so dreadfully wrong.
I think it’s hard to get too upset with the defense. After all, they only gave up 13 points, but the inconsistency of the run defense was a bit disconcerting and our inability to cover tight ends is a real problem. On the, ultimately game-deciding, TD catch and run from Russell to Zach Miller, Trotter has taken a lot of heat for biting on the play fake and letting Miller get behind him. This criticism is fair, but I blame that TD on Samuels. Asante whiffed worse than Manny Ramsteroidirez on an inside fastball. Samuel had a chance to make the tackle and didn’t even get a piece of Miller. If Samuels even knocks him back a bit, Trotter makes that tackle.
As for the offense, I think you’ve got to put this game on the shoulders of the line. The pass protection was abysmal. That said, let’s give some blame to Mandy Reidinwheg and McNabb. The run-pass balance was unfathomable. It reminded me of the backyard games I played as a little kid in which the offense was allowed one run play for every possession. As for McNabb, well the best you can say is that he was inconsistent, looking a lot like the McNabb of a couple years ago when he came off that ACL injury. In the face of consistently bad protection he still held the ball too long into late in the game, and it does seem like we very rarely beat the blitz with our hot reads the way good teams sometimes do to us. On the whole, McNabb made a few real nice throws, but several were just too far off in important sistuatons. I tend to be a McNabb defender, but he does seem to usually fail when given the chance to muster up the leadership and clutchness that the great ones all seem to have. I’ve long believed you could win a super bowl with McNabb, but it does seem that he rarely puts the team on his back to eke out a close one. Great teams and great leaders always seem to come through at the end even when they’ve been outplayed for most of the game—see Brady, Tom; Manning, Peyton; Roethlisberger, Ben; Rollins, Jimmy!
Still the biggest goats of the game (if these guys gave milk, you could stock Le Bec Fin with chevre for the year) are our o-linemen. The worst of the lot in pass protection was Max Jean-Gilles. I know he looked awesome on the screen to Westbrook, but he got destroyed by the Raider rush again and again. It was embarrassing. MJG was wholly responsible for the second sack of McNabb when MJG was way late responding to a twist as Ellis slid out to engage Justice. He was beat bad again on the first play of the second quarter and on a first half incompletion to Avant, on which McNabb rushed his throw because of the pressure. I’m foreseeing an increase in Stacey Andrews’s reps in the near future. By the second half, I stopped taking notes on the blunders of the offensive line, but everyone really had a poor game. I blame Andy a bit for not giving Dunlap more help, but still Dunlap, Justice, Cole, and of course, MJG all looked atrocious on specific plays during that game. Celek and McCoy also bear some responsibility for the pressure that often overwhelmed McNabb.
All I can say after a game like that is ... Go Phillies!
I think it’s hard to get too upset with the defense. After all, they only gave up 13 points, but the inconsistency of the run defense was a bit disconcerting and our inability to cover tight ends is a real problem. On the, ultimately game-deciding, TD catch and run from Russell to Zach Miller, Trotter has taken a lot of heat for biting on the play fake and letting Miller get behind him. This criticism is fair, but I blame that TD on Samuels. Asante whiffed worse than Manny Ramsteroidirez on an inside fastball. Samuel had a chance to make the tackle and didn’t even get a piece of Miller. If Samuels even knocks him back a bit, Trotter makes that tackle.
As for the offense, I think you’ve got to put this game on the shoulders of the line. The pass protection was abysmal. That said, let’s give some blame to Mandy Reidinwheg and McNabb. The run-pass balance was unfathomable. It reminded me of the backyard games I played as a little kid in which the offense was allowed one run play for every possession. As for McNabb, well the best you can say is that he was inconsistent, looking a lot like the McNabb of a couple years ago when he came off that ACL injury. In the face of consistently bad protection he still held the ball too long into late in the game, and it does seem like we very rarely beat the blitz with our hot reads the way good teams sometimes do to us. On the whole, McNabb made a few real nice throws, but several were just too far off in important sistuatons. I tend to be a McNabb defender, but he does seem to usually fail when given the chance to muster up the leadership and clutchness that the great ones all seem to have. I’ve long believed you could win a super bowl with McNabb, but it does seem that he rarely puts the team on his back to eke out a close one. Great teams and great leaders always seem to come through at the end even when they’ve been outplayed for most of the game—see Brady, Tom; Manning, Peyton; Roethlisberger, Ben; Rollins, Jimmy!
Still the biggest goats of the game (if these guys gave milk, you could stock Le Bec Fin with chevre for the year) are our o-linemen. The worst of the lot in pass protection was Max Jean-Gilles. I know he looked awesome on the screen to Westbrook, but he got destroyed by the Raider rush again and again. It was embarrassing. MJG was wholly responsible for the second sack of McNabb when MJG was way late responding to a twist as Ellis slid out to engage Justice. He was beat bad again on the first play of the second quarter and on a first half incompletion to Avant, on which McNabb rushed his throw because of the pressure. I’m foreseeing an increase in Stacey Andrews’s reps in the near future. By the second half, I stopped taking notes on the blunders of the offensive line, but everyone really had a poor game. I blame Andy a bit for not giving Dunlap more help, but still Dunlap, Justice, Cole, and of course, MJG all looked atrocious on specific plays during that game. Celek and McCoy also bear some responsibility for the pressure that often overwhelmed McNabb.
All I can say after a game like that is ... Go Phillies!
Wednesday, October 14, 2009
I think there was a football game last sunday?
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]).
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]).
Wednesday, September 30, 2009
The Kasas City Beat Down (and the AxMan Cometh ... Again)
A big win was necessary, but we do need to remember that the Chiefs are a terrible team. They have now lost twenty-six of their last twenty-eight games.
The defense looked great against a pretty bad offense.
Excellent tackling this week to rebound from last week’s poor display. Especially impressive was Quintin Mikell who had several nice open field tackles
Cole is becoming a really impressive player. He’s already better than Hugh Douglas was, since Cole’s as explosive in the pass rush while being a much better run defender. He really can't be run at. Meanwhile, Abiamiri was much improved in run defense after a week in which the Saints exploited Abiamiri’s gimpy groin (can a groin be gimpy?) in the previous week.
McDermott dialed up some real intense blitzes. They had more zero-coverage blitzes (no deep safety) and single safety looks then I can remember in a long long time. Anyone afraid that McDermott would be timid in replacing Johnson should feel quite reassured.
Gocong has been panned lately by local sports writers, but I noticed several times where he looked good on the blitz and helped provide the pressure that prevented Cassel from rolling away from pressure up the gut. He got beat for an eleven yard play by a TE in man to man coverage midway through the second on the Chiefs’ first TD drive.
On the touchdown two plays later, it was just an incredible throw and catch by Cassel and Bradley taking advantage of the height differential between KC WR Mark Bradley and Ellis Hobbs who actually had Bradley covered like glue (my apologies for mixing metaphors). Gocong remains who I thought he was—unspectacular, but serviceable—a better fit for this defense than Dhani Jones definitely and a much better value than Takeo Spikes at the SAM position.
The interior of the defensive line was impressive as well. Bunkley and Patterson repeatedly disrupted the Cheifs’ efforts to get the run game going and played a big role in Gaither’s highlight reel game.
Great game by Gaither, helped by great line play. The line played strong against the run , so that Gaither could come free many times to the ball-caririer and a bit at the qb as well, which brings us to the newest piece of news at the MIKE position.
I really don’t know what to make of the Trotter signing. He obviously gives them a great run-stopper for plays straight up the middle. The man can shed blocks and tackle—that we know. But when we last saw him, he couldn’t do anything else. He couldn’t flow to the ball on runs much outside the guards and he certainly couldn’t cover most rb’s or te’s in the pass game. Consequently teams routinely exploited this weakness, most notably when the Patriots did this with numerous screen plays across the middle, many of them to MVP WR Deion Branch in the Eagles loss in Super Bowl XXXIX, and Trotter was five years younger then. But the Eagles have worked him out, so they seem to think he can play. Another interesting twist in a season which has had more bizarreness in three weeks than most have in seventeen. I guess at a minimum he may know some stuff about Tampa’s defensive scheme from his season there two years ago.
Which do you think you could have gotten highest odds for four months ago, Maclin on the Eagles, Vick on the Eagles, Garcia on the Eagles, or Trotter on the Eagles—I’d probably say Trotter. All I know is if I could have bet a parlay on all this, I’d probably be in the market for an NFL team of my own. The Los Angeles Eagellectuals? The London Pints?
Anyway, on to the offense.
Great play on the DeSean TD. It was just a quick slant that D-Jax made into a big play. That’s what’s so impressive about DeSean Jackson. He has the speed and elusiveness to make any routine play into a gamebreaker. Kolb took a quick three step drop and made a perfect timing throw to Jackson, and kudos also to Nick Cole and Peters for clearing a huge throwing lane for Kolb. There was no one between Kolb and Jackson once Peters pushed his man outside and Cole forced his man towards the A-Gap (and Jamaal Jackson).
Celek looked great too. He has really gotten good at using his body to shield defenders from the ball, and then his power when running with ball makes him a real threat for major yac. Nice blocking too. He looks like he could be on his way to developing into the best Birds TE since Keith Jackson (apologies to Chad Lewis)—let’s keep our fingers crossed.
Still, I think we need to take the success of the Eagles’ passing game with a grain of salt. It was amazing to me how softly the Chiefs played the Eagles receivers. Jackson actually saw a bunch of single coverage early in the game, before the 64 yard touchdown. The Chiefs defense is seriously bad.
I’m still unconvinced that Kolb is an NFL starter. Not saying he can’t be but I don’t think we’ve seen enough to feel comfortable with him. Kolb still seems to rush decisions under pressure
Kolb made a few really good throws this game, much more so than in the previous game. Especially notable was in the 3rd when Kolb whizzed an eleven yard out to Maclin where only he could catch it before going out of bounds.
Kolb’s reads on many plays seemed to be simplified. He often looked like he was only reading half the field. Whether this was his own failing or Andy’s intentions to make things easier for Kolb against a defense that was going to leave more than one guy open on many plays, I don’t know. I will say though that there were several plays on which he did not seem to see the most open or deepest open receiver. Kolb missed a few plays and threw a few balls behind his receivers. Against a better defense some of these balls are possibly intercepted. Kolb especially seems to have trouble reading defenses on the run. Too often he tossed passes to covered receivers once he began moving out of the pocket. Hopefully we won’t have to see Kolb in meaningful playing time again this year, and I’m not sure how much we’ve learned about his future, but we now definitely know for the present that he is an effective spot-duty backup, and for that at least we should be glad.
As for Vick, I thought he looked good on a couple pays and rusty on a couple others, but I also think we must reserve judgment on the wildcat. As Eagellectual reader Ron the Doctor pointed out, Andy Reid is probably approaching this new formation like a chess master. The point is not what happens on any given play, but rather how it sets up potential opportunities to observe holes in the defensive tactics that will ultimately, hopefully, open up chances for big big plays later on.
McCoy, I thought, looked great. He looked quick, fast, and tough, and had some nice blocks in blitz pick up, including a crucial one on the first quarter 43 yard pass to DeSean. A great route combo on that play by the way, where the Eagles exploited the holes in the Chiefs' zone by running Maclin on a deep route and Avant shallow on the same side, enabling Jackson to cross towards their side at an intermediate distance able to grab the ball in stride and turn up field before anyone could hit him.
Love the play call of a QB sneak on the Eagles’ 2nd TD. Great play by Jamaal Jackson to push forward and let Kolb dive right over him. Good play also to have Nick Cole fill in Jackson’s hole as Jamaal pushed forward. A well-designed QB sneak. Let’s run this every time we have goal to go from inside the one. How ‘bout it Andy? Instead, though, when we had 4th and one later on in the first half, Andy inexplicably lined up with an empty backfield. I loved the call to go for it, and I’m even ok with throwing it, but at least make them have to defend the run. Line up with a back in these situations, please!
Justice continues to look strong. Clearly he has turned a corner and may be beginning to realize his second-round potential. In general the offensive line is really protecting well. It will be interesting to see if this holds up against better defenses. We’ve got two chances to see the O-line against decent pass defenses (the Raiders and the Redskins) before the real challenge against the Giants on November 1 at the Linc.
Definitely some C-grade announcers on CBS. First time I’ve ever heard the Linc described as being in downtown Philly.
Also, notice how fear of Jackson’s return prowess led the chiefs’ punter Colquitt to punt a bit shorter to get the ball high enough up to prevent a return. Not as good as a D-Jax return TD but still helped our field position all day (plus it’s harder to get a special teams penalty when there’s no return—so in that sense they’re doing us a favor.)
The defense looked great against a pretty bad offense.
Excellent tackling this week to rebound from last week’s poor display. Especially impressive was Quintin Mikell who had several nice open field tackles
Cole is becoming a really impressive player. He’s already better than Hugh Douglas was, since Cole’s as explosive in the pass rush while being a much better run defender. He really can't be run at. Meanwhile, Abiamiri was much improved in run defense after a week in which the Saints exploited Abiamiri’s gimpy groin (can a groin be gimpy?) in the previous week.
McDermott dialed up some real intense blitzes. They had more zero-coverage blitzes (no deep safety) and single safety looks then I can remember in a long long time. Anyone afraid that McDermott would be timid in replacing Johnson should feel quite reassured.
Gocong has been panned lately by local sports writers, but I noticed several times where he looked good on the blitz and helped provide the pressure that prevented Cassel from rolling away from pressure up the gut. He got beat for an eleven yard play by a TE in man to man coverage midway through the second on the Chiefs’ first TD drive.
On the touchdown two plays later, it was just an incredible throw and catch by Cassel and Bradley taking advantage of the height differential between KC WR Mark Bradley and Ellis Hobbs who actually had Bradley covered like glue (my apologies for mixing metaphors). Gocong remains who I thought he was—unspectacular, but serviceable—a better fit for this defense than Dhani Jones definitely and a much better value than Takeo Spikes at the SAM position.
The interior of the defensive line was impressive as well. Bunkley and Patterson repeatedly disrupted the Cheifs’ efforts to get the run game going and played a big role in Gaither’s highlight reel game.
Great game by Gaither, helped by great line play. The line played strong against the run , so that Gaither could come free many times to the ball-caririer and a bit at the qb as well, which brings us to the newest piece of news at the MIKE position.
I really don’t know what to make of the Trotter signing. He obviously gives them a great run-stopper for plays straight up the middle. The man can shed blocks and tackle—that we know. But when we last saw him, he couldn’t do anything else. He couldn’t flow to the ball on runs much outside the guards and he certainly couldn’t cover most rb’s or te’s in the pass game. Consequently teams routinely exploited this weakness, most notably when the Patriots did this with numerous screen plays across the middle, many of them to MVP WR Deion Branch in the Eagles loss in Super Bowl XXXIX, and Trotter was five years younger then. But the Eagles have worked him out, so they seem to think he can play. Another interesting twist in a season which has had more bizarreness in three weeks than most have in seventeen. I guess at a minimum he may know some stuff about Tampa’s defensive scheme from his season there two years ago.
Which do you think you could have gotten highest odds for four months ago, Maclin on the Eagles, Vick on the Eagles, Garcia on the Eagles, or Trotter on the Eagles—I’d probably say Trotter. All I know is if I could have bet a parlay on all this, I’d probably be in the market for an NFL team of my own. The Los Angeles Eagellectuals? The London Pints?
Anyway, on to the offense.
Great play on the DeSean TD. It was just a quick slant that D-Jax made into a big play. That’s what’s so impressive about DeSean Jackson. He has the speed and elusiveness to make any routine play into a gamebreaker. Kolb took a quick three step drop and made a perfect timing throw to Jackson, and kudos also to Nick Cole and Peters for clearing a huge throwing lane for Kolb. There was no one between Kolb and Jackson once Peters pushed his man outside and Cole forced his man towards the A-Gap (and Jamaal Jackson).
Celek looked great too. He has really gotten good at using his body to shield defenders from the ball, and then his power when running with ball makes him a real threat for major yac. Nice blocking too. He looks like he could be on his way to developing into the best Birds TE since Keith Jackson (apologies to Chad Lewis)—let’s keep our fingers crossed.
Still, I think we need to take the success of the Eagles’ passing game with a grain of salt. It was amazing to me how softly the Chiefs played the Eagles receivers. Jackson actually saw a bunch of single coverage early in the game, before the 64 yard touchdown. The Chiefs defense is seriously bad.
I’m still unconvinced that Kolb is an NFL starter. Not saying he can’t be but I don’t think we’ve seen enough to feel comfortable with him. Kolb still seems to rush decisions under pressure
Kolb made a few really good throws this game, much more so than in the previous game. Especially notable was in the 3rd when Kolb whizzed an eleven yard out to Maclin where only he could catch it before going out of bounds.
Kolb’s reads on many plays seemed to be simplified. He often looked like he was only reading half the field. Whether this was his own failing or Andy’s intentions to make things easier for Kolb against a defense that was going to leave more than one guy open on many plays, I don’t know. I will say though that there were several plays on which he did not seem to see the most open or deepest open receiver. Kolb missed a few plays and threw a few balls behind his receivers. Against a better defense some of these balls are possibly intercepted. Kolb especially seems to have trouble reading defenses on the run. Too often he tossed passes to covered receivers once he began moving out of the pocket. Hopefully we won’t have to see Kolb in meaningful playing time again this year, and I’m not sure how much we’ve learned about his future, but we now definitely know for the present that he is an effective spot-duty backup, and for that at least we should be glad.
As for Vick, I thought he looked good on a couple pays and rusty on a couple others, but I also think we must reserve judgment on the wildcat. As Eagellectual reader Ron the Doctor pointed out, Andy Reid is probably approaching this new formation like a chess master. The point is not what happens on any given play, but rather how it sets up potential opportunities to observe holes in the defensive tactics that will ultimately, hopefully, open up chances for big big plays later on.
McCoy, I thought, looked great. He looked quick, fast, and tough, and had some nice blocks in blitz pick up, including a crucial one on the first quarter 43 yard pass to DeSean. A great route combo on that play by the way, where the Eagles exploited the holes in the Chiefs' zone by running Maclin on a deep route and Avant shallow on the same side, enabling Jackson to cross towards their side at an intermediate distance able to grab the ball in stride and turn up field before anyone could hit him.
Love the play call of a QB sneak on the Eagles’ 2nd TD. Great play by Jamaal Jackson to push forward and let Kolb dive right over him. Good play also to have Nick Cole fill in Jackson’s hole as Jamaal pushed forward. A well-designed QB sneak. Let’s run this every time we have goal to go from inside the one. How ‘bout it Andy? Instead, though, when we had 4th and one later on in the first half, Andy inexplicably lined up with an empty backfield. I loved the call to go for it, and I’m even ok with throwing it, but at least make them have to defend the run. Line up with a back in these situations, please!
Justice continues to look strong. Clearly he has turned a corner and may be beginning to realize his second-round potential. In general the offensive line is really protecting well. It will be interesting to see if this holds up against better defenses. We’ve got two chances to see the O-line against decent pass defenses (the Raiders and the Redskins) before the real challenge against the Giants on November 1 at the Linc.
Definitely some C-grade announcers on CBS. First time I’ve ever heard the Linc described as being in downtown Philly.
Also, notice how fear of Jackson’s return prowess led the chiefs’ punter Colquitt to punt a bit shorter to get the ball high enough up to prevent a return. Not as good as a D-Jax return TD but still helped our field position all day (plus it’s harder to get a special teams penalty when there’s no return—so in that sense they’re doing us a favor.)
Tuesday, September 22, 2009
"Aboslutely Horrendous"
- Andy Reid
First of all, let's not panic. Our defense laid a huge egg week 2 in Dallas last year, and went on to be the third best D in the league. That said, this was a frustrating performance, and now on top of that we have injury questions about Westbrook, Samuel, and Jackson as well as lingering issues for McNabb, Curtis, and I'm assuming based on his play Abiamiri. I'm worried, but I believe that the Chiefs suck enough that we should beat them and then hopefully get right durng the bye week.
This post may be a bit briefer b/c rewatching this game has been a lot less fun, but here's what I saw.
On the Saints opening drive, it became clear to me that we may have some coverage issues wiht our LBs this year. On that drive it was clear that Jordan can’t cover shockey. It also early became clear that our line could’t get pressure with Brees’s quick release which became a big part of the story of the game.
The other story was poor tackling, the likes of which it's hard to remember from an Eagles D. Issues just across the board. Everyone was missing tackles—Jordan, Gaither, Harris, Samuel, Hanson, ... it goes on. Perhaps Cole and Sheldon Brown and maybe the starting DTs can be exempted from this criticism, but everyone else on the D, including normally excellent tackler Quintin Mikell. I’m not quite as down on Samuel as most other people are, but it was not a good game for him. He played too far off of Devery Henderson on a big play, and his tackling could definitely be better, but I still think we’ve seen much worse from the corners who’ve worn green and silver (Bobby Taylor anyone)—when no one else tackled either I think it actually magnified Samuel’s flaws. Abiamiri looked bad on multiple plays. I don’t know if some of this is his injury, but I’m still real concerned about that LDE spot and our apparent inability to generate much of a pass rush without blitzing, and this week Abiamiri also struggle in run defense, which is supposed to be his strong suit.
I saw one great play from Trevor Laws, muscling through a double team early in the first half (I mean literally just being stronger on that particular play than both the fat guys blocking him combined) to force Brees back into Trent Cole’s bone-crushing sack. It will be interesting to see what we get from Laws going forward.
Kolb was better than I anticipated, but that’s not saying much since I kind of expected old man river Garcia to be playing by the end of the game. The TD to Jackson was a beauty and he made a couple nice intermediate throws, especially to his road roommate Brent Celek--maybe they read the playbook together for bedtime stories. Kolb rushed some throws when the pressure wasn’t there, perhaps b/c his reads were oversimplified. Most egregiously, this happened on Kolb’s backbreaking INT early in the 3rd quarter. Kolb zeroed in on the out route on that play even though the slot receiver (I think it was either Celek or Alex Smith) was much more open because Saints LB Scott Shanle had already committed himself to jumping DeSean Jackson’s outside route. Kolb also seemed to struggle throwing the ball on the run, including not only numerous incompletions but also on the nasty bailout catch by Jason Avant in the end zone. Kolb did a good job of not taking sacks, but he has a lot to work on before he can be called a legitimate NFL starter, not least being his accuracy while running from pressure. I also wonder a bit about his arm strength on some of his sideline throws. Whether he continues to develop remains to be seen, but right now he’s looking to me like a very serviceable backup, but not the answer for the future—but of course, the jury is still out and will be for awhile.
As to the wildcat, I’m basically cool with it (although I’m a bit uncomfortable with the formation where the tackles were split out wide—a play that should have been a disaster without D-Jax being a superfreak … superfreak, he’s superfreaky!). In general though it put the ball in the hands of Westbrook and Jackson and they picked up some nice yardage, so I have no problem with it, and it will get a bit more interesting once Vick is back there—for example maybe he throws Weaver a bit more catchable ball than Westbrook does in the red zone late in the 3rd—so that maybe teams can’t commit to a Vick run as much later on. I would, however, have liked us run to the ball not in the wildcat, with Weaver blocking, a bit more. The Saints’ run defense was excellent last week against Detroit but it was pitiful for most of last year, so I would have hoped to try to establish the power run a bit and let our big boys get out there and bang on their linebackers to try to wear them down (and believe me it was HOT in the sun on Sunday, just ask Eagellectual readers Meredith the consultant and Alison the teacher, the first person I've ever sat with whi ran to buy ice cream during a time out).
Special teams sucked—too many penalties, two devastatingly lousy punts by Rocca, one of which only happened b/c of an illegal shit punishment shift penalty (Freudian slip), and poor ball security by Ellis Hobbs—a veteran like him should realize that after bouncing around traffic, someone will be coming up from behind, and I didn’t like the way he was holding his ball on the last kick return of the first half either.
I thought the protection Kolb got was pretty excellent. I’m starting to feel good about the Winston Justice Experiment Part Deux (a.k.a. playing his natural position on the right side).
First of all, let's not panic. Our defense laid a huge egg week 2 in Dallas last year, and went on to be the third best D in the league. That said, this was a frustrating performance, and now on top of that we have injury questions about Westbrook, Samuel, and Jackson as well as lingering issues for McNabb, Curtis, and I'm assuming based on his play Abiamiri. I'm worried, but I believe that the Chiefs suck enough that we should beat them and then hopefully get right durng the bye week.
This post may be a bit briefer b/c rewatching this game has been a lot less fun, but here's what I saw.
On the Saints opening drive, it became clear to me that we may have some coverage issues wiht our LBs this year. On that drive it was clear that Jordan can’t cover shockey. It also early became clear that our line could’t get pressure with Brees’s quick release which became a big part of the story of the game.
The other story was poor tackling, the likes of which it's hard to remember from an Eagles D. Issues just across the board. Everyone was missing tackles—Jordan, Gaither, Harris, Samuel, Hanson, ... it goes on. Perhaps Cole and Sheldon Brown and maybe the starting DTs can be exempted from this criticism, but everyone else on the D, including normally excellent tackler Quintin Mikell. I’m not quite as down on Samuel as most other people are, but it was not a good game for him. He played too far off of Devery Henderson on a big play, and his tackling could definitely be better, but I still think we’ve seen much worse from the corners who’ve worn green and silver (Bobby Taylor anyone)—when no one else tackled either I think it actually magnified Samuel’s flaws. Abiamiri looked bad on multiple plays. I don’t know if some of this is his injury, but I’m still real concerned about that LDE spot and our apparent inability to generate much of a pass rush without blitzing, and this week Abiamiri also struggle in run defense, which is supposed to be his strong suit.
I saw one great play from Trevor Laws, muscling through a double team early in the first half (I mean literally just being stronger on that particular play than both the fat guys blocking him combined) to force Brees back into Trent Cole’s bone-crushing sack. It will be interesting to see what we get from Laws going forward.
Kolb was better than I anticipated, but that’s not saying much since I kind of expected old man river Garcia to be playing by the end of the game. The TD to Jackson was a beauty and he made a couple nice intermediate throws, especially to his road roommate Brent Celek--maybe they read the playbook together for bedtime stories. Kolb rushed some throws when the pressure wasn’t there, perhaps b/c his reads were oversimplified. Most egregiously, this happened on Kolb’s backbreaking INT early in the 3rd quarter. Kolb zeroed in on the out route on that play even though the slot receiver (I think it was either Celek or Alex Smith) was much more open because Saints LB Scott Shanle had already committed himself to jumping DeSean Jackson’s outside route. Kolb also seemed to struggle throwing the ball on the run, including not only numerous incompletions but also on the nasty bailout catch by Jason Avant in the end zone. Kolb did a good job of not taking sacks, but he has a lot to work on before he can be called a legitimate NFL starter, not least being his accuracy while running from pressure. I also wonder a bit about his arm strength on some of his sideline throws. Whether he continues to develop remains to be seen, but right now he’s looking to me like a very serviceable backup, but not the answer for the future—but of course, the jury is still out and will be for awhile.
As to the wildcat, I’m basically cool with it (although I’m a bit uncomfortable with the formation where the tackles were split out wide—a play that should have been a disaster without D-Jax being a superfreak … superfreak, he’s superfreaky!). In general though it put the ball in the hands of Westbrook and Jackson and they picked up some nice yardage, so I have no problem with it, and it will get a bit more interesting once Vick is back there—for example maybe he throws Weaver a bit more catchable ball than Westbrook does in the red zone late in the 3rd—so that maybe teams can’t commit to a Vick run as much later on. I would, however, have liked us run to the ball not in the wildcat, with Weaver blocking, a bit more. The Saints’ run defense was excellent last week against Detroit but it was pitiful for most of last year, so I would have hoped to try to establish the power run a bit and let our big boys get out there and bang on their linebackers to try to wear them down (and believe me it was HOT in the sun on Sunday, just ask Eagellectual readers Meredith the consultant and Alison the teacher, the first person I've ever sat with whi ran to buy ice cream during a time out).
Special teams sucked—too many penalties, two devastatingly lousy punts by Rocca, one of which only happened b/c of an illegal shit punishment shift penalty (Freudian slip), and poor ball security by Ellis Hobbs—a veteran like him should realize that after bouncing around traffic, someone will be coming up from behind, and I didn’t like the way he was holding his ball on the last kick return of the first half either.
I thought the protection Kolb got was pretty excellent. I’m starting to feel good about the Winston Justice Experiment Part Deux (a.k.a. playing his natural position on the right side).
Friday, September 18, 2009
Correction on Reggie Brown
Because next year is scheduled to be an uncapped year, all of Reggie Brown's prorated signing bonus would be accelerated onto this year's cap if we cut him, which would add about four million dollars to the Eagles' current cap number (7.3 million in bonus minus 2.35 of which is already allocated to this year and 844,000 of base salary that the Eagles would no longer be on the hook for). With a reported 9 million dollars left in cap space, the Eagles seem reluctant to give up almost half their remaining cap space just to unload Brown--or to maintain a spot for Baskett, apparently.
Wednesday, September 16, 2009
Crazy Week 1
I had originally intended to post yesterday, but so much has ahappened in the last fifty or so hours that I had to delay. On the Shawn Andrews move to IR, I just have to say wow. The Eagles, I think, are just giving up on him. Hard to know whether it’s mental or physical with Shawn, but it seems plausible that he just has a gimpy back from which he’ll never recover. A doctor who spoke on 610 WIP explained how he tells people with that sort of chronic back pain that they have to totally avoid heavy lifting (which means pushing up against on 280 pound DEs 70 times every week is probably not advisable). Now the reason this happened yesterday is because the Eagles signed Jeff Garcia. This combined with the decision to bring Michael Vick back before the end of his suspension so he can practice suggests some real concerns at the quarterback position. I think it’s fairly likely that we won’t see McNabb until after the bye week. He seemed to be in A LOT of pain on Sunday afternoon, although he did play with a broken ankle against Arizona in . By the way, what’s the deal with the Panthers being allowed to take cheap shots at McNabb. They did it without a penalty in the NFC championship game in 2004, ultimately forcing McNabb to leave the game (which the Eagles lost 14-3) and then again last sunday McNabb got landed on after his play was over. When the league reviewed it they claimed it was all good. The play should have been a penalty. Whether it was intended to be dirty or not, the lineman clearly did not leave his feet until after McNabb was down in the end zone. I don’t understand why the Eagles so rarely seem to get these sorts of personal foul calls.
I just don’t get it.
So assuming McNabb is out, then we have to think about Kevin Kolb’s abilities, and I’m not at all optimistic. The fact that the Eagles dumped Baksett and activated Vick to start practicing during a week when they won’t be implementing any wildcat plays specially for Vick tells me that they are envisioning a real possibility that Vick could be the every down qb sometime soon here. Consider this Sunday as very possibly Kevin Kolb’s last tryout. If he looks bad, I’d yank him for Garcia at half.
As for the move to dump Baskett, I think that is a bit of a head-scratcher, especially in light of his activation on Sunday while Brown and Gibson were healthy scratches. Cutting Reggie Brown would cost the Eagles 2.7 million dollars in a cap acceleration for the prorated portion of his signing bonus, but that doesn’t seem like enough to determine the Eagles decision, since I think they still have ample cap room. The Eagles must feel like Gibson can contribute on special teams enough to replace Baskett and that Reggie Brown will do at least as well as a replacement receiver in the case that Curtis or Jackson goes down and Maclin is not yet ready to step in. Still, I think we may miss Baskett’s blocking abilities.
I’ll touch next week on the changes in Westbrook’s contract—just too much going on for the first regular season practice week.
To the game. Since McNabb’s and Shawn Andrews’s injuries have trained our attention on the QB and RT positions, I decided to focus on Winston Justice and Kevin Kolb when I re-watched the game against the panthers. Here’s some of what I noticed.
There were a lot of questions about Justice coming into his first start since Osi Umenyiora debacled Justice (wonder why Emmit Smith no longer commentates?) on the last day of the 2007 baseball season (I remember watching the Phils winning and Mets choking on two computer screens earlier that day). The difference though is that now Justice is back on the right side—his natural position. In college at USC Justice was one of the best blindside blockers int eh nation, and for this reason the Eagles made him the second tackle selected in the 2006 NFL draft, but Justice blocked for a left-handed quarterback, so playing the blindside meant playing on the right, but the Eagles nonetheless assumed he could protect McNabb’s back on the other side of the line. Most, but not all, tackles can make that transition, but Justice failed miserably as a left tackle. I’m hoping he really can play as long as he stays on the right. On two key third downs early, the Eagles’ first two third downs actually, Andy Reid left Winston Justice alone on the outside. Justice blocked very well on the first third down, which resulted in an 18 yard completion to Avant. On the next one, though, Justice totally missed his Peppers which may have forced McNabb to rush in a tight throw to Celek which he dropped (but probably should have caught), instead of getting off a swing pass to a wide open Brian Westbrook.
In run blocking I though Justice looked pretty damn good. He was able to get his pad level low to drive defensive linemen on multiple plays, and he also showed he could get out and run.
Later I tried to observe Justice when playing in front of Kevin Kolb. Initially Andy seemed to want to run a lot with Kolb or give him some short passes, but even some of those plays were near disasters. On the sack which Kolb fumbled, Justice was entirely responsible though (smoked by Peppers—a.k.a. chipotle’d).
In the 4th quarter, Andy briefly took the handcuffs off Kolb and let him try to toss one deep toward Jackson. On that play Justice received blocking help, ensuring plenty of time for Kolb to throw, but he still made a terrible throw that came up short of Jackson and was nearly intercepted. Kolb followed that misfire up on 3rd and 3 with another poor throw but then he converted on 4th and 3 with an easy sideline throw to Celek out of a five step drop. Andy’s playcalling after that Kolb deep miss suggests some lack of confidence in Kolb, although it’s hard to diassociate that from the conservative playcalling that normally goes hand in hand with a 28 point fourth quarter lead. Later in the 4th quarter Kolb was sacked because he held onto the ball for way to long, even with a max protect scheme.
I’ve been pretty underwhelmed with everything I’ve seen from Kolb so far. Andy claims that everything will be different once Kolb gets to spend a full week practicing with the first team, but I’m skeptical, and the moves made this week tells me that folks who eat lunch a lot closer to Jeffrey Lurie’s office than I do share my concerns. Hopefully we’re wrong, but there’s a reason this team went from carrying 2 QBs to 4 QBs in the last three days.
As for the rest of the game, first of all, I’ll state the obvious: a great performance for the Defense, especially against the pass. McDermott’s blitz packages were an impressive homage to his late mentor’s strategy of attacking protection schemes in ways designed to confuse blockers. McDermott did a great job attacking the interior pass blocking through the a-gaps, including the in the fumble TD on which the linebackers cleverly switched place with the DEs and on the 3rd and 5 Akeem Jordan sack in the middle of the 2nd quarter, wherein Jordan and Gaither both attacked the center. On that play the Eagles brought six against five blockers, but I love that the overload was in the center of the line, so that the guy who got through was in the qb’s face as soon as he broke down the protection, especially against a fairly immobile qb like Delhomme, who is unlikely to scramble away from a head-on blitzing linebacker. Certainly, though, McDermott mixed the blitz packages up. On the sack of Delhomme for 10 yards in 3rd quarter, Gaither and Gocong both attacked over the late side, one with a brief delay so that both ended up coming right at the running back in blitz pickup—it was impossible to block both. On the third interception of Delhomme (by Akeem Jordan), there actually was no blitz on, but McDermontt confused the hell out of the Panthers blockers with a well designed play. Chris Clemons lined up as a linebacker over Cole’s shoulder as Cole played end on a three man line. Clemons engaged the tackle and then Cole ran a twist over a guard who had already left to block for a screen that Akeem Jordan had sniffed out and covered up. Cole hit Delhomme and then Jordan caught Delhomme’s ill-advised pass. The defense was just stellar and credit the secheme all you want, but our guys made plays. Still, we have to give a shout out to the Rajun Cajun qb that the Panthers just guaranteed 20 million dollars. This guys stinks. Even when he took the Panthers to within 3 points of a super bowl, I’ve never believed he was any good. His mechanics and decision making both suck. Nice to see the Eagles help expose him. Boy are the Panthers feeling bad about that contract extension. Nonetheless, credit the Birds for holding on to his ducks, and the first Sheldon int was a truly amazing catch.
And here’s a few quick observations on some of the Eagles other TDs:
On the D-Jax return TD there was excellent blocking, including a great downfield block by Juqua Parker. Great speed on Jackson, all he really ends up having to do is make the gunner and the punter miss him, no problem!
Great playfake on the first offensive TD (9 yard pass to Celek). Everyone on the line, including Celek, did a great job of selling a run to the left before he released to the right and was instantly open.
Good audible by McNabb to the shovel pass to Westbrook that made it 31-7. There was especially great blocking by Leonard Weaver on that play. Weaver really was stellar—what a great addition—it may turn out to be one of our most important offseason moves (says the man who loves loves loves a powerful fullback).
Looking forward to see what happens Sunday, although it will be a tall order. We’ll need similar defensive production against what figures to be one of the league’s most prolific offenses this year. Unfortunately the suspensions for use of a banned supplement that saints starting DEs Charles Grant and Will Smith have been postponed pending a review by a Minnesota court of the appropriate punishment for Pat and Kevin Williams. Profootballtalk.com has been all over this story but the upshot is we don’t get any breaks there since both Saints starters at end will play. Their starting OT Jamaal Brown, however, is injured, but their offense didn’t miss a beat last week. We just have to hope that our defense can continue to create crazy turnovers and that Westbrook and Shady can cut up a mediocre linebacking corps. Go Eagles!
I just don’t get it.
So assuming McNabb is out, then we have to think about Kevin Kolb’s abilities, and I’m not at all optimistic. The fact that the Eagles dumped Baksett and activated Vick to start practicing during a week when they won’t be implementing any wildcat plays specially for Vick tells me that they are envisioning a real possibility that Vick could be the every down qb sometime soon here. Consider this Sunday as very possibly Kevin Kolb’s last tryout. If he looks bad, I’d yank him for Garcia at half.
As for the move to dump Baskett, I think that is a bit of a head-scratcher, especially in light of his activation on Sunday while Brown and Gibson were healthy scratches. Cutting Reggie Brown would cost the Eagles 2.7 million dollars in a cap acceleration for the prorated portion of his signing bonus, but that doesn’t seem like enough to determine the Eagles decision, since I think they still have ample cap room. The Eagles must feel like Gibson can contribute on special teams enough to replace Baskett and that Reggie Brown will do at least as well as a replacement receiver in the case that Curtis or Jackson goes down and Maclin is not yet ready to step in. Still, I think we may miss Baskett’s blocking abilities.
I’ll touch next week on the changes in Westbrook’s contract—just too much going on for the first regular season practice week.
To the game. Since McNabb’s and Shawn Andrews’s injuries have trained our attention on the QB and RT positions, I decided to focus on Winston Justice and Kevin Kolb when I re-watched the game against the panthers. Here’s some of what I noticed.
There were a lot of questions about Justice coming into his first start since Osi Umenyiora debacled Justice (wonder why Emmit Smith no longer commentates?) on the last day of the 2007 baseball season (I remember watching the Phils winning and Mets choking on two computer screens earlier that day). The difference though is that now Justice is back on the right side—his natural position. In college at USC Justice was one of the best blindside blockers int eh nation, and for this reason the Eagles made him the second tackle selected in the 2006 NFL draft, but Justice blocked for a left-handed quarterback, so playing the blindside meant playing on the right, but the Eagles nonetheless assumed he could protect McNabb’s back on the other side of the line. Most, but not all, tackles can make that transition, but Justice failed miserably as a left tackle. I’m hoping he really can play as long as he stays on the right. On two key third downs early, the Eagles’ first two third downs actually, Andy Reid left Winston Justice alone on the outside. Justice blocked very well on the first third down, which resulted in an 18 yard completion to Avant. On the next one, though, Justice totally missed his Peppers which may have forced McNabb to rush in a tight throw to Celek which he dropped (but probably should have caught), instead of getting off a swing pass to a wide open Brian Westbrook.
In run blocking I though Justice looked pretty damn good. He was able to get his pad level low to drive defensive linemen on multiple plays, and he also showed he could get out and run.
Later I tried to observe Justice when playing in front of Kevin Kolb. Initially Andy seemed to want to run a lot with Kolb or give him some short passes, but even some of those plays were near disasters. On the sack which Kolb fumbled, Justice was entirely responsible though (smoked by Peppers—a.k.a. chipotle’d).
In the 4th quarter, Andy briefly took the handcuffs off Kolb and let him try to toss one deep toward Jackson. On that play Justice received blocking help, ensuring plenty of time for Kolb to throw, but he still made a terrible throw that came up short of Jackson and was nearly intercepted. Kolb followed that misfire up on 3rd and 3 with another poor throw but then he converted on 4th and 3 with an easy sideline throw to Celek out of a five step drop. Andy’s playcalling after that Kolb deep miss suggests some lack of confidence in Kolb, although it’s hard to diassociate that from the conservative playcalling that normally goes hand in hand with a 28 point fourth quarter lead. Later in the 4th quarter Kolb was sacked because he held onto the ball for way to long, even with a max protect scheme.
I’ve been pretty underwhelmed with everything I’ve seen from Kolb so far. Andy claims that everything will be different once Kolb gets to spend a full week practicing with the first team, but I’m skeptical, and the moves made this week tells me that folks who eat lunch a lot closer to Jeffrey Lurie’s office than I do share my concerns. Hopefully we’re wrong, but there’s a reason this team went from carrying 2 QBs to 4 QBs in the last three days.
As for the rest of the game, first of all, I’ll state the obvious: a great performance for the Defense, especially against the pass. McDermott’s blitz packages were an impressive homage to his late mentor’s strategy of attacking protection schemes in ways designed to confuse blockers. McDermott did a great job attacking the interior pass blocking through the a-gaps, including the in the fumble TD on which the linebackers cleverly switched place with the DEs and on the 3rd and 5 Akeem Jordan sack in the middle of the 2nd quarter, wherein Jordan and Gaither both attacked the center. On that play the Eagles brought six against five blockers, but I love that the overload was in the center of the line, so that the guy who got through was in the qb’s face as soon as he broke down the protection, especially against a fairly immobile qb like Delhomme, who is unlikely to scramble away from a head-on blitzing linebacker. Certainly, though, McDermott mixed the blitz packages up. On the sack of Delhomme for 10 yards in 3rd quarter, Gaither and Gocong both attacked over the late side, one with a brief delay so that both ended up coming right at the running back in blitz pickup—it was impossible to block both. On the third interception of Delhomme (by Akeem Jordan), there actually was no blitz on, but McDermontt confused the hell out of the Panthers blockers with a well designed play. Chris Clemons lined up as a linebacker over Cole’s shoulder as Cole played end on a three man line. Clemons engaged the tackle and then Cole ran a twist over a guard who had already left to block for a screen that Akeem Jordan had sniffed out and covered up. Cole hit Delhomme and then Jordan caught Delhomme’s ill-advised pass. The defense was just stellar and credit the secheme all you want, but our guys made plays. Still, we have to give a shout out to the Rajun Cajun qb that the Panthers just guaranteed 20 million dollars. This guys stinks. Even when he took the Panthers to within 3 points of a super bowl, I’ve never believed he was any good. His mechanics and decision making both suck. Nice to see the Eagles help expose him. Boy are the Panthers feeling bad about that contract extension. Nonetheless, credit the Birds for holding on to his ducks, and the first Sheldon int was a truly amazing catch.
And here’s a few quick observations on some of the Eagles other TDs:
On the D-Jax return TD there was excellent blocking, including a great downfield block by Juqua Parker. Great speed on Jackson, all he really ends up having to do is make the gunner and the punter miss him, no problem!
Great playfake on the first offensive TD (9 yard pass to Celek). Everyone on the line, including Celek, did a great job of selling a run to the left before he released to the right and was instantly open.
Good audible by McNabb to the shovel pass to Westbrook that made it 31-7. There was especially great blocking by Leonard Weaver on that play. Weaver really was stellar—what a great addition—it may turn out to be one of our most important offseason moves (says the man who loves loves loves a powerful fullback).
Looking forward to see what happens Sunday, although it will be a tall order. We’ll need similar defensive production against what figures to be one of the league’s most prolific offenses this year. Unfortunately the suspensions for use of a banned supplement that saints starting DEs Charles Grant and Will Smith have been postponed pending a review by a Minnesota court of the appropriate punishment for Pat and Kevin Williams. Profootballtalk.com has been all over this story but the upshot is we don’t get any breaks there since both Saints starters at end will play. Their starting OT Jamaal Brown, however, is injured, but their offense didn’t miss a beat last week. We just have to hope that our defense can continue to create crazy turnovers and that Westbrook and Shady can cut up a mediocre linebacking corps. Go Eagles!
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