Gameday – at HOU
Posted: November 2nd, 2014 | Author: Tommy Lawlor | Filed under: Philadelphia Eagles | 33 Comments »Big news on the inactive front. Jadeveon Clowney and Brian Cushing are out today for Houston. That takes away a pass rush threat and a veteran ILB.
The Eagles will have Jason Kelce and Darren Sproles back. Those are a couple of huge additions. Kelce brings stability to the OL and Sproles adds juice to the return game, as well as the offense.
Nate Allen will miss the game. Earl Wolff gets the start in place of him. This is a huge opportunity for Wolff.
INACTIVES
QB Matt Barkley
WR Brad Smith
OL Dennis Kelly
OL Julian Vandervelde
DL Taylor Hart
LB Marcus Smith
DB Nate Allen
My game preview is posted at PE.com.
Houston is 2nd in the NFL in takeaways. You can move the ball on that defense if you keep JJ Watt from going wild and you don’t turn it over. The Eagles have been sloppy with the ball all year. That has to stop at some point. Today would be ideal.
_
Let’s see what you got, Wolff.
At least if he gets beat deep he has sub 4.40 speed to make the tackle before the end zone.
Don’t take a Kurt Coleman angle.
Go Eagles!
Go Vikings! Go Colts! Go Cardinals!
Ok. That last one wasn’t easy to type, but they are my 2nd favorite team today.
Bonuses: Go Oakland! Go St. Louis!
Rotoworld provides a sobering, non-Eagles take on the situation:
Allen, one of the worst starting safeties in the league, was a game-time call. Earl Wolff starts which will make Eagles fans happy, but it’s scary to think how bad he’s been in practice if he couldn’t unseat Allen.
Link?
It’s just on rotoworld’s player news page. Not an article or anything.
I have a theory that the eagles have huge break out games, like Chicago last year, when teams have weak lbs. with Cushing and Clowney out, today’s the day.
55-21 birds. Slot receivers all day. Two st touchdown, they haven’t had one in two games, gotta even out.
Eagles have never lost to the Texans before, hopefully that doesn’t change today.
Saw Jay Glazer on fox just now confirming that the Eagles tried to trade for Vincent Jackson, but I couldn’t hear what he said, anybody catch it and did he reveal anything interesting?
We offered Casey Mathews. Sell high you know?
Haha…I hope that’s a joke.
Yeah I really have no idea.
No details
https://twitter.com/JayGlazer/status/528958903032115200
Top notch reporting, Glazer
Details would be nice, because as stated it is impossible to tell how serious the offer was. I mean, did they offer them a 7th and a sandwich or were they serious enough to include the Funyons?
here’s a story in NJ.com picking up on Glazer’s report.
http://www.nj.com/eagles/index.ssf/2014/11/eagles_tried_to_trade_for_tampa_bay_buccaneers_receiver_vincent_jackson_according_to_report.html
Thanks! Although, my god…ESP is terrible. Just TMZ level speculation with no substantive reporting a at all.
great description . . .
a real runaway fluff piece
So… I’m thinking this is a vote of non-confidence by the team for Riley cooper, since we just extended him you know?
Who’s calling the shots in the front office?
Exactly.
So which vet WRs will be free agents in the offseason?
depends on the offer, was it serious or was it just to test if they were really considering. The report is so vague it is hard to gauge what the actual context was, and given the way the rumor mill runs I never know what to expect…or to believe.
Here’s what Glazer said, apparently:
“And Eagles tried to trade for Vincent Jackson but Tampa wouldn’t do it.”
Howie probably realized at the last minute that Vincent Jackson didn’t play for the Texans and called off the trade.
Redskins bus crashed on the way to the stadium, Silas Redd only injured player, minor back injury says rotoworld. Good thing Tony Romo wasn’t on the bus, might have damn near killed him.
And that was on top of the rumors about how dysfunctional that locker is getting with players turning on RGIII & reports of the higher ups pushing for him to start today over Jay Gruden. So glad the Eagles management lets the coaches coach.
*Edit: The higher ups over ruling Jay Gruden, not RGIII starting over Jay, though seeing a Head coach who once was a QB line up under center would be amusing
Brandon Weeden is starting for the Cowboys today…The Cardinals better win playing against that stiff.
Hopefully Dick Foles stays on the bench today and Nick Foles can play a good game today.
Off topic. When Rex Ryan gets canned, seems inevitable at this point, does he land another HC job right away?
Will be interesting imho. I’m with Colin Cowherd, who argues that the league is trending for offensive coaches who make C+/B- QBs into B/B+ QBs, because that’s what it comes down to in this league. You need a solid QB and there aren’t many available, so you have to build one.
Thing is, there aren’t many coaches in the NFL who know more about Defense than Rex, so he could be an exception of the rule. Plus his players seem to like him, that’s also important.
But I think a team who’s interested in Ryan will be scared about his track record on QBs so much that they probably won’t hire him. Sanchez potentially playing good under Kelly even increases this point – it shows that Sanchez has talent, but you need to put talent around your QB and scheme around him. Ryan couldn’t do that and couldn’t hire people to do that.
I think Ryan as HC with a veteran QB who can run his offense “alone” would be scary. But there’s no way he gets that chance. Packers, Broncos, Patriots, none of these teams will fire their HC anytime soon. And those three QBs are the only QBs in the league who can run their offense without HC/OC help. Even Brees, Rivers and Luck need help.
Jmatt needs to get better at n-s
What are these announcers carrying on about? That was a legit first down.
#buttfumbletothesuperbowl