Know Your Enemy – WAS
Posted: October 14th, 2011 | Author: Tommy Lawlor | Filed under: Philadelphia Eagles | 21 Comments »Skins are 3-1, atop the NFC East
Wins: NYG, Arizona, St. Louis
Loss: Dallas
Offense: 15th in Yds, 22nd in Pts
Defense: 6th in Yds, 3rd in Pts
The Skins are off to a good start. The question is just how good of a team are they really. The schedule has helped them. The Giants had no Justin Tuck in the opener. The Cards and Rams aren’t good teams.
Still, give credit to the Skins for winning. Last year they lost winnable games. This year they are playing good defense and making timely plays to come up with W’s. We’ll find out in the next couple of months whether the Skins are legit or a product of circumstances. I don’t have a good read on them yet.
The Skins are coming off a bye. They’re well rested and will be ready to play. The last time we played them the game was pretty embarrassing, last year’s 59-28 debacle. You can bet the Skins see this as a revenge game. They’ll sell out to win this game. That would sink us down to 1-5 and it would keep them atop the division. It would also be the best kind of payback in the world.
OFFENSE
One of the key reasons I have doubts about WAS is QB Rex Grossman. He is prone to making mistakes and isn’t a guy you can rely on to play consistently well. The Skins have scored 21, 22, 16, and 17 offensive points in their 4 games. That’s been good enough to win, but it isn’t good.
The Skins want to run. Tim Hightower was the go-to guy early on, but averages just 3.5 ypc for the year. Ryan Torain lit up the Rams, going 19-135. You’d have to think they’ll try him. Rookie Roy Helu also gets mixed in.
WRs Santana Moss and Jabar Gaffney are playing okay, but the real threat is TE Fred Davis. He’s got 7 receptions of 20 or more yards. The rest of the team has 7 such catches.
* 16th in NFL in 3rd down conversions
DEFENSE
The Skins 3-4 is functioning well now that they have the personnel to run it. It also helps that they haven’t faced juggernaut offenses. This game will be a real test for them.
The key addition is OLB Ryan Kerrigan, my favorite player from the 2011 draft. He’s given them a force off the edge opposite of Brian Orakpo. They’ve combined for 5.5 sacks, 4 FFs, and an INT. Kerrigan returned the pick for a TD. ILBs Rocky McIntosh and London Fletcher lead the team in tackles. Fletcher is 237 years old, but remains a good player. Jerk.
Skins DBs have only one INT this year. Now we’ll find out how much of our turnover woes is us and how much is hot competition. Josh Wilson and Deangelo Hall are the CBs. S LaRon Landry missed the first couple of games, but played in the last two. He can be a force to deal with. Great blitzer. Big hitter over the deep middle. OJ Atogwe is the other Safety. No impact plays, but he’s a solid veteran player.
* Skins are #1 in the NFL in 3rd down defense. Only allowed 13 conversions all year.
SPECIAL TEAMS
PK Graham Gano is 2 for 5 on FGs between 30-39 yards. Alex Henery thinks that sucks.
Old friend Sav Rocca is the punter. 12 of 21 punts have been downed inside the 20. No touchbacks this year.
Brandon Banks is the RS and he scares the heck out of me. Long KOR is 31. Long PR is 35. He’s due for a big one and has excellent speed.
* * * * *
I’ll post a Game Preview on Friday.
Only 1 INT by a defensive back by week 6? That must suck. The Eagles have managed to double that.
This is the game. I don’t see how they come back from a loss in any meaningful way. They’re facing a motivated division rival with personnel tailor-made to attack the weaknesses on both sides of the ball. The Eagles also have key injuries on both lines, but my patience for excuses is gone. Time for them do their jobs.
Add to the fact that they always play us tough no matter what. Besides last years debacle of course.
I found my long lost brother.
http://buffalogrove.patch.com/articles/free-beer-truck-cruises-the-streets-of-heaven
Only if it was a PBR beer truck, Tommy.
hahahahhahahaha. Thats great. btw, you guys should try a brand name of beer by the name of Victory. The brewery is located in Downingtown, not far from Philly. If you enjoy a Hopy beer, try the Hopdevil. If you want a stronger beer try their Golden Monkey(my personal favorite). Very smooth, spicy taste to it, but with 9.5% alch.
As a major craft beer geek I’ll second that and add that Prima Pils is a great refreshing session beer for tailgating and watching the game at home. My favorite is probably their Old Horizontal Barleywine. Victory for victory, Eagles fans!
never had it…will def. buy a 6 pack of it for the game on sunday
can someone please answer this for me.
This is a question that has been bothering me for awhile now. Ive asked before and no one has been able to answer.
Why did we feel it was necessary to change our O-line scheme? For years we had a great O-line (with the exception of last year and this year).
We have Peters, Herremans and Jacskon. Each of whom are pro-bowl players/ border line pro bowl players. They played great under the old scheme. The problems last year were not due to scheme but due to players, specifically RT and more obviously RG.
Why did we completely change the scheme instead of just get better personal for RT and RG?
Keeping the old scheme with added personal would have helped greatly on short yardage/GL situations.
This new scheme requires the QB to make quicker reads and throws. Something that is not Vicks strength. Vick is at his best when he has slightly more time to make his reads and drop farther back, something the old scheme allowed better then the new. Add, to the fact that we have the best deep threat in the game, and another good one in Maclin, which requires for the QB to hold onto the ball slightly longer so they can get down field.
This was also a shortened offseason, with so many changes elsewhere on the team, why change a scheme that worked great for years due to 2 sore spots?
It just seems as though me made a highly unnecessary change, with players that do not fit this scheme.
Is it possible that some of these turnovers are due to the fact that Vick has to make quicker reads, and shorter drop backs?
This quicker and lighter O-line was supposed to help in the screen game. But when we had mammoths along the line, we were known as one of the best screen teams in the NFL for years.
I just dont understand it. It seems as though in this instance change was made for changes sake. Changing a scheme is harder the gaining a player or 2 that fits the old scheme.
questions, comments, anybody?
^this!
I think Peyton was an elite downfield passer the whole time behind Mudd’s o-line. We just need a little more time to develop chemistry and I think we’ll see something nice. Derek said something on Twitter about the obvious upgrade from DeVan to Watkins. That along with the hope that Kelce improves can mean some pretty nice things once Rick Ross ahem… Jason Peters is healthy.
So I can totally see captains meeting their captains in the middle of the field, and being like “Hey, about last year… can we just let that be water under a bridge?”
Ahh Tommy, unless you’ve recently grown a passion for proclear contact lenses I’d say your hacker is still active. Could be a virus perhaps?
Speak for yourself.
“Just because a game aberration is the substantial sequence aberration this is the nearly all troublesome in order to eye sight inside low mild illnesses, the Proclear 1 Day can be suited to evening perspective.”
I need to hear more!
Someone has identified our gang of football nerds as a potential niche market for sunglasses.
Maybe they saw all the negativity and thought we could use some rose colored glasses?
Just so I’m clear, whenever the glasses posts pop up, I just enter my credit card # and social security # in the comments section, and Tommy will send me glasses? What a deal!
Dear Laron Landry,
Please tell DJax your going to knock his skinny ass out again. I promise it’s a fool proof way to go. No way it will backfire. I promise.
Celek is going to have to help Dunlap with Orakpo. I hope Mathis-Kelce-Watkins are ready, because they’re going to see a lot of “Double X” blitzes from the ILBs up the middle.
Tommy, I thought we agreed to knock off the sunglasses posts? Now contact lenses? 🙂
Tommy – it is apparent to everyone and their mothers that AR and MM should run the ball more this Sunday with Shady…what will be frustrating and annoying that though it is so apparent that they should feed the ball to McCoy…our good ole roly poly coach will ask Vick to probably call 45-50 passes….your thoughts??
Not sure I like the vibe I’m getting from the Eagles going in to the game. They’re mad, but it’s more of a “We’re not as bad as people think. They should get off our case.” anger instead of a “We’ve screwed ourselves, and someone’s gonna pay for that, and that someone is the Redskins.” rage.
Just hope they realize defending your coach and still talking about a 12-4 season aren’t going to get it done. It’s going to take each man looking in a mirror and asking what he can personally do better than last week, and then going out there and doing it. They are going to have to stop worrying about potential playoff scenarios and start worrying about beating the man opposite them.
I think they’re going to have to really hit rock-bottom before they can have a “come to Jesus” moment and turn the season around. If they don’t get the right attitude, matchups and talent won’t matter. I was fairly confident rock-bottom was reached last week before Vick’s run, but now I’m not so sure.
Anyway, it’s also true that success is contagious, so if they can just get over the hump with a bit of success early in the game, I think everyone will relax more and play better, and that will breed more success.
So Tommy,
Whats the over/under on the number of times Shanahan fools us on a play action pass?