DAL 17, PHI 3 – Semi-Review
Posted: October 26th, 2013 | Author: Tommy Lawlor | Filed under: Philadelphia Eagles | 72 Comments »I wasn’t able to study the game and take notes the way I usually do. I did re-watch it, but not as thoroughly as I like to when trying to evaluate the players in great detail.
Nick Foles – Awful performance. 11-29-80. There were plenty of mistakes by players in the game, but this loss falls predominantly on the shoulders of Foles. That was the worst game of his NFL career. He struggled with field vision, decision-making and accuracy. Watch the tape and you’ll see open receivers that Foles didn’t notice. You’ll see other plays where he made poor decisions. Sometimes that was throwing the ball into coverage. Other times that was waiting too long to pull the trigger and then wasting a good opportunity.
Foles accuracy issues were affected by the first two problems. He wasn’t standing in the pocket, making his reads and getting the ball out on time. Foles wasn’t seeing the field well and he was indecisive, a deadly combo. That affected his mechanics. He wasn’t throwing the ball confidently. He didn’t set his feet consistently. Throws were high, low, out front and behind guys. Foles was a mess.
Is it possible the pressure of the situation (a 1st place showdown) got to him? I guess so. I hope that’s not the case since it was just a mid-October game. If you can’t handle that, you’ve got no business as a starting QB. I’m hoping it was just one of those days when everything goes wrong and there is no rhyme or reason.
Foles suffered a concussion in the 4th Qtr. Someone asked if he possibly took a big hit earlier and that caused the erratic play. No hit stuck out to me. It would be great if we had that excuse for such a bad performance. Instead, we’re left scratching our heads.
Matt Barkley – 11-20-129. Had 3 INTs. I liked what I saw. Some people fixated on the INTS. You have to understand the situation. Barkley came into the game with 9:25 left and the Eagles losing 17-3. Barkley didn’t have the luxury of a balanced offense or being able to play it safe. He need yards and points in a hurry.
The INTs all came as a result of being an inexperienced QB. Barkley saw open receivers, but he didn’t anticipate underneath defenders making plays on the ball. That was for 2 of the picks. Another one was an odd play where he seemed to be throwing the ball away, but did a poor job.
The reason I liked what I saw from Barkley is that he showed good QB skills. First, pocket presence. Barkley was dropping back on virtually every play. He focused on his receivers and not the rushers around him. Many young QBs struggle to keep their eyes downfield. Barkley did a good job of this.
Barkley threw the ball better than he did in the summer. His passes had some zip. He was able to throw the ball to the sidelines effectively. We didn’t get to see any downfield thr0ws.
Some young QBs come into a game and throw short pass after short pass. Barkley spread the ball around. He threw to multiple WRs and TEs. He threw outside and over the middle. Barkley threw some short passes, but also made some good intermediate throws. He wasn’t fixated on one player or spot on the field. Barkley dropped back and found the open guy. He did show good field vision.
Barkley led 3 drives. 2 of them crossed midfield. Both of those drives got inside the Dallas 40. Foles never got the Eagles that far on his own. And Barkley wasn’t given any help. All 3 of his drives started at the 20 or worse.
Don’t read anything into these comments. I’m not suddenly projecting Barkley as the starter in 2014. I simply thought he did some good things and showed potential.
LeSean McCoy – Rough day. 18-55 on the ground. I wasn’t real happy with the way Shady ran. He tried to turn a lot of runs into big plays. That wasn’t working and he never adjusted. Dallas has a fast, athletic defense that was able to deal with his cutback attempts. Shady would have been more successful if he kept going upfield and concentrated on getting the yards in front of him instead of looking for big plays.
OL – Todd Herremans had some issues with Jason Hatcher. I thought Lane Johnson played pretty well. I heard some criticism of him, but I thought he mostly did a good job. He did give up some pressure in the 4th Qtr when the game got into pass mode. The line gave Foles good protection most of the time. There were some plays where Foles had a ton of time. That made the poor performance all the more frustrating.
Riley Cooper – 6-88. Has now had 2 good games in a row. Made a tough catch down the left side. Tried to get the ball in the air, but then fell to the ground and caught the ball when it fell to him. There was a play earlier in the game when Cooper caught a short pass on a crossing route and got hit by a DB. Cooper kept his balance and shrugged off the hit. He then got up the field for the 1st down.
Cedric Thornton – Another strong game. Credited with 5 solo stops. Seemed to play more NT in this game.
Fletcher Cox – Disruptive, but wasn’t able to finish plays. Got into the backfield a few times, but just couldn’t get to the RB/QB. Only credited with 1 tackle.
Vinny Curry – Had a sack, but wasn’t regularly disruptive. The sack came when a blocker let him go so the blocker could get Cole. Curry did a good job with power rushes a couple of times. I thought the Dallas OGs did a good job on him for the most part.
Trent Cole – I wasn’t impressed with him when watching the game live. I was wrong. Stat line shows 5 tackles, but that’s not the whole story. Looped to the inside and drew the attention of an OL. That freed up Curry to get his sack. Cole is the one who pressured Romo on the play where he was picked off. Cole did a solid job vs the run on plays that came to his side. Also chased down a play on the other side of the field. Covered Witten on a play down the seam. Never thought I’d say that about Trent Cole. Chip Kelly also mentioned a play where Cole covered the RB in the flat and forced Romo to throw the ball away. The stats don’t show it, but Cole was disruptive.
Brandon Graham – Maybe his best game as an OLB. Had 2 tackles. Did a good job vs the run. Took on blockers and set the edge. Made a good play in space when he chased down a receiver after the catch. Came free on a blitz and got a big hit on Romo. Got okay pressure on pass plays. Didn’t stand out as a pass rusher. I just was impressed with him as an overall OLB. Showing progress.
DeMeco Ryans – Good game. Had 6 solo tackles, an INT and a sack. Showed good range as he made plays all over the field. Had one of my favorite hidden moments of the game. Dez Bryant was running a crossing route. Ryans knocked him to the ground. That’s legal inside of 5 yds. Ryans did it a lot last year. Haven’t seen it as much this season.
Mychal Kendricks – Didn’t make a lot of standout plays. Had 3 tackles. Had very good coverage of Witten at times. Team limited Witten for the most part and Kendricks was a big part of that. Bill Davis got creative and used Kendricks as an OLB at times in certain packages. This let him rush off the edge. Didn’t have much impact, but I liked the creativity and the fact it gave Dallas a new look.
Earl Wolff – Continues to show progress. Had 5 solo tackles and his first INT. The pick was a good/bad thing. Happened on the final play of the 1st half. Williams and Wolff had coverage on Bryant, but Williams slipped. The ball came down and Wolff picked it off. I’d have preferred that he knock it down to make sure Bryant had no chance to make the play. Got hurt in the 2nd half and had to come out of the game.
Nate Allen – Solid showing. Had 3 solo tackles. Blitzed well. Came free on a couple of plays and forced Romo to get rid of the ball. Tackled well and played with confidence.
Cary Williams – Davis decided to play more aggressively in this game and that put pressure on Williams and Fletcher. Williams faced Dez Bryant quite a lot. Williams didn’t shut him down, but kept Bryant under control. The officials let Williams play very hands-on and that helped. Had a different crew worked the game, Williams would have had a much more difficult game.
Bradley Fletcher – Had 3 tackles and broke up a pass. Mostly a solid game, but had a couple of bad moments. Gave up a TD to Terrance Williams. The worst moment was when Fletcher was called for PI in the endzone on a 3rd down pass play. Fletcher just panicked on the play and put his arms around the receiver. Without that penalty, Dallas would have only led 6-0. The game would have felt very different.
STs – The coverage units did a fantastic job on Dwayne Harris. He broke loose for a 39-yd KOR, but that’s it. He was kept under control for the rest of the game. Donnie Jones used directional punts to help pin Harris to one side of the field. Henery was 1 of 2 on FGs. His miss was from 60 yards out. More on that.
Coaching – The decision that got the most heat came late in the 1st half when Chip Kelly had Henery try a 60-yd FG. That happened on 4th/1 with :14 left. The Eagles also had a timeout. I didn’t like the decision, but I do understand where Kelly is coming from. Dave Fipp told him that Henery could hit from that far, especially since the wind was at their back. Kelly wanted points and felt the risk was worth it. If you run up the middle for a couple of yards and then burn your timeout, is that going to make a major difference? The kick had the distance to be good, but was wide.
It is tough to judge the offensive gameplan since Foles played so poorly. The fact that that there were a lot of open receivers leads me to think the coaches did a good job. I was disappointed in the run game. Sure seemed like there were a lot of runs designed to go outside. Against a fast team I think you run at them.
Davis did a fantastic job with the defensive gameplan. He was aggressive. He was creative.
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Additional Resources
Fran Duffy did an All-22 post on the Eagles defense.
Tim McManus did an All-22 post on Trent Cole.
Sheil Kapadia did an All-22 post on the struggles of Nick Foles. Prepare to be highly frustrated.
Great work by all.
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How about them Sixers?
If you think the fans are pissed now, wait till you see how they will react if they don’t see a lot better effort on Sunday. The streak needs to end with this game.
I smell a big win. Remember the Giants are on a big road losing streak and the Eagles last home win was a win vs. the Giants. It all comes full circle tomorrow with a big win and Eli making his tard face a few times due to INTs.
I smell the best defensive showing of the season where we completely shutdown the midgets lol…
I smell us dominating the game and then, in the 2nd half, Eli starts throwing these prayers off his back foot and then…
And then…. c-dub pick 6 to the house!!!
I was thinking Boykins, but…
Works for me.. lol BOY KING FTW
“If you run up the middle for a couple of yards and then burn your timeout, is that going to make a major difference?”
Well, yes, I think it would. It wasn’t a chip shot or anything, especially for a kicker who has trouble past 40 yards. And with 14 seconds left, it’s not like there was much chance he’d get to use the timeout after the kick.
I think Kelly just got flustered. The complete inadequacy of the offense must have gotten to him. Just a perplexing call.
I think the rationale was, if you rush and get 2 yards to make it a 58 yarder, is that a huge difference? Because if you go for it and don’t get the 1st down then you don’t even get to try the long field goal.
Right, Steve.
I still think it was a weird call. With 14 seconds on the clock and 1 timeout, it was worth playing one more down. Who knows how much yards we would have gained, however we would have at least tried.
What I thought was odd was the play before. If you know you are not going for it on 4th down, why take a deep shot on third? That was the play to get the first, take the TO, the have three sideline shots to get a more manageable kick.
so they should have called a pass play? there is more chance of the cowboys returning that kick for a TD than making it. Henery cant make 45+ fieldgoals, let alone 50, let alone 60.
Henery nailed a 53 yarder last year perfect down the middle that got called back because of a false start.
iirc, he is 1/4 over 50 yarrds, but two were absurd lengths, so only 1/2 for makable ones. But why has he only attempted 2 realistic 50 yarders in 2.5 years?
The dude is shaky over 45+. Not to say he will miss all 45+ kicks. but he’s shaky.
Some of that is AR offense often been so good that we rarely stalled before the RZ and we also had crazy amount of turnovers in 11 and 12.
Akers never attempted many 50+ yarders with us. So I also think it was simply AR preferring to punt over trying the super long ones.
So how’s Mike’s hammy holdin up? I’ve been checking twitter non stop but couldn’t find anything re his advertised 100 yards run on Friday.
A healthy Vick would increase our chances of ending this ridiculous home games losing streak dramatically.
I think he’s fine and could have played last week if Foles looked bad vs. Tampa. Vick might not be 100%, but I bet they have a level of comfort that he won’t injure it worse. The Giants have little or no talent on their D, so we just need to execute and we’ll win.
Seems like some smokescreen here. If he is 80% why say? If he’s fine there is benefit to making the giants think he is a statue.
I was impressed by Barkley’s arm strength, he was throwing Lasers on the majority of his passes. Definitely seems his shoulder injury might finally be behind him. The picks were unfortunate but those are just coachable rookie mistakes made in a very difficult situation. I would like to see him sometime with an established run game and not playing from way behind.
agree 100%. In the NFL linebackers, except Jamar Chaney, has the skills to backpedal in pass coverage and get under crossing routes.
Can we get Todd Herremans off of this team already? I hope we upgrade guard next year. Herremans got abused by a nobody (Hatcher) who has exactly ZERO pro bowls under his belt. What a joke.
You are aware that Hatcher is one of the best DT in the NFL this season?
He can make his “best” rep vs. guys with less experience and salary than Herremans. Hatcher has made zero pro-bowls and I have ZERO tolerance for guys making their bones vs. my team.
So what if he has zero pro bowls? He have been really good this season and guys cant have breakout seasons?
At least not against the Eagles. We all know that a player with zero Pro Bowls isn’t allowed to play good against us. He can play 15 great games, but woe betide anyone who plays good against Philly.
Lol. Yeah that ‘zero pro bowl’ argument made me laugh. So is Evan Mathis not allowed to blow the opponent’s D linemen up because he has zero pro bowls?! Ha
Again, break out elsewhere. I’m not ok with unproven journeymen playing well at the expense of a $4 mil + football player on our team. If Herremans is going to get tooled by a guy with zero rep prior to this year, its time to invest that money in other positions and draft an upgrade.
OMG you are dense. This was not Hatchers breakout game, he had 6 great games before that and actually had 16 very good games last year as well. Hatcher is not un proven if you follow the NFL on anything else than just ESPN and NFLN
Keep the personal comments to yourself. You want to talk ball, fine.
Dude, your comments make me think you haven’t followed other teams players really, have you?!
I follow plenty. Jason Hatcher was a career nobody prior to this year. Go check his career numbers out on pro football reference. I expect Herremans to play better against a guy who averaged 2 & 2/7th sacks a season coming into this year.
Jason Hatcher isn’t Warren Sapp.
Jason Hatcher was a 3-4 DE prior to this season. Unless you are JJ Watt, how many sacks does 3-4 DEs in general get?`
Hatcher had his breakout season last year, this year he is put in the perfect scheme and he is flourishing.
We’ve played the Cowboys a total of 15 times while Jason Hatcher has been a member of that team. I don’t recall him wearing out our O-line in any of them prior to last week. 3-4 / 4-3 aside, can you point me to any of the games before last week where any post game analysis talked of Hatcher beating our O-line up to the extent he did on Sunday? Even if not filling up the stat sheet while in a 3-4 , I don’t recall him hooking the tackle/ guard and allowing pass rush to get to our QBs vs. Dallas. I don’t recall him batting passes on the line. I don’t recall him blowing up blockers in our run game.
http://espn.go.com/blog/dallas/cowboys/post/_/id/4717598/hatcher-meeting-marinellis-high-standards
http://cowboysblog.dallasnews.com/2013/10/grades-and-rankings-jason-hatcher-is-nfls-top-ranked-dt-sean-lee-no-2-among-inside-linebackers.html/
The ESPN entry basically says he stunk prior to this season, thus proving my point about his journeyman level career and the Dallas based article is all stuff from this season.
I cant point to post game analysis (unless they are from Tommy and a few selected Eagles bloggers, they often blows), but Hatcher gave us problems last year and as said this year he is in the perfect scheme for his talent.
I’ll take your word for it on last year and I’ll agree that there is a lack of quality writing out there in general for Xs and Os.
I generally get most of my stuff from Sirius NFL station when not reading the local guys. At no point prior to this year did I hear any of the guys I really respect (Ross Tucker, Pat Kirwan, Tim Ryan) talking about the play of Hatcher as good, but underrated.
I know Jimmy Kempski when he ran bloggingthebeast, often talked about Hatcher as a very good, but underrated.
Who, except for Media Mike, votes this comment from GermanEagle down?
The structure from this pro bowl argumentation is as “good” as the argumentation from Phil Simms about our Offense.
I only downrated Anders’ personal attack, so I’m not sure why you’re accusing me of downrating the other comment. Your comment is now downrated because of the personal attack.
Lol. Now there are 2 downvotes. 😀 That’s the evidence that you didn’t vote GermanEagle down.
I think Media Mike is MM in reality, Marty Mornhinweg that is…
I wish I was Marty! He’s making a low IQ selfish bum Geno Smith win games. That is really impressive.
Can’t discount the coaching of Rod Marinelli either. I don’t know who the Dallas DL coach was the last few years but he’s one of the best.
Tommy regarding running outside. Kelly often did that against fast pursing defenses (burned USC on it couple of times) in college because if you block it right, there will often be a huge cut back lane.
Problem was that Kelly has never coached against a Hatcher+Lee combo. Lee simply is so fast that he do not have to over pursue the OZR and blockers are simple to slow to get on him on the 2nd level.
And who even know how many runs were really called outside vs. Shady refusing to simply take the 4 – 6 yards that were there.
Its easy to see on how they block it.
Even with misdirection being a major part of how we’ve run successfully?
Yes if you know what too look for
I still saw a lot of called runs through the middle that Shady went dancing with rather than running and/or tried to bust outside for no reason.
That you are correct about. McCoy has gotten better at not doing this, but sometimes he still does it (and we wonder why Bryce Brown do it all the time? :P)
I get stomach cramps every time I see Brown enter the game. Polk getting hurt was bad. Polk is a better pass blocker, plays within himself, and doesn’t make our play calling one-dimensional when he enters the game.
I wish we would add some diversity to our run game… we have been successful, but it would be nice to mix in some different looks and run out of formations that we haven’t put on film yet..especially when we are playing a team for the second time in less then a month. We have some awesome personel to run two and 3back pistol sets, especially since we have good and agile TEs that can block lined up out of the backfield..
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Desean is officially being used NOTHING like Deanthony Thomas…would love to see some more creativity with Desean! lining him up in the backfield and have him run RB routes like wheel routes and passes to the flat
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I know that Chip isn’t going to show everything in I his first 8 games. I know he has plays in hiss pocket that he probably won’t bust out til year 3….but I do think Chip could be doing a better job of keeping defenses off balance. This will be the first time Chip faces a team the second time, so I’m very curious to see how he calls this game…expecting plays that we haven’t run yet, so the game should be interesting
Jackson has been in the back field a couple of times. He started the Bucs game in the backfield and you do not want to use him like DAT. Jackson got a WRs body, where DAT is a RB.
I certainly don’t want to be handing the ball off to Desean
Vs. Dallas:
Meco had a fantastic game, much better then “good”
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Not happy that Cole gets so many snaps, but he played really well on Sunday
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Cary did abou as good as anyone will do against Dez???you can say that the refs let vary play, but the refs consistently let the giants Oline get away with murder…had the oline actually been flagged and not allowed to deal with pressure by getting away with holding, the game would have been easier for CDub…
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Considering how the refs called the game, t was a joke to call to at PIT in the ENDZONE. The WR took advantage of our hand placement and sold the call by turning Hs body
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Wolff literally has gotten better every week over the past month
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Nate had his best game in about 3 years
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Loved seeng Barwin CRUDH romo??Graham and Vinny got some nice hits on I him as well
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if Coop reverts back to being invisible, then the problem is Vick
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Expecting the defense to take another step and have it’s best showing of the he season on Sunday…Giants have good WR, but they don’t have these big physically imposing WR that you have to concede catches to like Dez Bryant OT Vincent Jackson….expecting both the. Front 7 and the secondary to hae a big showing…we will force ATleast two turnovers upping our total to 14 giving us one more at the half way point then we had all of last year!!
Billy “Jethro” Davis hahahahahahahaha
I’ve not seen one guy mention the busted screen whcih shady turned from a 2 yard loss, to a 7 yard loss trying to cut it back too much. Ridiculously bad play.
99% of the time that dance turns -2 into +1, but yeah not sunday.
Saw an All-22 on it somewhere – it really should’ve been a positive play, possibly even a TD. Not sure what Shady saw, but he had blockers and a small seam and very few defenders beyond the LOS.
Hey Tom, just want to say thanks for the hard work man. Your (according to you) semi- review is still the best Eagles info around.
“good game” obviously isn’t a knock, but I thought DMR deserved a stronger superlative than that for the way he played. That’s pretty much the best linebacker play you can ask for in a game. I also thought Wolff jumped off the tape more than Tommy is mentioning. He looked very good as a blitzer at times and he really manned up on that hit on Bryant (and from what I understand he only missed a couple of plays.)
so has Kendricks replaced Casey Matthews as a backup OLB? I sure hope so.
Trent Cole may be doing some nice things at LB. BUT he’s not sacking the QB. He’s not getting pressure regularly on the QBs. Isn’t that what an OLB’s supposed to do in the 3-4? Get Graham in there more, see what he can do full time.
Hasn’t had a sack in I his last 13 games…hasn’t had multiple sacks in a game since December of 2010
Johnny Manziel is really, really good. maybe its a college thing. don’t know. but the kid can make plays and make throws on the money.
Taj Boyd s stinking it up for his third game in a row…Vic Beasley needs to up on 15lbs
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Can’t wait to watch Hundley and Barr vs, Mariotta and DAT
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Falling in love with the 6’6 first round OLB prospect from bama…
Tommy, I just want to take the time to thank you for going back and checking the tape to see if you thought Foles might have gotten dinged up earlier. Not every blogger pays that close attention to his readers’ comments, and fewer actually go out of their way to address their questions. You’re a class act, sir.
I too thought it was great that Tommy looked at Foles early to see if he was hurt. I still cannot believe why he played this way.
Anthony Barr is too damn good!! We have to find a way to get him opposite of Barwin..dope fuck punt by Oregon