Context
Posted: September 23rd, 2015 | Author: Tommy Lawlor | Filed under: Philadelphia Eagles | 812 Comments »The Eagles are 0-2. They look like one of the worst teams in the league. Chip Kelly should be fired. All the players should be cut or traded. Nuclear missiles should be fired at the NovaCare Complex just to be safe. According to the CDC, bad football can be highly contagious. And then…only then…can we start to have a reasonable discussion about this team.
At least that’s about the way things feel.
Football season is a marathon, not a sprint. I knew there would be some bumps in the road. I just figured they would be potholes and not the friggin Marianas Trench.
The Eagles are a mess right now. No one disputes that. Sam Bradford hasn’t been close to the answer. If only this team had a true franchise QB…someone like Andrew Luck. What’s that you say? He’s 0-2 and has led his team to even fewer points than Bradford. Wow.
Or maybe this is all Chippah. Imagine if the Eagles had a true NFL coach, one who knew how to win big games, even in the postseason, and who ran a real, complex NFL offense. How awesome would it be to have Sean Payton running this show? What’s that you say? The Saints are 0-2 and haven’t even scored 20 points in a game. Wow.
Imagine if the Eagles were proven winners like the Seahawks. What’s that you say? They’re 0-2 and…
Okay, enough of that.
The point is that the Eagles are a bad team, but there are no magic formulas in the NFL. I am truly shocked that the Saints are so bad even with Sean Payton and Drew Brees still in place. I thought they would beat the Cardinals in the opener and then expected them to wipe the field with the Bucs. And yet here they are in the same boat as the Eagles.
People want to say that the NFL has figured out Chip Kelly’s offense. The Eagles still scored 24 points and gained 399 yards in the opener.
Back in 2003 the Eagles started 0-2. The offense produced 513 yards and 10 points in those games. People wanted Andy Reid fired. They wanted Donovan McNabb benched. I remember one fan’s plan to get a 1st round pick for McNabb and then go draft RB Steven Jackson so the team could be built around a great RB, they way it should be.
Reid and McNabb combined to go 25-3 over the next 28 regular season games. No one had figured out Reid’s offense. McNabb hadn’t been exposed as overrated. There were a variety of reasons for the bad start. Over time the problems got solved.
I would love to tell you the current Eagles will do that, but I have no idea. This team is new. And every team is essentially a chemistry experiment. You remove James Thrash and add Terrell Owens, boom you suddenly have a much more explosive offense. But then you let Owens hire Drew Rosenhaus and that causes the team to explode.
Let’s talk about Chip’s offense. He ran a dynamic attack at Oregon. There were some smart coaches in the Pac-12 and they came up with wrinkles to handle his attack. Chip always adjusted on the fly and kept his offense going up and down the field.
I’m currently reading a book on the history of Joe Gibbs and his time with the Skins. Gibbs was labeled an offensive genius after Washington set the NFL record for points in a season (541) in 1983. In 1985 the Skins finished 20th in scoring. Joe Theismann really struggled and age finally caught up to John Riggins. The media focused on Gibbs and how the rest of the NFL had figured him out.
Over the next six years, the Skins never finished outside the Top 10 in points or yards. They won a pair of Super Bowls. They did it with different QBs and RBs. No one figured Gibbs out. The 1985 team didn’t play well. They didn’t execute well. Great ideas mean nothing without proper execution.
Brian Billick looked like a genius when he ran the Vikings offense in 1998 and they smashed the Skins record for points. Then Billick went to the Ravens and they struggled to score points for his entire time as coach. His playbook was still massive and full of great ideas. The Ravens never could find the right QB or combination of players to make those plays work consistently.
Chip Kelly has not done a great job to start the 2015 season. I think he can be part of the solution, though. He has a terrific offensive mind. He has some talented pieces. Kelly must get the line to block better and then he needs to figure out how to use this group of players.
Right now the chemistry experiment is failing. That doesn’t mean that he is missing ingredients. Kelly just has to figure out how to mix them to get good results.
If November rolls around and this team is still struggling to move the ball, then we know there is a fatal flaw in this experiment. At that point, something has to change. I think more consistent blocking and fewer dropped passes would be a huge help to this offense.
Those are the kinds of issues that hurt all offenses (see the Saints and Colts for example). But these issues are front and center to the Eagles slow start. That makes them Chip Kelly’s problem and he better find a way to get them fixed. And fast.
_
Thanks for the insight Tommy. Some of us, myself included, needed a little perspective.
Yes, it’s still early, but let’s face it: If they lose Sunday to the Jets to go 0-3 and don’t look good in doing so (especially Bradford), things may well go downhill fast.
One thing Andy was really good at was keeping the team together during tough stretches (outside of 2012, that is). I’m not sure Chip will be able to do that, given his more aloof relationship with his players.
Also, I question Bradford’s leadership skills – I don’t see him getting very much player support if he keeps stinking up the joint like last week.
At this point, I’m pretty fatalistic about the season (after thinking that maybe, just maybe, it might finally be our year). Hopefully though Chip can turn it around. But like you said Tommy, he needs to fix things fast.
be surprised if anyone on the team would step out of line, we don’t have any divas maybe we’re better to handle this type of adversity.
Its time to see what kind of team and coach we really have. Anyone can “lead” when things are easy and everything is working great. Its all about how you respond once everything goes to hell
0-2 in 2003 is good perspective. But they won their third game and went upwards from there. 0-3 is more than just tough on rankings, it would be a killer for confidence for the players.
A young team expecting to be the underdogs going into a season can go 0-3 or 0-4 and can keep building chemistry, getting better as the long season goes on. A Dream Team or Pre-Season Superbowl team can have such high expectations that it becomes hard to build chemistry after just a few loses to start the season.
Maybe the o-line could get their confidence back in one play. On the first offensive play of the Jets game, Kelly calls for an epic false start, each o-linemen, before the snap, jumps out and knocks the Jets player across from them backwards onto the ground. Perhaps the offense needs less talk this week about how they can polish their technique and more about just being physical, imposing their will etc..
I think physicality is what they need as well. They need to go after the defensive front.
Oh no, Tommy. What have you done?
You just published a blog entry about disappointment, failure, contagions, chemistry experiments, explosions, and nuking the city just as officials are on high alert for the Papal visit.
You may want to keep an eye out for dark, nondescript sedans with guys wearing dark suits inside. But don’t look like you are keeping an eye out…
and if your name is Bob Lee Swagger, you probably shouldn’t attend the events.
https://gentleandquietdotcom.files.wordpress.com/2015/07/steve-rogers-i-understood-that-reference.jpg
For me, the lack of oline continuity, the poor play from the guards,
the rusty QB play from the guy who hasn’t taken meaningful snaps in 2
years, the miscommunication with new starters at 10 of 22 spots, is all
to be expected. It was foolish of us to think that having an oline
where no one has ever really started next to each other before would
look like a well oiled machine and have no issues with trust,
communication, and continuity. It was foolish for us to think that a 31
year old journeyman with 8 career starts and whoever ended up sucking
the least of last years 3rd string guards would provide top notch guard
play. It was downright silly to think you could change out 10 of 22
starters and just hit the ground running. It was way overly optimistic
to think Bradford could miss 2 years of action, learn a new system,
recover from a second straight ACL tear, only start taking 11 on 11
snaps in late July early August, throw 15 preseason passes, and
immediately look like a top QB. That a rookie, a 3rd round overdrafted
WR and a Riley Cooper would immediately present problems to opposing
CBs. That Zach Ertz could have hernia surgery and 3 weeks later, with
no preseason with his new QB immediately be a matchup nightmare with
great chemistry with his new starting QB. Literally, all the execution
problems look painfully obvious in hindsight. Shame on us for being
such homers that we didn’t see most of this coming.
Woooo. What a comment.
Couldn’t agree more. All really well said. It was pretty amazing to see the hype train in full effect, myself included.
I’m just as big of an idiot. I was ready to book my super bowl tickets after watching Bradford carve up Green Bay in the preseason. I honestly thought this team looked like the best team in the league preseason. But…wow…Samsonite…I was way off.
“Shame on us for being such homers that we didn’t see most of this coming.”
But I do this same thing every year.
I appreciate the historical context. However, what I’m seeing on tape is what’s concerning me most. Chip might change his approach at some point and people will scoff and the notion that defensive coordinators had figured him out. But, it won’t because he keeps doing the same thing schematically. He’ll will have to change, because the story the tape tells is that defensive coordinators have absolutely figured out what he’s been doing since half way through the 2014 season and are shutting it down completely. The most disappointing thing about it is that he’s not doing what he did in 2013 when he first got here or what I ever saw him do in college.
I can’t overstate the utter simplicity of our schemes. At this moment in time, we have two run plays. We run inside zone, with no read option component
and we run a sweep play. If the guards and/or center pull, it’s a sweep
in the direction they’re pulling. Making it even easier to diagnose
the RB action is distinct. He lines up next to the QB and at the snap
turns sideways to the LOS heading in the direction of the play. Further, if the TE is lined up on the LOS it’s a run towards his side (if he’s lined up as an H-back off the LOS it’s a zone read away from the H-back). Piece of cake to diagnose for any defense.
Compounding these obvious tells upon tells upon tells that reveal exactly what we’re doing pre-snap, we went into the season with a 31 year old journey man with 8 career starts at LG and whoever the least shitty of our 3rd string guards ended up being playing RG. So not only are our guards overmatched, but every single player on the line is playing next to a guy they’ve never really played next to and have no rapport with. So slants, stunts, twists, ect easily cause a cascading level of miscommunication and confusion. If that’s not enough, he’s designing plays where both the guard and center pull at the same time, while defenses are attacking the center of our line and trying to penetrate. Does no one realize how big a hole is created when both a guard and center pull at the same time? Does he really expect Barbre to fly down and stop a penetrating DT in that much space?
When it comes to passing, all you need to know is WR splits. The moment the WRs adjust their splits we immediately telagraph that it’s a pass and even worse exactly which pass it’s going to be, because…we run only 4 pass plays repeatedly.
If the WRs line up with close splits or bunches or are near the Oline at
all, it’s going to be a mesh underneath with three receivers running
crossing routes within 10 yards of the LOS hoping to exploit man
coverage and a wheel route run down one sideline. Great play to beat
man coverage. However, when it’s so obvious that every time the
receivers take close splits you’re running the mesh with a wheel, just
audible to zone coverage. Drop all the underneath defenders straight
across the field within ten yards of the LOS and every receiver runs
right into the coverage and the mesh provides no natural picks. Then
just have one guy play zone over-top of the wheel route. Presto, no
one’s open.
If we don’t do that we run a play with 3 potential receiving threats to one side and one WR out wide to the other side. All the WRs take normal splits. We run a snag concept to the side with 3 receivers. The TE (sometimes a RB) runs a flat patten, the outside receiver runs a short inside breaking curl and the inside receiver runs a corner route.
If we line up with two potential receivers to either side with normal splits, we run 4 verticles, with the only variation being a switch 4 verticals where the inside receiving crosses to the outside like a wheel route and the outside receiver crosses inside to run a seem.
Finally, we occasionally run a 3 WR set with Matthews in the slot. The two outside WRs run fly patterns and Matthews runs a deep post/crossing route from one side of the feild to the other.
That’s it! That’s the entire offense. We run those same plays over and over and over, with no tendency breakers or constraint plays off of it. We dress it up with different motions and formations, but it’s the same 6 plays over and over again.
And, all that you need to do is note the WR splits and count how many receiving options are on each side of the ball and you immediately know what’s coming.
Also note that we almost never motion or dress up our runs. If we come out in a standard set, with no motion, and there’s the right number of defensive players in the box we run, either straight up the middle on inside zone (easily killed
at this point with stunts, twists, slants) or outside zone, just follow the pulling lineman. Tight splits = mesh + wheel route. Regular splits with 1 receiving option to one side and 3 to the other = snag. Regular splits with 2 receiving threats to each side = 4 verticals, or if its WR – TE – LINE – Matthews in the slot – WR it’s two verticals andMatthews running the deep crosser. That’s all you have to know to defend the eagles at this point.
In football, every offensive player has a natural advantage in that he knows what he’s going to do and the defensive guy doesn’t. Due to our play calling, we’ve given up the most natural and fundemental advantage that exists in football.
Chips offense from Oregon and 2013 in Philly, seemed to be predicated on making sure that every play had built in answers to whatever the defense did. Essentially, each play was designed so that the defense was always wrong. As soon as a defense started cheating one way, there were natural constraints built in to counter their overpursuit. Once they started trying to over commit to defending both things at once, there was a tendency breaker that hit them for a big gain. They were always wrong, always out of position, no matter what they did.
Think about the package play we saw so frequently with two stacked WRs way out wide, We’d run WR bubble screens to each side spreading the defense horizontally, with an inside zone read run. If the defense covered both screens with 3 defenders, we run with a numbers advantage, compounded by the threat of a QB keeper. If the read player stayed honest and defended the QB threat, the RB gashed an out numbered defensive front, if he crashed on the RB, the QB picked up an easy few yards around the outside. Once they moved players inside to defend against the run and gain a numbers advantage there, we’d throw the screen pass for easy yards. Then they’d try stacking the box and having their CBs crash hard on the screen and the blocking WR would release on a fly pattern and hit them deep over the top. When they tried to adjust to that by staying patient, we’d have the QB start to keep wait for the defense to converge and then throw the ball out wide to the WR on the perimeter. The defense was always wrong and always out of position.
Think about the inside zone pop pass we saw so many times in 2013. We’d run inside zone. Once, the LBs would commit to stopping inside zone we’d hit Celek on a pop pass over the top off play action. Then they’d try to run blitz and have the MLB streak out to cover Celek and we’d run a crossing pattern behind the place the MLB just vacated. Always wrong, there was an answer to everything.
Find me one play or series of play calls this year that shows the same kind
of creativity. We’ve become so basic, so repetitive and so simple, that the defense is no longer always wrong, their actually always right. They always know whats coming and they’re there before we are. There’s no constraints or counters. We went from having a revolutionary system that had an answer for anything a defense did, to a simplistic scheme that depends solely on executing better than our opponent. And, we’re trotting out a bunch of players who are new to the system and haven’t played with each other. Superior execution is not what we should be solely banking on at this point since it’s simply unrealistic to expect with so many new faces.
What happened to Chip? In 2013 we saw so many interesting packaged plays,
that could kill anything a defense threw at us. The same play worked against man, zone, blitz, whatever the defense put out there. We constantly toyed with defenses and made sure that no matter what they did they were always wrong, we had an answer for everything they did and counters off our counters and tendency breakers and constraint plays to force their hand so they never knew what was coming.
Now the defense is always right. They always know whats coming and
they know exactly how to defend it. We have one pass play that beats man coverage (the mesh), one that beats zone (snag), on that beats cover 3 (4 verticals) and two run plays that are dead on arrival because they’re entirely telagraphed pre-snap and have no counters off of them to penalize a team for over pursuing. There are no answers, no counters, nothing. It’s all dependent on just out executing which is impossible because nearly 50% of our starters are new to the team and execution is just not going to be perfect at this point. Where’d you go Chip Kelly?
its just the line. 2013 they had probably the best line in football, a top 5 rb, and foles played outta his mind, plus coordinators had no idea how to defend any of his chip’s stuff since there wasn’t much film yet. last year they had a ton of injuries to the line and the offense suffered. this year the line is worse b/c the guards are worse and the “good” players aren’t playing that well atm.
You’re right, there’s no difference at all in the play calls or style of offense, I don’t know why I just wrote all that…smh
Great post. Any idea why the offense would have changed this way?
I can’t understand why Chip went away from the offense where nearly every play was a packaged play. Abandoning the read option makes sense because you don’t want Bradford running the ball, but that’s no reason to abandon these other plays:
1st play: QB reads the LB. Hands off if he covers the TE. Throws to the TE if he attacks the LOS.
http://chipwagon.typepad.com/.a/6a019aff7e1054970d019b01cde4c5970b-800wi
2nd play: Double Stack. Pre-snap read: Extra defender inside: Bubble Screen. Extra defender outside: Run.
http://44tmty10gzq314zldj14iuvh.wpengine.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/08/fischer-doublestack1.jpg
I can find no reason why Chip moved in this direction. Chip is a smart football guy and must have some reasoning behind this. If anyone knows the answer to why, please enlighten me. For now, I’m continuing under the assumption that Chip lost all of his play sheets other than the S8 and hasn’t had time to print out new versions of S1/S2.
Better than anything written this week in the Philly papers by a mile.
Oh boy do I love the Eagles to be underdogs again – against the Jets…!
Don’t forget the historical angle! The Jets are looking for their very first W vs the Birds. Or, they drop to 0-10 all time. Oh the drama….
https://twitter.com/JohnBarchard/status/646520187806687232
who is john barchard?
Radio host on 97.3 and BleedingGreenNation contributor
Thanks.
Also the biggest Eagles homer on the net before this season (though the speed with which he has done a 180 is amusing).
But saying the scheme has been figured out is so much more fun and allows for infinitely more vitriol.
Shucks. I’m going to have to return my pitchfork and matches.
“Better to have a pitch fork and matches and not need them than need a pitch fork and matches and not have them.”
-The Tao of the Philly Fan
The two concepts are intertwined. The scheme has been figured out and was a long time ago. The point is, if the players execute at a high level, it can and has still worked even though the defense knows what is coming. The flip side is defenses have since late last season attacked the scheme before the execution CAN happen and blow it up. This eliminates the tempo strategy Chip likes to employ and causes even more problems for an already over-worked Eagles defense. That is what Chip has to counter effectively and has failed to do so far. Chip has lost 5 out of the last 6 games and his offense has struggled due to this defensive approach. He better figure it out and get the players to execute well this week or the season may be over.
You can have 9000 plays with 10 million wrinkles and if players can’t execute it doesn’t mean shit.
The idea that stunting DL ruins the IZ is wrong. The IZ accounts for DL stunting. The OL is just not executing their assignments. This then causes the Sweep (which is a counter to the tendencies of the IZ) to be less effective (also Celek not making a basic pin block)
I agree more with Gary, but I’ll go with your points. Why isn’t the OL not executing? Where are their blocking adjustments? You know more than I but I have to ask, on those plays where the B gap was destroyed, wouldn’t a simple GAT(guard around tackle) work?
Why aren’t they executing? That’s the 64 million dollar question. But lets look at a play I shared yesterday.
The IZ accounts perfectly for this stunt. Barbre should hand check the DT with his right hand, proceed on his zone track, and check for a pinching DE, prior to working up to the next level. The scheme accounts for this. This isn’t some magical mystical “figured out” nonsense. Why they aren’t following their blocking rules evades me. But it isn’t some “oh just stunt and it completely ruins the scheme, Chip is such a dummy college guy”
https://vine.co/v/ePvrbZQHnXt
so if 76 blocks, that play should work. The only guy he blocks is someone that’s already engaged. LJ with a bit of a hold on that play too.
Yes, JP should take the backer which he does and Barbre needs to take the DE and the play works perfectly fine. Like I said ain’t shit wrong with the scheme. That’s a lack of communication and execution.
Also I think Lane was trying to execute a slingshot technique.
https://twitter.com/CoachMattJones/status/626846758778245120
At the end it looks like a block in the back. Is that intentional?
Ideally you want to just overtake him and box him out. But you’re also never going to get called for anything of that sort if you’re not in the open field.
do you think the problem is the OL are so hyped to make the 2nd level block they aren’t paying enough attention to the first level block?
Yes that’s likely what caused Barbre to forget about the DE. He’s a lesser atlete and likely felt the need to overcompensate. In all reality he would have been fine if the LB flies, the back should wait for Barbre to arrive and then cut back up the field.
How is that not holding?
Kind of is, but happens quickly, in a nontraditional sense and within the scrum of the tackle box. Not going to get called.
It’s kind of difficult to even imagine what Barbre was thinking there. He actually avoids contact with the DE as he’s flying through the gap. Did he think there was some sort of screen called?
I don’t think he was even looking for the DE. He had tunnel vision on the linebacker.
I agree completely with this. Execution up and down the line has been atrocious and has lead to a majority of the problems we’re seeing.
And, you’re right, it’s not like the inside zone was some mystical play design that NFL defensive coordinators stayed up all night trying to dream of ways to defend until one lucky soul said, “hey let’s just run some stunts!” and, presto, the scheme has been figured out and the play can no longer function.
I just don’t think that that’s what Gary is getting at. It seems that the lack of execution is the primary problem. Chips instinct when players are not executing properly is to go back to the basics, the fundementals of the scheme, run the play that we’ve run a million times in practice and get the execution right and then I’ll move on.
The problem as I see it, is that this has compounded the problem a bit. The execution issues are still being worked out and still causing problems. But, due to the simplicity of the play calling, the lack of constraint plays and counters has allowed defenses to pin their ears back and attack us without concern for being penalized for their aggressiveness. This leads to situations where the player youre supposed to block is now more difficult to block because he knows what’s coming, he’s not hesitating and he’s beating you to play. Sometimes defenses just call the perfect play to stop the play your running on a given down. That happens and theres nothing you can do about it. The defense wins because they just happened to run the perfect play. But, it seems like that perfect play is being called with extreme certainty these days and making it even harder for our struggling line to execute.
I see all the things you are pointing out here and not disagreeing with them at all. But, I’m not just looking at our line, I’m now focusing on Dallas’ line and their Lbs.
At the snap of the ball even before our players move, they’re entire front seven is sprinting towards the play side of the run with a stunting DE and a LB looping outside specifically to disrupt the blocking assignments that our players have. The defensive reaction is too fast and too full throttle.
Bradford hasn’t even handed the ball off yet and the LBers are in full on sprint mode to the designed hole, with the DE looping in instantaneously into the exact hole we’re trying to run through, while the LB commits fully and at full speed to keep outside contain.
Can you not see how playcalling, ie running a playaction bootleg off this same run action, and destroying those over aggressive LBers with a huge passing gain, would potentially back their aggressiveness off a bit and give our guys a more favorable position to execute blocks against defenders that aren’t running to the play full speed before the snap even hits Bradfords palms?
Pause this play before Bradford is even a yard away from handing the ball off and tell me that that defense isn’t ripe for being ripped to shreds with a play action bootleg.
Ok I finally get what you’re saying, and I’ve been in the camp it’s been like 85% execution, and 15% playcalling. I’m not too worried about play calling because its a small sample size and a few of those drop balls are completed and a few of those run plays work out better and it’s less of an issue.
I think Kelly is really frustrated he can’t get the IZ working because it’s really the foundation of our O, and so he’s trying to keep it simple with just the IZ and the sweep to counter it until he gets it firing. It was a short week so they likely simply didn’t get into as much self scouting as they wanted to and when it wasn’t working Kelly just tried to double down. Really I think getting out of this rut is just a matter of marginally better execution and things will snowball in the opposite direction.
That is not what I’ve seen. I’ve seen defenders in the backfield or on the perimeter or where ever the play is supposed to go ahead of the Eagles and they have totally disrupted the execution of the play. They have shot through gaps left by pulling OG or Kelce in the execution of the play – thus the execution was on track, but the defense got to and stuffed the ball carrier before they got started by exploiting flaws in the scheme. It would not matter that everyone executed the play perfectly if the defense already tackled the RB in the backfield by using the Eagles scheme against them. That is what Chip needs to counter.
Except the scheme calls for those players to be blocked. And they aren’t being blocked. That’s called execution.
Sit back and think it through: if multiple defenders are shooting multiple gaps at the same time, it forces the OL, TE and RB responsible for blocking the play to make split decisions on which assignment is more important…inevitably at least one of them makes the wrong choice and at least one defender gets free to stuff the play. That is NOT execution, that is a defense exploiting flaws in a scheme. Chip has got to find ways to back the defense off the LOS so he has the ability to utilize his run game. The run game ignites every other component of the offense once it gets going. It is not by accident that defense are selling out to shut down the run game – they know it is the foundation of Chip’s scheme.
If you want to show me video of what you are talking about ok. But otherwise you’re talking about something that I don’t believe happened.
Ask and thy shall receive…
http://www.phillymag.com/birds247/2015/09/23/all-22-opponents-picking-up-on-eagles-tendencies/
Plays 1 and 2: Scheme accounts for this, Kelce needs to pass man who crosses his face off and work to backer.
Play 3: Can’t tell if Kelce’s pulling or it’s a zone. If its a pull, Gardener needs to bury that guy before he gets in on Kelce. If it’s zone he needs to see the DT bury himself on Kelce and move on the second level.
Sweep v Cowboys works if Celek makes the pin block.
E-X-E-C-U-T-I-O-N
Yes, on those individual plays, you can point to execution by saying what the player should have done and showing how it isn’t what he actually did. Then you can go back and say, “see if he just did what he was supposed to the whole play would have worked just fine.” Then you can write “E-X-E-C-U-T-I-O-N” in all caps like a condescending dolt and feel really good about yourself.
And, honestly, you’re not wrong. If players executed the plays would have worked. That’s true on almost every single play in the NFL. Coaches don’t typically get to that level with schemes that are completely asinine.
No different that watching Fletcher get abused over and over by Dez Bryant in press man with no safety help and saying, if he just jammed him real hard, disrupted his route like he should have and had better position on him as he ran down the field the defensive play call would have worked. E-X-E-C-U-T-I-O-N.
I’m not interested in discussing how the players missed their blocks and didn’t execute the play design the way it was drawn up. That’s obvious to anyone with two eyes from watching the plays on tape. And, it offers no immediate solution outside of, “the players just need to execute better…see I understand football.”
I’m interested in WHY they were ALL, CONTINUALLY, unable to execute, WHY so many players up and down the line ALL had problems executing on nearly EVERY PLAY, WHY players CONSTANTLY found themselves in positions where the defender was beating them to the play, gaining leverage on them extremely quickly, blowing through the center of the line and knocking Kelce back as he’s turned sideways trying to pull, WHY typically good players like Celek and Kelce were CONSTANTLY being out leveraged. And, HOW we can try to adjust things to put them in more favorable positions so that they can EXECUTE properly.
You don’t have to agree with my theory. But, my theory is that part of the problem is that this offensive line is being put in a difficult situation due to the play calling. The lack of constraints, counters, packaged plays, read options…all the stuff that defenders previously had to worry about when they saw IZ or OZ or sweep or power action in front of them…is leading to a situation where the defenders can see IZ action, for example, and feel very confident to go full blast attacking that without hesitation and without having to worry about being hit with a counter or constraint.
So I’m not looking so much at Celek’s missed block, or Kelce getting blown back as he’s pulling, or Gardner missing a reach block, I’m looking at what the Cowboys were doing. And, what I was seeing from the Cowboys players was defenders that had no doubt they knew what they were seeing and what was being run and had no worry or hesitation to go full blast to blow said play up.
This allowed them to attack our blocking schemes aggressively, allowed them to constantly get to the plays quickly, allowed them to get leverage on our blockers faster, and ultimately MADE IT more difficult for us to execute those blocks and put our blockers at a disadvantage.
This is all then being compounded by an offensive line that hasn’t developed chemistry yet, and is unsure of their assignments due to changing the blocking scheme up and adding new players, and a limited play book that currently contains only 2 run plays, making it even easier for defensive players to quickly diagnose what they’re seeing and attack it aggressively.
It will always be easier to block someone that needs to hesitate for a split second diagnosing what’s going on, instead of someone that can see and react instantly without fear of being burned by their aggressive play. That’s just a fact.
So, at least respond to what I’m saying. I’m agreeing with you that they didn’t execute correctly. I’m taking it a step further and trying to figure out why they’re execution is so off and see if there’s something that could be done schematically to help put them in more favorable positions to execute their blocking assignments.
And, my conclusion is that backing off their aggressiveness with some constraint and counter plays that introduce question and hesitation into the defenders mind could help by providing a big play by taking advantage of over pursuit and over aggressiveness, give us some confidence and back off the over aggressive attack we’re seeing from defenses with regards to our running game, which could open things up a bit for us.
And, all you keep doing is ignoring everything I’m saying about they why and how we might be contributing to the why with some scheme choices and going, “Nope…I watched the play, Celek was supposed to block a guy, he didn’t block that guy good, the guy made the tackle. If he blocks him good, he doesn’t make the tackle, and play works. E-X-E-C-U-T-I-O-N”
If you look at those Dallas plays all it takes is one block and Murray has HUGE gains. Especially the one where Celek Totally misses his guy and is standing there while murray is tackled by the guy celek was supposed to block. He makes that block there is a lot of room to run, and the other play either guard has a shot at at least touching Lee and there is only a CB with a WR there to stop murray and they are 30 yards up the field. Those plays are all execution.
Never said they weren’t. I agree that each individual play can be attributed to execution. I’m asking what can we do play calling-wise that can help our players execute better.
Watch that Celek play again. His job is to pin the end inside on a sweep. So at the snap he has to move to his right to ensure he gets outside leverage on an end that’s already shaded to his outside. If the end plays outside contain and Celek doesn’t move to his right the plays dead. So at the snap he moves right.
Because we only have two run plays and we always run sweep to the tightens side when he’s on the line and to the same side as the back, and we always run inside zone to the opposite side when the tightend is off the line. The defense has a good chance to guess what could be coming is a run. And they know Celek had to get outside leverage to pin the end. So they have the end loop inside and crash hard to Celeks left and have the LB who is Gardners man loop around the ends back and provide the edge contain. Now Celek has to block an end that is firing off the ball hard to his left while he, Celek, is moving hard to his right at the snap. Now Celek is at a disadvantage. It’s very hard to block someone that has 40 pounds of muscle on you, is faster/quicker than you, when you’re moving right and he’s moving left. Further, now Gardner who isn’t very fleet of foot needs to get all the way to the edge to block his responsibility, the LB. Making it a difficult block for him as well. Celek misses a very difficult block and the plays dead.
Do you see how scheme and play calling are related to and can effect execution? They’re not mutually exclusive. Sure, you can just sit back and say, Celek was supposed to block end, he didn’t block him good, end made tackle, if he blocks him good end doesn’t, therefore execution. But, that ignores the question of WHY wasn’t Celek, a very good blocker, unable to execute the block. Perhaps the difficult position our play calling and scheme put him had an effect on that. No?
Taking it further…if after seeing them beat our sweep this way we called a play that otherwise looked like sweep left, but instead of blocking the end that crashes to the left, Celek releases to catch a pass right in the spot just vacated by the looping LB and Bradford hits him with a pop pass. Now the Cowboys know they can’t just crash the end inside and have the LB immediately run to provide outside contain at the snap or they’ll get burned. Then next time we come out to run sweep, they have to play it more straight up. The end provides outside contain and the LB has to hesitate for a split second to ensure its a run and Celek isn’t releasing to catch a pass before he makes his move. Now both Celeks and Gardners blocks are easier to make. They execute and the run game starts working. You just watch the individual play and go, “look they executed that one better.” But, as you see that small schematic/play calling wrinkle helped make it easier for them to execute. That’s all I’m saying.
Also what you’re describing is 1 gapping.
If he can’t see the gains Murray would have had on those plays if guys would have blocked how they should have then there is no arguing with him.
http://gfycat.com/AcceptableDamagedJunebug
True. But, does the defenders knowing the play beforehand and being able to attack it without hesitation or fear of being penalized with a counter or constraint play not contribute to the execution problem? I’m not sure why you can hold both ideas in your head at the same time.
OK back lines up offset to the left. Is it IZ, or sweep left, or pass?
OH shit, they don’t actually know the exact play based off alignement?
Come on, you’re smarter than that. There is much more to diagnosing the play than where the back lines up. So far this year, every single time the TE has lined up on the LOS and we’ve run it’s been a run to his side. Every time he’s lined up off the line as an H-back its an inside zone to the opposite side. Every time a lineman pulls we run sweep. Every time a lineman doesn’t pull and executes a combo block we run IZ. When we run IZ the RB moves towards the QB at the snap of the ball, when we run sweep he turns sideways to LOS and starts moving away from the QB. This can be diagnosed in a quarter of a second and that diagnosis can be followed to the completion of the play because I have yet to see a counter off of that, where the RB moves like its sweep or IZ and the defense is hit with something to counter their aggressiveness.
Every single time the WRs adjust their splits from the line it’s immediately signaled pass. Close splits always indicate mesh with a wheel route. 3 receiving options to one side of the field with the slot WR setting his split closer to the line than normal has been the snag, with the slot WR running a corner route, every single time I’ve seen it this year. There’s a lot of obvious tendencies that are telegraphing our play calls. I was at the game Sunday and the people in my section thought I was some kind of savant because I was calling out the play on almost every single snap. Really it couldn’t have been easier for a novice like me to pick up on these tendencies.
The big problem is that there aren’t the normal constraints that I used to see Chip build into each play. In the past, even when we ran IZ the defense had to account for the QB keeping the ball, they had to account for the bubble screen and the pop pass off the IZ action. The past 6-8 games those constraints seemed to have disappeared from the plays so with no concern about the bubble screen or the pop pass or the QB keeper, the job of the defense has been made infinitely easier.
No counter point to be made here. But in games, what are coaches supposed to do with that? Do you try to play through it, or do you more or less abandon the run and sort it out later like we sort of did.
I think the real issue, is this…Chips system is built off predictability mixed with constraints and counters that play off that predictability. Once the defense knows IZ is coming and starts to over pursue you see the QB keep, the pop pass, the screen, the bubble, the play action. The problem is that what Chip wants is for the IZ to work right off the bat, once he’s got the defense concerned with stopping the IZ and over reacting to it, he hits them with the counter and reminds them with a big play that they can’t over pursue. Then they try and cover the counter, and he’s got a counter to that in his pocket that reminds them again, that they can’t guess where he’s going with the ball. Once they go back to base, he comes back to the IZ. (over simplified but you get the point).
The issue occurs when the IZ doesn’t work off the bat. The team comes out and immediately starts over pursuing and attacking the IZ. It fails due to our lack of excecution and/or the defense scheming specifically to stop it without regard to potential counters. At this point, Chips instinct seems to be to continue running the basic play hoping that we can establish good execution on that play to set up his masterful play calling of constraints and counters to toy with the defense.
If it doesn’t get going the whole thing bogs down as we run the same basic play over and over into the teeth of a defense that knows it’s coming and abandons all other responsibilities to shut it down. The problems with execution compound and things spiral out of control.
Stuff like the Barbre blowing blocking the pinching DE should have been sorted out on the sideline but in general you try to patch what you can in game and get to other plays.
Just seems like mental errors. Like they weren’t made out of ignorance-
OK, so I play a real time strategy game called Star Craft 2 vs other players, and the people who play the game, the culture is ridiculous. Like, low-rated amateurs doing film-study to improve their craft, type stuff. And occasionally I’ll totally blow a game with 1 miss-click. It wasn’t because I didn’t know better, there was no teachable moment there. On a bad day it’s like whack a mole. I make tons of mistakes and never the same one. Like I know what happened, an error happened, didn’t do it thinking it was a great idea. It’s so frustrating because it’s so hard to correct. If you focus too hard on that mistake and not making it again, you make other mistakes. Just got to shake it off and try to play through it ( which doesn’t always work). Or stop playing (bench myself), seems to be gone the next time I play. For the life of me I can’t figure out the science of that stuff. How to identify the actual problem and fix it. I suppose that frustration is how sports psychology became so big.
I can’t imagine a football O-line, everyone having an off day at once all game (probably because they work as a unit, and they throw each other off). That’s got to be the ultimate frustration as a coach.
2 games in a row
That’s the scary part. 2012, was a mess. They would go back, look at the game and see what went wrong like everyone else. Feel like they addressed it. Players had a great week of practice, they’re hungry, driven. Then they would come back and look like crap. You’d have players in tears with frustration. Like they know they have the talent, they knew there were problems, they tried to fix them, they should be better than this and…what the hell is going on. Like remember when we finally beat Tampa Bay? Like the sheer joy of it. Those weren’t guys that stopped caring.
Sometimes it gets better…sometimes it doesn’t…it really doesn’t.
Honestly it might be because everyone is trying too hard, they’re too desperate.
1.5 in a row.
Everything you’re saying is absolutely true. I just don’t think that it discounts or disproves anything that Gary said above.
You’re right…execution is the absolute key and has been atrocious and is the main issue. The scheme is sound. The blocking assignments are sound. Stunting is accounted for if executed properly.
The problems not the scheme or that the blocking assignments are poorly conceived (except maybe pulling both the guard and center at the same time and expecting a limited athlete like Barbre to fill that tremendous hole against an attacking DT). However, the defense knowing the plays that are coming, knowing when a run is coming versus a pass, knowing which run is coming on most plays, is without a doubt making it even harder to execute and easier for teams to scheme to defend it.
So in my eyes, the schemes fine. The play calling is not. There needs to be constraint plays and counters added in regularly to penalize a defense for over pursuing because they’re expecting a certain play and right now I’m not seeing that. Good play calling keeps a defense off balance. It forces the defenders to consider multiple threats on each play, puts them in a position to have to make a decision that can be exploited in the other direction once they commit. Chip has done this masterfully his entire career. The past 6-8 games or so I’m not seeing it. He seems to have gotten in a rut as a play caller. The offense struggles to execute so he goes back to the most basic elements of the offense and forgets the constraint plays and counters that keep defenders off balance and the problem snow balls.
It’s all just window dressing though. If you can’t run IZ you’re no more likely to be succesful at power or OZ.
And if you can’t run then yea the play calling becomes really hard.
I agree to an extent, but I think the beauty of Chips system and playcalling was that he always put defenders in a bind where they had to account for more than one possibility on each play. All the plays looked alike and predictability was actually something Chip kind of wanted. He wanted the defense to “think” it knew what was coming and start over compensating and over pursuing to what they thought was happening. Then his plays would always have built in constraints and counters that would quickly remind the defenders that they couldn’t go full bore against one concept. They had to hesitate and be concerned about the other stuff that could happen as well. Just not seeing defenders put in binds where they literally need to be in two places at once anymore. It’s not a problem with scheme. It’s execution. But, that execution is getting f’d up by Kelly as well. He’s not executing as a play caller. That’s not something you’re seeing on an individual play. If you break down an individual play, you’re seeing just a lack of basic execution and blocking. When you view the play calling as a whole you’re seeing a systemic issue where we’ve gone so basic that we’re no longer pressuring defenders to account for multiple things on one play. They can forget every other responsibility, trust what they’re seeing and attack full force without being concerned with getting hit with the counter and constraints off the basic plays.
It’s been 2 weeks (and a short week) I’m not worried about self scouting and tendencies yet.
Still too small of a sample size.
It has been happening for more than two games….it goes back to last season. We’ve lost 5 of the last 6 and the only win was against the pathetic Giants who have Coughlin who is even more predictable than we are.
http://giant.gfycat.com/DaringRipeIcterinewarbler.gif
Some of us pointed out that gutting the interior of the OL probably wasn’t a good idea if Chip didn’t have a plan in place to acquire replacements.
This is exactly what I’ve been seeing as well. Great post!
Exactly. We can fault him for not addressing the O-line ala Buddy Ryan, there’s a talent issues at 2 spots. 3 guys on the line have played good in the past so there’s no reason to expect that won’t change, if not, don’t see how that could be on Chip. You’re good, now you suck?
If the plays are there, they are there, if they are not being made, with guys who are proven, wtf? Then maybe that’s a gel problem that can be fixed as they play more and people who say to stop comparing this team to talented Super Bowl winning teams are wrong. We know they are not THAT good, but we know they have been talented in the past and it doesn’t just poof! and go away. I still go back to preseason and not given a bunch of guys who haven’t played together time to play together. This team has it in them to turn it around, especially now given the state of the division.
Amateur, just pivot to CHIP KELLY DIDN’T TEACH HIS PLAYERS TO BLOCK, BLOCKING IS IMPORTANT, FIRE HIM!
I don’t think it’s so much that the scheme has been figured out, but the play calling has been so bland and lacking creativity, combined with us running only about 6 different plays per game, that teams have picked up on our tendencies and seem to know what plays coming. True perfect execution can still lead to a positive play, but that’s infinitely harder when the defender and the defensive coordinator knows exactly what’s coming.
I never played on the offensive line, but I played WR and I’m sure the same principles hold. I know for a fact, that if the Dback knew I was running a 15 yard out before the play, I’d have a lot harder time getting open than if he had to worry about defending 2 or 3 routes and wasn’t sure what was coming.
You seem to have played line at some point. How much harder is your assignment when the entire front 7 knows exactly whats coming and is able to play without hesitation, and can stunt, slant, twist and wreak havoc in the very places they know you’re going to be vulnerable?
“You fuckers better communicate presnap. I don’t give a fuck if they know what we are going to run. Seriously guys I don’t give a shit. You can point to them and say “hi asshole I’m going to bury you, and mr linebacker my buddy over here is about to bury you too”
– My college OL coach.
Short of more guys in the box than we can account for (and screens), I don’t care if the D knows what we’re going to do.
Sure maybe that works in division 3 college football. Not sure it works so well in the NFL. Also, if the other team knows what you are doing you need to be better than them, stronger than them and out execute them.
I quite liked watching LBs and defensive ends get caught in no mans land trying to defend two things at once in previous editions of Chips offense. See the difference there is that they knew what we were doing then too. Only difference was that they knew there were multiple constraints, counters and options coming all at once. So they knew what was coming, but they had to defend everything at once and couldn’t.
Now they know what’s coming, but it’s been stripped of the built in constraints that put them in any type of bind. Doesn’t mean it can’t work that way, but I think it’s certainly harder.
That brings up the other problem with Chip’s offense….it is a finesse one, not a physical one. What happened with big people beat up little people? The OL and TE got smacked straight in the mouth and buckled over and over. If I am a DC playing the Eagles next, I take the same game plan: crowd the LOS, attack the middle of this line all day long with numbers, shut the run game down, hammer Bradford and create turnovers.
But failure to execution also falls on the coaching staff and unpredictability/element of surprise helps poor execution. I get Chip’s philosophy we are going to do 4 things and do it very well but what happens when they can’t do it very well? Can’t just say “well they didn’t execute”.
I think I recounted this story back when they hired Chip, but I’m getting severe deja vu from my undergrad days in New England after they hired the Tuna. These are the EXACT same arguments going back and forth.
It’s pretty clear that on the scale from Parcells to Reid, Chip is way over on the Parcells side. Not that either side is right, just that 1)there are different ways to crack the nut, and 2) there truly isn’t anything new in football.
Reminds me of Reid whenever he would defend a game plan that called for 600 passing attempts when the QB was getting murdered. Well the plays were there we just didn’t connect, so we just kept dialing up what wasn’t working thinking we’d finally connect. Except they never did.
I don’t know how Barchard can watch that game and not see the terrible disadvantage our run game was in due to its predictability. Maybe there were plays to be made in the passing game, but I certainly didn’t see any in the running game.
He sees a guy get tackled by 3 barely touched defenders in the backfield and sees 3 poorly executed blocks. I saw a defense that was so confident they knew exactly what play was coming that they’d all stunt or twist the exact right way to disrupt every play while playing with reckless abandon, no hesitation and not a single wasted motion because they knew the play before the snap.
Truth is its probably a bit of both. But one thing I know for a fact. Dallas knew what was coming before every snap, and Sean Lee gets a lot harder to block when he knows exactly what plays coming.
I do not think many really want Chip fired etc. People are upset, sure, but we have no choice but go forward and hope Chip can figure things out and get the team back on track.
The bigger issue is expectations. Chip was so glorified and hyped by the media which was echoed by fans that most expected a SB run. That was wildly ambitious for a team that had undergone so much change, injected so much new talent, took so many injury risk gambles and was depending on so much inexperienced youth.
I wish the media and fans would come back to earth and realize Chip is just a football coach. He is not a savior or genius or miracle worker or guru that the NFL rules do not apply to…he needs to be held accountable for his failures and lauded for his successes just like every other coach, but stop with the endless hype and deification until his team actually wins something of note.
The problem is reality. Teams that start 0-2 very rarely ever make the playoffs that season – if the team goes 0-3, the possibility is pretty much closed. We’ll find out what Chip and the team are made of this weekend. I’ll be cheering them on as usual, but my fear is the issues stem from talent and scheme rather than effort or execution. I do see big people beating up little people, but the Eagles are on the wrong end unfortunately.
One thing I cannot do is say that the Bradford trade was a mistake because he sucks. I’ve heard that complaint quite a few times, but I don’t necessarily think that it is a fair complaint. Saying that Bradford sucks is much like saying that Demarco Murray sucks. We know that Murray doesn’t suck. He was a good RB for a couple years before he got here. He rolled for over 1,800 yards last year. Bradford has made a couple of mistakes, but no QB goes mistake free. The blame for Bradford’s poor showing and Demarco Murray’s lays at the feet of their offensive line as well as Chip Kelly for assembling that line. Until the O-line problems are fixed I feel that it is terribly unfair to begin labeling Sam Bradford or Demarco Murray.
I’ve been trying to argue this, it never sticks. Short story, we know who he was on the Rams. He was going to be a fit here because we aren’t the Rams. We’re amazing, Bradford will shine in this environment.We just need a guy to get the ball to the open receiver quickly, Chip and Co. will take care of the rest. We play worse than the Rams and everyone wants to know why Bradford couldn’t carry us.
Bradford is not an elite QB, I have no idea where people picked up that idea. There were always a ton of qualifiers required to make him the perfect fit here. Those were not met, and the results we got should not be a surprise.
There is a difference, Murray has been an incredible player for most of his career, Bradford has been a mediocre/bad player for most of his career. Hopefully, SB, can get a “Chip Kelly QB boost” like Sanchez, which would result in effective, if not elite, play.
This.
In the minds of the optimists, 5 years of mediocre NFL play was wiped from Bradford’s record because the Rams. It’s like people never considered the possibility that part of the reason they were bad is that he’s just not a very good NFL quarterback.
I saw us trade a guy who was inconsistent and modestly talented in Foles, for a guy who was older, more expensive, and had an inferior track record as an NFL player. And give up a high pick to do it. I doubt Foles is ever more than an average NFL starter but even so I think we got completely fleeced because I’m quite in doubt Bradford will ever be even that.
what’s that? Sean Payton has won a superbowl? Wait, did the Seahawks win a superbowl too? No offense Tommy, comparing SB winning teams, with repeated success, using the same QB isn’t even close to a comparison to an 0-2 Eagles team. I get what you’re trying to do – rally the wagons etc etc. The timing is always perfect as you let the sting of the game pass for a few days.
…..
The chemistry experiment is failing? what experiment?
…..
I’m not negative about this team. I have no idea if they can start winning. I’m hoping they do. I might be one of a few that are Bradford supporters. However, What I can do, is look at the body of work and games that were played. Right now, I’ve seen two totally(brutally) unprepared Eagle games. I get that CK is a guru. I also get that if he was a true guru/genius, he would have had better play happening from his team the first two weeks.
…..
Still too hard to see the rainbow in the cloudy skies and relying on CK’s college history is no longer an option. Maybe this team needs just 1 bounce to go their way and start a snowball effect going in the right direction — like a strip sack that isn’t called back for penalty…..
right and I get the point, but the Saints had the worst cap situation last year and this year and the wheels are falling off. Whether it’s now or next year, there is a rebuild coming. They are at a totally different time in their life cycle.
Yeah, using the Saints did not ring true. They sucked last year and should have been expected to be bad again this year.
Ironic for an article titled “Context”, no?
I think it actually supports his point all the better. Even the best teams go through rough patches so why wouldnt we?
I agree with the point the OP made. It rankles me that Tommy was using Sean Payton as an example, or Andrew Luck as an example for Bradford. Chip Kelly has done absolutely nothing in the pros. Payton is tried and proven. He has employed his schemes and won the biggest games. Chip has not. He has blown out a few garbage and middling teams, but sh!t the bed in the biggest games. I could give 2 rips about us having the most former Eagle scouts in the NFL if those guys can’t play ball. At the end of the day, you have inferior players who taking losing with class…..
Bradford has never proven anything. He has never been to the playoffs, or won there. Luck has. To insinuate they could be in similar situations is a poor comparison. Bradford has been an injured and underachieving #1 pick who “just never had the talent around him”. This, as well, is bunk. First of all, a good QB makes those ordinary guys around him look better. Heck, Tom Brady has earned so many middling WR a big contract with other teams only to see them flop. Even Nick Foles made Riley Pooper look good.
I cant wait for the day I dont have to watch Pooper drop another pass for this team. Guy sure can block though!
I forget who I heard say it on Monday, but he’s such a great blocker that they should try him at guard. He’s seriously one of my most hated Eagles of all time.
Was there a receiver who didn’t drop a ball on Sunday? Not defending Cooper — his could have really helped momentum — but that was a group effort. Seemed like everyone took turns screwing up. On the other hand that may have just been a one-game snowball situation… if we can get in a rhythm maybe it can completely turn around.
I completely agree. There were several drops but Pooper has a bad track reccord and is getting paid too much. Imo
I was thinking that if Chip came out at his press conference Monday and said “In light of our embarrassing performance yesterday we are releasing Riley Cooper” even though we all know Cooper wasn’t actually to blame for the loss I’m pretty sure everyone would immediately forgive Chip for the last 2 terrible weeks and the entire city would be hyped for the game Sunday.
Here’s what I was thinking about yesterday … When you see that many missed blocks along the offensive line, it has to be miscommunication and missed assignments. And I have to wonder if running uptempo when things aren’t going right up front just makes the problem snowball? When you huddle up after a bad play, there is time to stop and think and assess just what happened on the play before. For as great as the fast paced offense is when everything is clicking, I wonder if it can be a detriment when things aren’t going right. In any job or task, when things aren’t going right and you’re making mistakes, what do you do? Take a deep breath and slow down until you get your shit together. The o-line had a terrible first series and they never really got their shit together the rest of the day. And I can’t believe it’s a lack of talent to be THAT bad.
I agree. Until the team, especially the OL, can gel the pace needs to be slowed. Clearly there is confusion on OL assignments, WR routes, and QB coverage recognition. Slow it down for a couple of series then put the pedal to the metal.
Nothing worse than being rushed when you’re heads already spinning and you’re unsure of your assignments. I’m sure going tempo is murder when you’re still thinking through each play. The issue I have tho, is Peters Kelce Lane and Barbre are in year three of this system and Gardner is in year two and had 8 or 9 starts last year. How the hell do these guys not know their assignments yet. They run 2 running plays and practice a thousand reps on those two plays all summer. There should be no confusion at this point. And yet every other play it seems like Barbre has no idea who he’s supposed to block.
Here’s something to be happy about. The play of Hicks on Sunday.
https://vine.co/v/ePjYwU3THAe
And this play.
https://vine.co/v/ePjVamPDKYL
Good stuff. Haha the Dallas offensive lineman’s whiff was great, then like every great defensive play, his helmet comes off.
ha! what a great way to avoid a pick by the offense!!!
You got any vines of Rowe to get our blood flowing and our cokcs rock solid?
Eagles are at +2.5 on three different gambling lines. One line has them at only +1. The second highest over/under at 47 for the week. Eagles win and they score points. Jets come out as flat as the Eagles did in ’93 when they whipped the eventual Super Bowl Cowboys 31-10, when the following week that supposed great team was full of themselves and came out flatter than a pancake and lost to KC. Jets will be flat guaranteed. Also, although it’s not the Pats, they have a division game the following week against the Dolphins. Flat, trap game. 1-2 going into Washington. You’re welcome for the lock of the week. (Please don’t bet based on this post)
In this bizzaro world I wouldn’t be shocked to see a stellar offensive performance against a very good defense, after the stinkers versus geo very bad ones.
Wouldn’t be a surprise the way the NFL is nowadays. Weird? Yes, but that’s football for you.
So Roddy white thinks a lot of the scheme for our run game is predicated on the defense *thinking* the qb will run. He noted how even Foles was breaking off runs. He says the defensive lines are just going strait to the back on every play. He wishes Bradford sod just pull it once. Thinks that would open up the whole offense.
I know that most plays aren’t option. I don’t know what he knows. Just saying what he said.
You mean leading rusher Sam Bradford???
Yeah, that guy. With those scramble yards. Think he means rush yards. You know, designed.
I know you are being sarcastic but one can never be sure through text.
Remember not my opinion.
Completely sarcastic!
It seems as long as defenses switch from man to zone during the Eagles drives then Chip Kelly is thrown off balance and can’t win. He is exposed.
Naked?
no he can’t win. That’s chips secret and now he can’t win. His secret is exposed.
Why didn’t you predict that in the preseason? Your preseason is talking about Tebow and abortion but not one prediction about the team. That kind of screws your credibility. You’re still smarter than that moron Geagle though, at least you don’t write long, rambling nonsensical articles.
He usually compresses his nonsense into memes–quite efficient.
LOL
i predicted it in the preseason.
this was prior to falcons game :
Maxwell gets toasted, eagles lose and Bradford goes down for season. My prediction
Yeah then the hate came out. The Christian hate. You’re wrong about Bradford, you haven’t proved you made that prediction yet, and you were still a mouse for the most part. Now you come out yelling with a big I told you so. Doesn’t work that way.
I did tell you so. I told this whole board so when they were sucking down the Koolaid.
We had talked about how the Dallas game wasn’t a “must win.” It was early in the season, 0-2 isn’t the end of the world, etc. How about this week? This is a must win. 1-2 gives the team a fighting chance, especially in the NFC East. 0-3 is a deep, deep hole to dig out of.
Yeah, it’s not the fact that going 9-4 is exceptionally hard in general, it’s just really hard for a team that lost, really lost, not flukey losses, 3 games in a row against ok teams. You’d be basing all your hopes on one team turning into a very different team.
7-9 takes this division lol
The only “Must Wins” from here on out are the remaining NFCEast games
“I think Murray’s good,” McCoy told GQ Magazine in its NFL preview hitting newsstands Tuesday. “But I don’t see him as a competitor as far as the best backs. I like my game a lot.”
11LeSean McCoy, RB
96Tony Romo, QBDAL2115.512005.501 DeMarco Murray, RB21110.59015.50332130
[…] Lawlor puts the Eagles start into perspective on his latest IgglesBlitz.com blog […]
Great trade Chippah!
11 LeSean McCoy BUF RB 32 130 4.1
96 DeMarco Murray PHI RB 21 11 0.5
96 Tony Romo DAL QB 2 11 5.5
must be killing u to know that Romo and Dez killed your season.
wonder if part of the problem is that we play against a 2 gap non penetrating defense in practice so we aren’t used to defenses shooting gaps in practice.
Interesting
No. The basis of our system is that our defenders MUST be able to 2-gap but nobody at the NFL level is purely 2-gap along the entire DL so they mix up the responsibilities along the DL between 1-gap and 2-gap depending on the specific play call. Depending on how the coverages are setup behind you, where pressure is coming from, etc, can mean you only have responsibility for 1 gap and are purely an attacker.
I’m hoping some of the you guys can jog my memory here but wasn’t Howie a decent talent evaluator and cap manager? Seemed like he made some good picks and had some good signings. Or maybe I’m remembering Howie through Roseman-colored glasses.
Maybe all the hype around Kelly led Lurie to hand over control before he really had a good grip on how to assemble an NFL team and more time watching Roseman work and then seeing how it translated to his on field product would have helped his decision making. Chip has made mistakes, but I am still a Coach Kelly fan. But GM Kelly should be fired or at least benched.
Dumping him this year or next year would be a huge mistake IMO. Everyone thinks he would run back to college but he eats, drinks and breathes football. He wouldn’t take failure in the NFL and be content. And you know he would be the top coaching candidate for 2016 if he’s fired. He will go to his next team after making his mistakes here and thrive (a la Bellichek). Lurie let Reid make some mistakes, he would be wise to let Chip grow into his role as well.
Not saying this season is going to be pretty. But overeacting is not going to get us any closer to the Lombardi.
I we fired Kelly this year, he’d probably end up in Indy after Pagano gets fired and then he would have Andrew Luck.
hes going back to college where his system actually works
Suck for Luck?
I feel like firing Chip would be a bad mistake. It feels like the Browns with Belicheck. He needed to work some things out before he realized his full potential. I don’t want to be the team Chip worked the kinks out with only to watch him win multiple super bowls with another team. I still think Chip is an excellent program builder and a great coach. 2 awful games to start a season in which we turned over nearly half the starters on the team doesn’t change that.
That’s exactly what I think would happen. We’re looking at a smart coach who made mistakes. I don’t think Lurie is so short sighted as to fire him.
If anything Lurie has proven to be extremely patient and coach friendly. Plus he’s invested a lot in Chip and his system. He’s investing millions of dollars in the things Chip wants to succeed. I feel like minus an epic collapse this year followed by no improvement next year, Lurie will want to see that investment through instead of trying to start over with an entirely new program and head coach.
I agree that he’s a good coach. As a GM/personnel guy, I’m not a fan. The problem here is that now that he has those powers, it will be hard to take them away without inciting him to leave.
Yea, I’m not a huge fan of giving the coach all that power either. The coach and GM need to be on the same page otherwise it doesn’t work at all. So maybe Howie wasn’t the best fit. But, there needs to be opposing ideas in the room and a delineation of power between the FO and the coaching staff, otherwise you start getting group think, a bunch of yes men that think they’ll get canned if they disagree with the head coach and a bunch of players who end up angry at the head coach for FO issues with regards to money, contracts, trades, releases, ect. Just don’t like that set up in general.
I’m kind of luke warm on Kelly as a GM as well. The drafts outside of MS2, were fairly good with Roseman leading the show. Roseman gave us the following in his drafts:
2012: Fletcher Cox, Mychal Kendricks, Vinny Curry, Nick Foles, Brandon Boykin, Dennis Kelly, Bryce Brown
2013: Lane Johnson, Ertz, Bennie Logan
2014: MS2, Jordan Matthews, Huff, Watkins, Taylor Hart, Beau Allen
Really, a pretty impressive 3 year run, especially 2012 where he really nailed 90% of the picks.
Plus Roseman was great when it came to trades with other teams. Rarely did I ever come away thinking we paid too high a price.
Kelly as GM this year has switched Foles out for Bradford, which I think will eventually be seen as a good move. I have more faith in Bradford than most. But, the price was fairly steep. So it better pay off. The Thurmond signing seems like a good one. The additions of Mathews and Murray were somewhat puzzling given the ease of finding young rookie RBs at a much cheaper cost, but they’re both excellent players who aren’t producing right now because the oline is playing like garbage not because they were bad signings. The Maxwell signing seems like we way over paid, but no one questioned the move and we were desperate for CB help. The handling of Mathis and the guard situation was terribly short sighted, or terribly long sighted, however you want to look at it, it was bad. I hate that we don’t have Boykin anymore but slot WRs haven’t burned us yet and Jenkins is playing at a higher level than Boykin right now as the nickel. And, I agreed Maclin wasn’t worth $12mil per year. And, the draft seemed, at least initially to be pretty good despite the lack of picks. I loved the McCoy for Alonso trade. So some positives, some negatives. Definitely way to early to tell. But, I agree I think Howie was doing a pretty good job and I’m nowhere near sold on Kelly the GM yet.
Just a reminder to the board.
https://twitter.com/NerlensNoel3/status/646697986760814592
I wish I didn’t need a ladder to pick apples.
I thought the term was cherry picking?
One thing that I think is true of all teams but is especially true for the Eagles is that the different units of the team all have a symbiotic relationship. The defense playing well gives more opportunities to the offense. The offense playing well gives more rest to the defense. WRs playing well open up the running game and vice versa.
Watching the game, the loss to the Cowboys was a complete failure of just about every unit. There were plenty of opportunities where one unit could have sparked another. The running game was stuffed in the backfield on every play, but how many 3rd down conversions hit the hands of receivers before going incomplete or intercepted. Now instead of a fresh set of downs, the tired defense gets to go back on the field. The defense gets a turnover and the next play the ball is snapped before Bradford is ready.
These are not things that should even require “fixing”. If the football hits you in the hands, catch the damn ball. Even the worst offense in the league is perfectly capable of snapping the ball correctly 99.9% of the time. Throw the ball to a wide open Cooper instead of a tightly covered Ertz. There were so many plays that were left on the field. I believe that by even just fixing the easily correctable execution issues, it will have an substantial effect on every other facet of the team in a positive way.
“that the different units of the team all have a symbiotic relationship” are you some type of fagget?
Having trouble with words of more than one syllable?
Per Ruben Frank; “Overall, the Eagles have dropped six passes, second-most in the NFL behind the Texans’ eight.”. Pretty amazing considering how few snaps it feels like this offense has played.
I posted on the last thread, but even with, at least, 3 drops Matthews still has 16 catches for 182 yards and a td. Its actually kind of impressive considering our offense has been crappy.
he’s getting 50+% of targets
Which still arent very many the way they go 3&out all the time lol
Literally the only glimmer on offense this season.
Throw Sproles in there. We turn to him when we are looking for a spark. It more or less worked in Atlanta. Nothing worked vs Dallas.
remember when people thought sproles was over the hill / declining, he’s been the best player on the offensive side of the ball since he got here
It is hard to picture Sproles being over anything.
I was one of the people that didn’t see why we extended him. I’ll admit him. Thought he had 1 year left.
Very true. As bad as the offense was though, I felt like the drops were the most damning. Momentum blown. The turn over right after the Hicks FF was pretty bad too. It really was a comedy of errors. I truly hope that is the worst we ever see of this offense.
At one point we ran Demarco Murray to the left two times in a row (possibly both sweeps), and both times he got blown up about the moment he got the ball. It’s one thing to not have a hole to run through multiple plays in a row, it’s another to have seemingly the same play blown up the same way 2 times in a row.
drops are sometimes guys trying too hard to do too much and not being in the moment. What I described is (and someone will make me pay for this) incompetence.
An average player in the NBA can look good on a bad team, because he’s chucking up lots of shots.
Hes getting targeted just as much as the other #1 recievers like Antonio Brown. Edelman has the most targets at 31. Matthes only has 22. I dont think he is “chucking up lots of shots.”
remember the days where people complained that the offense was ruining the defense by scoring too fast? ahhh, the good ol’ days….
And, honestly, I don’t think that number even counts all the passes that hit WRs in the hands and ended up being drops. Like the seam pass to Austin that Bradford threw back shoulder and gave Austin a great opportunity to make a play on the ball…since it was a contested catch, I don’t think they count that as a drop necessarily, even if there should be a reasonable expectation that the WR could have caught the ball. The 6 drops are literally just the ones that have hit WRs square in the hands with no defenders around them and were still dropped. Really depressing and certainly clouding the picture with Bradford’s true potential. Not only do those drops obviously effect his stats by missing out on that particular reception and the yardage involved, but they also kill drives and limit his future opportunities to rack up stats by getting more plays and chances to attack the defense.
I just want someone to tell me why the hell our OL suddenly seem like they’re suffered a lobotomy. I’ve never seen such a breakdown by a line with so much legitimate talent. And it’s not just 1 guy! It’s the whole line! What the hell is going on there?
they gotta get used to playing together.
This is beyond that though. The Falcons had a mishmash line in the opener, lots of players who never played together, and they managed to at least look respectable, if not good.
2 new guards doesn’t explain what’s going on here.
I just can’t figure how the patriots can have three rookies on the OL and look like they are in mid-season form.
Look at their run stats. They aren’t trying to run the ball, they ran 11 times against buffalo for 60yds, brady threw the ball 59 times avg. Thats what happens when you have a poor o-line, throwing lots of quick passes to edelman, amendola, dion lewis. that’s how they’re built.
Now that you said that. They will run it 50 times this week. lol
what I expect — Peters is a proven veteran. After 1 series, they are on the sideline and looking at pictures of what happened. He looks at the guard and says – dude, that’s you right there, let’s clean this up. But what I expect and what’s happening are 2 different things. Why didn’t they do in game adjustments?
old and used up. like a nursing home woman’s pu$$y
Let me try that again…
https://youtu.be/4V0TYIO6yv4
Peters is old. Gardner and Barbre suck and do not possess “legitimate talent”. Kelce and Johnson, I have no explanation.
With the new defensive alignments shown in the DAL and ATL games is Chip asking too much of the Oline + Celek? Everytime they pull players shoot the gaps, and they are essentially trying to block the side of the rusher instead of catching them head on like in the past. Seems too me that Chip is putting his Oline in impossible situations allot. I saw Chris Brown mention this a few days ago on twitter, anyone else think this?
they will get destroyed without gimmicks. they will try no gimmicks against jets and they will lose again.
Dude you R so smaryt! I totes think dey will loose too! teheh.
you dont look black.
Wow ignorant and racist. Should have known.
oh and your not racist. Ok kid.
I know, really! Greene? Like we can’t see right through that.
Every single one of you is racist. Get real. White or black you are racist. Dont even sit here and pretend.
Sorry I judge people on an individual basis, you’re pretty ignorant dude. Some people post asshole and idiotic comments, even me, some are ignorant, but you’re proving you are who we thought you were. Even though Geagle and I say shit to each other, nasty stupid shit, I don’t believe that he is a bad guy in real life. You are though. So Cooper is your favorite player?
Yeah right.
There is pretty good evidence that racism was “invented” around 1400 or so when Europeans got into the slave trade. Also that there was a resurgence after the Civil War due to political processes and marketing. Too bad… But on to lighter things, this troll is sure getting a lot of attention just by being an ass.
https://imgflip.com/i/rhxdj
It’s you’re. You’re a Christian who is against abortion, wouldn’t that make you..oh wait that makes you a far right Fox watching racist. You did say Fox was fair and balanced right? So was your Christian love?
BC there is no way he can respond to your post, its too complicated for him to figure out lol. We are talking about a little bitch troll who seems like he has the brain of a 8 year old. Watch the basic comeback he hits you with lol.
Yep, good point.
Tommy!!! Where are you?? Ban this troll! He’s insufferable.
Confirmed Cowboy fan lol
He is so smart! S-M-R-T! Excepttt..he didn’t make these predictions until after they lost game 1. During the preseason he didn’t say a peep all he did was cry about Tim Tebow and Phillly fans who want to eat babies because Tebow is against abortion. Butthurt, and no credibility because he has no clue about football. We all know about hindsight. Watch Back to The Future 2 and pick up your Sports Almanac!
zzzzzzz
asking Barbre or Gardner to fill the huge gap created when both the center and guard pull against an attacking penetrating DT is asking for trouble. People can talk about execution all they want, because they’re right, execution is at the heart of our problems. But, just like saying the scheme was sound having Fletcher play press man against Dez all game long with no safety help, and that he just needed to execute better, you’re putting you’re players in a position where they CAN’T physically execute the plays you’re asking them to. Compound that with the fact that they’re not even executing the basic blocking assignments when the guy is right in front of them and you have this mess of a running game.
Exactly…its like asking a zone CB like Maxwell to come in and play tight man-to-man coverage using outside technique…its crazy….oh wait….
Maxwell played mostly man coverage in Seattle. He was not a zone CB.
So sure of yourself…yet so wrong.
The Seahawks play press-cover 3 mainly. A zone scheme. Here’s a recent interview from Seahawks’ bloggers with a former defensive coordinator discussing their defensive philosophy:
DH: What type of coverage do the Seahawks typically play?
SE: In a recent interview, Seahawks Safety Kam Chancellor said something to the effect of “it’s no secret that we typically play Cover-3”. So, basically 8-in-the-box and the three remaining defensive backs play deep thirds.
DH: If the free safety, Earl, covers the deep middle, how wide of an area do the corners have to cover-to the numbers or the hashes?
SE: To the hashes, and all the way to the back of the end zone.
DH: In traditional Cover-3 do the corners bail deep immediately?
SE: Generally, yes, and they don’t necessarily “bail”, but they usually play “off”. The difference between the Seahawks and many other teams that play Cover-3, is that the Seahawks make the “press” element a fundamental. They do this to disrupt the route and timing of the passing concepts and to guard against the main weakness of a cover-3 scheme, the short pass.
DH: If the two outside corners do not have to chase a WR all the way horizontally across the field, it is a zone scheme, not truly a “man” scheme, correct?
SE: Correct, the corner will chase the WR then hand him off to the next zone, typically the deep middle for the free safety.
DH: So we are technically not playing “press-man” as much as many people think?
SE: Correct, there are three deep zones and up to five underneath zones.
DH: So you could describe the Seahawks secondary scheme as a cover-3-press-zone?
SE: Cover-3-Press, the “zone” is implied.
Ok. I never claimed to be so sure of myself and I do not claim to be an expert. I think when people refer to a “zone CB”, the implication is typically a cover 2 type CB like Ronde Barber. My main point is that the Eagles are not asking him to do something completely different from what he did in Seattle. According to Maxwell in Seattle he played cover 3 and man-press. This is based on what everyone said including Maxwell when the Eagles signed him.
For example, from http://www.nfl.com/news/story/0ap3000000476863/article/byron-maxwell-eagles-scheme-suits-me-well
During a round of interviews on ESPN Thursday, the former Legion of Boomer talked about a scheme-specific fit, something similar to the one he knew well in Seattle. Basically, a good amount of Cover 3 and man.
When asked if the Eagles might be one of those fits, Maxwell had this:
“Definitely,” he said, via PhillyMag.com. “They run the schemes that I’m talking about — Cover 3 and man press. And they’re committed to winning. Definitely, Philadelphia, if they were to come at me, I would have to consider them.”
Sorry…didn’t mean to come off like such a dick. Was just joking with you a bit. Seemed like one of those instances where someone corrects someone else’s grammar while using the wrong grammar in their correction when you so bluntly corrected Gary.
You weren’t totally wrong, either. They do play some press man in Seattle. But it is mostly cover 3 zone with press. Very rarely do the Seattle CBs ever chase a WR across the field in man coverage.
No problem. It’s all good. I can see that my initial response came across as arrogant but I did not intend it to sound so authoritative. One thing I like about this site is that there are people (like you) who know more than me that can explain stuff in detail and correct misconceptions that I may have. Thanks for the additional info regarding Seattle’s system. By the way, you have been killing it with your posts and have contributed some great information that last couple of days!
Eh…you’re response was fine. I was just kind of a dick. So sorry again for that. Thanks for the compliment. I appreciate it. And, welcome to the board since it seems like you’ve somewhat recently started posting. All you’re posts have been good reads and valid points. Always good to have more people like that in this little community of obsessive Eagles fans.
Thanks for the kind words. I have actually been lurking for years and you probably find posts of mine every once in a while going way back, but I recently started posting more often.
Exactly right. Maxwell, has rarely, if ever, been asked to run with receivers across the length of the field in man coverage. He’s very used to passing off in breaking routes to the next zone.
And, that showed up in Atlanta when he couldn’t keep up with Roddy White when he’d run across the field and again in Dallas when he failed miserably defending the post against Terrance Williams.
Doesn’t explain why he’s playing with such poor technique when pressing at the line or covering sideline routes. But, definitely a part of his early struggles.
Don’t get me started on Billy Davis’ coverage schemes. I honestly want to punch a baby in the mouth every time I hear people on here defending the way he leaves over matched corners on an island against elite WRs as the repeatedly get burned with no safety help.
I think one of the big issues that is going unspoke due to the O Line issues is that our WR are not good. Jordan Matthews is not special and lacks the speed to separate on the outside. He can get open in the middle of the field on some Safeties, LB, or nickel corners, but can’t get open on the outside consistently. Agholor can’t beat the jam yet consistently. He may pan out, but right about now he is Tavon Austin with a good attitude. Cooper is what he is….terrible. Austin used to have wheels, circa 2007. With Bradford being terrible, our WR sucking up the joint, we can’t even rely on our passing game to open the running game. Yes, the O line at times gives up some pressure- but not terribly. They have been deplorable in the running game, but not nearly as bad in the pass protection aspect. Bradford at times is under duress, but more times than not he has time. WR are not open and he is not seeing the field. Sproles is our only consistent option and opposing coordinators realize this and usually help. Also, when Sproles comes into the game, there is approxiamately an 80% chance that Chip is trying to get him the ball on that play. Just a tad predictable.
I think overall the team will improve. They have to. But for folks to think that there is enough talent to make a run deep in the playoffs (I was one of those guys) if we just right the ship, they are in serious denial.
This is my team and I want more than anything to see them succeed. Whether we argue about Chip’s scheme not working in the Pros is semantics at this point. I don’t think Belichek or Lombardi could finagle a contender out of this talent pool.
Absolutely correct. The big reason Mathews is in the slot because as good as he is at everything else he does not create much separation. Agholor has the physical tools to create separation but he doesn’t have the technique yet to win when jammed. Cooper we all know cannot create separation. If Sproles is in there the D knows to focus in on him. Due to his size if he is covered you cannot throw the ball to him.
If there were separation the D would have to respect the pass more and not focus so much on the run.
OT: But this press conference involving the Patrick Kane rape case is absolutely horrifying. Tampered rape kit being sent to the mother of the rape victim! Come on!
Googled it. So far I’m seeing there is no Kane DNA found in the rape kit.
Well clearly tampering has occurred considering it was open on her doorstep. I don’t know what exactly happened but it is extremely disturbing. The poor victim. No wonder more rape victims do not come forward.
I hear you, plus power and money. Don’t believe for a second that 40 people came forward because Cosby is innocent. That motherfucker used power to intimidate people and that’s why when I hear the defenders asking why they didn’t come forward earlier it drives me nuts. They were scared, they were going to be bullied by his fans, bullied by him, defamed and thrown right in the shitter. Actually, some of them are still being thrown in the shitter.
Interesting post from another board. Wonder if CK was spooked by the hitting a RO QB at the mesh point as if he was a runner. Now he’s trying to re-work the offense b/c they’ve eliminated the “read” portion. That’s caused them to collapse the playbook.
That may explain why his S-8 card has gone from 8.5 x 11 to 5 x 7
I asked that the other day. It doesn’t make sense that we are unable to execute the plays we do run, though.
game planning around an oft injured player based on rules that may effect him on a play here or there. That would be really dumb if true and also, you are protecting a bad starting QB on top of it. Im not ready to call it in just yet but he may very well go down with Bradford.
Bradford can’t run so what is the point of running the read option?
freeze one rusher so you have a blocking advantage. Don’t have to run to use the constraint – see triple option.
The other team wants Bradford to run the ball. He would be lucky to pick up a single yard.
he was our leading rusher on sunday
Demarco left practice with a hamstring injury today.
great, the last leg falls #sportsscience
At least it isn’t Demeco, we don’t have too much left at ILB.
Tick Tock. Tick Tock.
So the concept of an injury-proned player isn’t way off base?
The Tell-Tale Hamstring?
I don’t know at this point rather see goode in there over demeco until he’s fully recovered at least.
90-10 Pass – Run ratio anyone?!
ryan Matthews is on his way
to playing? or being injured, too?
to being the new/next savior
source?
Every beat reporter on twitter.
Thanks. Any idea how bad. Ryan mathews is a free agent in one of my fantasy leagues and I am trying to decide if I should pick him up.
I would pick him up. Even if he plays he will take less carries anyways. Also, it is always fun having Eagles players.
Normally I would agree that it is fun to have Eagles players, but I actually think it’s more fun to win in fantasy football
yeah i’m getting killed.
I already have too many in my other league (Bradford and Murray). Thus, my 0-2 start.
players? Name 2…
I wonder how we’ll replace his 13 yards….
That was a laugh out loud post.
Tommy, Robert Mays on the Grantland NFL Podcast brought up an interesting idea that aligns with what I’ve been seeing for the past two weeks:
The idea that defenses are selling out on the B-Gaps to stop DeMarco Murray because they know Bradford won’t beat them deep. We currently rank 26th in the NFL in yards-though-the-air per pass, so the numbers on Bradford backup the theory.
As somebody who studies the tape, how much credit do you give that theory?
BLG ripping on bradford not going deep, going to be BAD if eagels dont play well this weekend.
I’m not sure if it’s a good idea to throw deep on Revis island.
Only if our D plays a good game the Eagles might keep a low scoring game close.
basically the outside corners weren’t even following the WRs downfield, they just keyed on Sam and underneath routes and converged on the ball. Carr was literally not covering players on a couple of routes (one to N.A. who signaled to sammy b, but sam through underneath and the second one to coop which he dropped, there was another were N.A. was running free through the zone and sammy b threw underneath).
we have tons of man beaters that will hopefully neutralize the corners.
A lot of this falls on Sam and Chip. You are right that the cowboys corners pressed all game but did not follow the receivers downfield knowing Bradford wouldn’t even look deep. I know a lot has been said about taking shots downfield but if Bradford wont even look downfield how are the Eagles expectee to take shots. Granted the oline doesn’t look good but even if Sam just heaves one as hard as he can I think even that may make the defense a little bit more honest.
Cowboys were playing cover 2 a lot with two deep safeties. Often playing quite deep. The players look open but cover 2 is hard to throw deep on. The safety is deeper than the WR so when you throw deep the safety is actually in a great position to run towards the play and make the INT even if he’s not in tight lock step coverage like you’d want when a CB is playing the deep pass. It wasn’t a lack of respect thing for Bradford. Actually quite the opposite. You play cover 2 when you’re expecting a lot of deep passes.
The way to beat cover 2 is with corner routes, fades that are completed right in the sweet spot between the CB and deep safety before he can get over to the sideline and passes to the center of the field between the two safeties.
Sam actually threw 7 such passes that all traveled more than 20 yards in the air. 4 hit his WRs in the hands and were dropped, one was called for defensive pass interference and gave us a big gain. One was the overthrow to Agholar which if you look at it again, it’s pretty obvious Agholar mistakenly stopped his route instead of continuing on for what would have been a long TD, and one he just short hopped to Matthews.
This idea that Bradford won’t look deep is really not supported when you rewatch the game. They’re just not connecting on these plays. But, Bradford is more often than not making decent catchable throws to his receivers downfield which are getting forgotten because they ended up incomplete.
Dallas surprisingly went with a lot of cover 2. A lot of those plays where Carr is letting the receiver go are by design. He’s playing a trail technique to take away any deep outs, comebacks, and curls while the deep safety is over the top to defend the deep pass.
You want to try to get a semblence of a ground game going and then look to exploit Pace, Coples, Pryor, and Harris in the short/intermediate game.
Yes, please.
I think it’s warranted. Now it could be the receivers not getting open but I was waiting for him to at least TRY to take the game over, make a play, do something but he just looked like he was just waiting for the run game to get going like the rest of us..settling on checkdowns and throws in the flat. Take a shot damn it, we were turning it over anyways, at least this turnover will be further down the field.
are you referring to the “analysis” by Dave Mangels, the guy who hated the Bradford trade? That guy is pretty much a joke and his little breakdown of Sam on Sunday is ridiculous at best
yeah he faulted same for some things that aren’t his fault (drops, etc.) but sam does need to see the field better. I saw it when watching the all-22 and you can catch it on chipwagon as well but w/ same the ball is out so fast that deep routes often can’t develop, i think maybe switch between man and zone were killing him b/c the plays, if in man, are schemed to get a certain guy open.
i agree sam could see the field better and i think he will in time…ill check out the Chipwagon…respect that guy much more than anyone at BGN
http://www.dallasnews.com/incoming/20150922-1442977144-both-yards.jpg.ece/BINARY/1442977144-both-yards.jpg
now that’s funny, which doesn’t mean you are BTW
True.
I am funny. SOrry.
Should have gotten out on top, you had to reply and ruin your only funny post. Showmanship…
George Costanza. Ok, I’m out!!
Glad the reference wasn’t too obscure…
Wasn’t sure if you were using it in that context, but that was perfect. It’s hard to reference anything in life without Seinfeld or the Simpsons being involved.
Ive had many funny posts. Pretty much all of them.
You don’t get to judge that. That’s kinda like you saying, “I’m not an a-hole”. 1 – it’s not true, and 2 – it’s not your decision
you are too busy being mad at me being right and you being wrong. I am smart. You are dumb.
Judging by your grammar I will have to disagree, but you keep it up – you may still have a chance to qualify for the internet special olympics
that is not funny at all. you suck.
I have lost interest in this battle of wits with an unarmed child.
You are funny. Like Jim Carrey Dumb and Dumber funny.
He’s an out of control Charlie Sheen: His motto: Winning!
“old and used up. like a nursing home woman’s pu$$y”
thats horrible, dont quit your day job
that’s great.
Demarco Murray leaves practise with hamstring injury, smh
Make sure not to check two posts down before repeating old information
Demarco murray left practise with a hamstring injury
That is a great response to my overly snarky internet policing. Thank you for the laugh.
They better start winning or this could get bad:
Jeff McLane @Jeff_McLane 7m7 minutes ago
Josh Huff: I blew stuff out of proportion. Whatever Chip says
Not a good look for Chip.
Nope especially when Huff was supposed to be his top “follower”.
Chip needs to learn it doesn’t matter what they say. You can tell them to stop, or you can just win games and it will stop on its own.
Josh Huff on how he played: I blew
he really said that? Wow. That is down right disrespectful. The Eagles players may have already given up.
Imagine you’re opposing LB Sean Lee trying to defend the Eagles offense. How much harder is your job if you have to worry about an IZ run, the possibility that the QB pulls the ball back and runs, the added concern of potentially having to assist on the outside if the QB pulls the ball back and fires a bubble screen, the possibility that they throw a TE pop pass off IZ action rather than just lining up and knowing that when you see IZ action it’s going to be an IZ run and all you have to do is slant the Dline against the play and loop into the hole?
See the difference. In both scenarios the defense knows whats coming. In one scenario he knows a play is coming with multiple options that force him to have to be concerned with defending the whole field in every direction and that if he gets over sure of himself and guesses wrong the QB will pull the ball out and hit his vacated area for a big gain. In the other option he only has one thing to worry about. What’s more difficult for you to defend, regardless of whether you know what’s coming or not, regardless of the offenses execution, what’s more difficult for you as the defender?
Everyone’s focusing on whether or not the teams know what plays we run and ignoring the fact that we’ve mysteriously eliminated all the options built into those plays that allowed us to counter over aggressive defenses and forced defenders into difficult decisions and made them worry about multiple things on each play. That’s the thing that I really have no answer for.
http://www.phillymag.com/birds247/2015/09/23/all-22-opponents-picking-up-on-eagles-tendencies/
I’m guessing there was a warning from refs or the league that they are gonna call the shit out of OL down the field on packaged plays.
That’s the most reasonable explanation I’ve seen so far and would certainly mesh with what we saw in Atlanta and all the pass interference calls they got on screen passes ( I know that’s not downfield blocking by lineman, but similar point of emphasis in a sense). Still you gotta have some constraint plays to penalize defenders who seem pretty confident they know what’s coming. If Lee has to consider the possibility of some other constraint or counter off of IZ action maybe he’s a bit more patient and doesn’t immediately loop into the hole on that 3rd and 1. A moment of patience and Mathews gets one more step to build up steam and falls forward for the first.
Execution is surely the main issue. But chip could help us out a lot by not making it so easy to ignore other possible reasponsibilities once a defender decides he sees a play forming he knows. Gotta design some constraints where a play looks like one thing but becomes something else. Like a draw, looks like a drop back pass, defense reacts as if and next thing you know the RB blasts through an upfield pass rushing line and LBs that our dropping into coverage. Such a play backs a pass rush off. Keeps defenders from pinning their ears back once they read pass and can cause the LBs to be a half second late in their drops. If everything that starts to look like a pass ends up being a pass, you lose those subtle advantages born from play calling savy.
Chip seems to be focusing on the fact that they run inside and outside regardless of alignment of the RB and that he’s dressing things up presnap so the defense can’t know for sure before the snap what’s happening. But, he’s ignoring that there’s still only 2 options to distinguish between and once the play starts, within a quarter second it’s obvious which one it’s going to be. Right now, everything that looks like IZ is IZ, if it looks like sweep, it is sweep. Gotta give defenses a reason to pause and at least consider that something else is coming.
From the handful of other games I’ve seen they’ve been really agressive on flagging both WR on bubbles and OL on regular screens that are held too long, so I’m guessing it was a point of emphasis that we just haven’t heard talked about much.
This seems by far the best explanation I’ve seen yet. It cuts to the core of what Kelly wants to do. If this is true, we could be in for a very long season because it would make for more than an “adjustment.” We’d be talking about uprooting a core principle of the offense. I’m not sure what team can withstand that.
Another possibility that I’ve seen floated around, is that Chip decided to remove the zone read portion of his run plays, where the QB holds the ball in the RBs bread basket for an extra second at the mesh point before handing off, because of Blandino’s ruling on the Suggs hit. He seemed to be caught off guard that the league was claiming they were gonna allow defenders to tee off on QBs after a hand off as if the QB was a runner. Meaning hits to the head and knees are all allowed and no special QB protection exists.
Under his previous understanding of the rules, yea, the QB would be open to taking hits if he had the ball and was in fact running, but that once he completed the hand off and didn’t have the ball anymore he should be treated like any other QB that just handed the ball off. So essentially, the QB could protect himself from the unblocked defender by handing off any time the defender was an actual threat to hit him and he’d be protected by the rules in doing so, and would only pull the ball back when it was clear he was free from the danger of getting lit up by an angry DE.
This ruling from Blandino caught Pete Carroll by surprise as well, along with most fans. And, it was something that came out only 2 weeks before the season. Not wanting to expose his QB, with an injury history that needs no mention, to getting lit up on every hand off, Chip was forced to abandon the extended mesh point/read option hand off as part of the typical run play.
Normally by holding the ball in the RBs abdomen for a second and riding out the mesh point, even if the play is a straight up IZ or sweep, it threatens the defense to know the QB could pull it out and attempt these constraint plays. No mesh point, no constraint, packaged or counter plays off the standard IZ, OZ, sweep, ECT.
And, even more damaging, with no threat of a read option (even if the play calls for a straight up IZ with no read, the defense still has to respect the threat of the QB keeping the ball after the extended mesh point) we are no longer able to leave the backside defender unblocked.
This means we have to adjust all our blocking schemes, use the TE to block the backside DE, change the combo blocks, ECT to account for the additional run defender. All this change in the blocking scheme, along with 2 new starting guards who are relatively wet behind the ears, a lack of continuity already and only 2 weeks to relearn a lot of what we had practiced all spring and summer, leads to massive confusion and missed assignments, all compounded by the removal of constraint plays that penalize teams for over pursuing, a playbook that has only 4 run plays total which makes it easy for a defender to read, diagnose and react, and here we are. We can’t run the ball.
I think it’s time to start incorperating more reading/extended mesh hand offs regardless of Blandino’s ruling and see what happens. I still think that most players aren’t dirty enough to attack Sam’s knees and that most refs will still throw a flag for unsportsmanlike conduct unless it’s a real bang/bang play for hitting a QB late when he doesn’t have the ball and isn’t faking like he’s running around the edge.
This is insane :
“think guys are grasping at excuses, to be honest with you. We still need to block and tackle,” Kelly said. “What I’m saying is we need to execute.”
Players versus coach. This can’t end well.
GOOD BYE CHIP! NAH NAH NAH NAH NAH NAH NAH HEY HEY HEY GOOD BYE!!!!
So everyone knows, the best way to deal with trolls is to
1. Ignore them
2. Flag them
Supposedly the flagging will help bring issues to the moderator’s attention. I think hard numbers from flagging make it easier to use when blacklisting in Disqus. And luckily, Disqus has features that help detect when trolls try to change their usernames or post under a different name.
Tommy, anything you need from us beyond that to help fight the good fight against blatant trolls, you let us know. This place is supposed to be a community, and idiot trolls make people want to leave it. It’s our community, not theirs.
SHUT THE FUKC UP!!!!!
IgglesBlitz Community: This is the perfect example of a post that could use a good flagging.
SHUT THE FUKC UP YOU PU$$Y A$$ FAGGET!
I haven’t been on here for quite a while, but you seem to come across like a nice fella.
Where have you been, man!?
Family – Vacation – Ibiza
But GE’s back !!!
look out! Did you bring the Eagles mojo back with you?
This time on Sunday I will be watching the Eagles game live. So let’s hope our mojo will be back. #superstitious
Good to have you back. Can you play Offensive Guard?
I’m afraid not. But I have very good hands. 😉
If they’re better than Bill Davis’s, the Eagles need some help on D, too.
Much better, mate.
Done. Thank you for suggesting a concrete plan of action. I do think Tommy has the ability to ban at will.
Well said. I have been guilty of feeding, but you are completely correct. I think the reaction you got proves that.
Theirs like one troll… Pretty sure he uses both usernames. Just ignore, all they want is the response.
I think it’s gone beyond “just ignore”. I’d encourage you to flag to help Tommy moderate. This isn’t the same as objecting to overly verbose community members. This is someone flooding the board with nonsense, profanity that isn’t clever, and terribly obvious baiting. It’s the worst case of this sort of thing we’ve seen here, and it needs addressing beyond us trying to just ignore it.
Well the problem is that people don’t ignore it. The fire has been fueled. But I agree, at this point flagging is the best way to go since it’s grown out of hand.
anon isn’t a troll come on now. if anon and eaglesfanqq is the same person is a separate issue though.
blasphemous i’m even mentioned in the same sentence as that dude.
lol just messing with you and a jab at the guy who called you a troll.
Done!
You can block anyone who tries to make any amount of names if you just block their IP address. Then they have to start moving to other places, working harder, and wasting their time to say the stupid things they say. That’s the key, block the IP address and they can change their names all they want from their mother’s basement, it will not matter.
Hopefully last game was chips own version of a “butt fumble”
put butt fumble in the game already. Another first half of less than 50 yds and a first down better do it
[…] Lawlor puts the Eagles start into perspective on his latest IgglesBlitz.com blog […]
Reading this philly.com article by Tim McManus, he of the opinion that Vick does voodoo on Kelly, validates my opinion, particularly the part where Jaworski is quoted about the need for a mobile QB: http://www.phillymag.com/birds247/2015/09/23/all-22-opponents-picking-up-on-eagles-tendencies/
Tommy, I strongly suggest you do an in depth review of the Seattle offense against Green Bay. They faced exactly the same issues as the Eagles as per the rushing situation–Green Bay shut down rushing zones. How they kept offense functioning is probably a big part of roadmap to how Kelly can adjust.
Yea, hopefully we’re just seeing the natural ebb and flow of defensive and offensive coordinators adjusting and scheming against each other. Defensive coordinators have moved into check, let’s see what the offensive masterminds can figure out to counter their tactics and hopefully put the defense in check and get them back on their heels.
I really think these defenses selling out to stop the zone running schemes in Seattle and Philadelphia must be leaving themselves open to attack via a counter that plays off of typical zone run action. There’s only 11 defenders and way too much field for them to cover, so the offense will always have the upper hand. Once defenses start selling out to stop one thing they always do so at the expense of guarding against another.
Hopefully the drastic success against us the past two weeks plays to our advantage. After being shut down for 3 of the last 4 halves, after spending the better part of two years have historic success schematically, it’s reasonable to expect the Jets will follow a similar game plan against us. So we know what they’re going to do. We have all week to figure out where the weakness is and it could open up a few big plays at the start of the game if we show IZ action, wait for them to react like Dallas and Atlanta pouncing on the IZ and hitting them on the back end for a big gainer. A few big plays, the defense will have to adjust and play us more straight up, we could get some confidence back and hopefully start executing a bit better against a more favorable defensive scheme and really turn this thing around.
Or hell, we could come out and get blown up repeatedly, continue to look like a complete dumpster fire and start the year off 0-3. Who the heck knows. This has been the most insane, bananas, year of football so far and it’s only week 2.
Thing is, I bet the Jets paid attention to what the previous two defenses did. They *also* paid attention to how DC neutralized the Rams and Miami’s DL by encouraging aggressive upfield pursuit. I don’t think we really have a chance against the Jets w/o takeaways and defensive/special teams scores. Gameplan is to take advantages of the fact that Fitzgerald is a terrrible QB.
Todd Bowles had seen us the past 2 years as well.
The only hope is for us to finally establish the run game. Which would require one hell of a turn-around. If we have to rely on Bradford like we’ve been, he’ll get buried.
I’m not at all confident going into the Jets game. This is a terrible match up for us. 0-3 is a real possibility which will truly be devastating. Thankfully the NFC East is dumpster fire this year and we have an easy schedule. 9-7 can probably win the division, and that alone will keep our season alive. Hopefully we start to gel and see a late season resurgence.
was it Polian that was saying there is an epidemic of bad O line play going on right now also. Not enough time to coach them up and not enough talent coming up from college ranks.
I’m sure if there’s a dearth of talent the new CBA that limits contact practices and even the amount of practice and further even the amount of contact a teams coaches can have with its players in the off season doesn’t help either. Given all the new restrictions coupled with coaches not wanting to risk injury in training camp or preseason it must be hard to get new guys up to speed.
Heck, study the Panthers entire 2013 year. If your O-line is not doing well and you struggle to establish the run, and don’t have one of the Megatron type wide receivers to just throw it up to and pray and have it work out more often than not (like us)…you’re going to look like the Panthers of 2013 in a lot of the early parts of their games, putrid offense for 3 quarters, the game stays close with great defense. Then unleash Cam with some designed running. All of a sudden the run and passing game open up and they storm the 4th quarter for a win. They don’t want to rely on that, they want to protect their franchise, but if your offense is struggling, making the defense account for your QB’s legs is a great way to kicks start an offense.
Seattle does this as well, more purposefully, especially in that same year. Play close to the vest–saw some of this @ GB in the first quarter, and gradually make more complex plays and qb rushes.
One thing to keep in mind…Bradford is actually a good athlete, and is not that slow. It’s simply his fagility that’s at issue.
Yeah he’s not an awkward athlete by any means. if he got good at protecting himself, he couldn’t do Michael Vick stuff for 20 yards, but hell even Foles would snag a first down (slowly/awkwardly) when it was there.
20 yards and a fumble
hehe, I giggled at “fagility”
Lawlor, I’ve avoided this site the past couple of days, mainly because I knew I would encounter mass hysteria and possibly some public guilliotinings.
However, this post is one of the most reasonable, well thought-out looks at the Eagles struggles that I’ve read, so far.
Good job. I’m interested to see what this team actually is: terrible, or simply out of sync.
this is not the site to avoid, the others are..
Gotcha. I don’t come here often enough, I guess.
i’ll let token know….
haha
It’s not been THAT bad. There’s been negativity, but for the most part it hasn’t been ridiculously emotional, or hysterical as you say, maybe a little forlorn, lol. I don’t get the, “uhg, the fans”-attitude, we all bleed green here, makes us family by blood right?
Hasn’t been THAT bad?
The Eagles’ 35 yards per game as a team is the seventh-worst by any team after two games in the last 50 years.
…..
Actually you’re right, its not as bad as 6 other teams in the last 50 years. phew. We dodged a bullet of being THAT bad. No emotions, nothing hysterical — just the fact’s ma’am, just the facts…
He said he was avoiding the comments because of the hysterics and and guillotining. I was saying WE haven’t been that bad, as the commenters of igglesblitz…
…
…
you did inadvertently counter my point, though
touche
Terribly out of sync?
Hey guys Bradford is pretty good…
in Madden 12.
Schrodinger’s Eagle:
On Monday, this team will have been completely figured out and is due for a high draft pick, this is a bad team.
or
On Monday, this team will have gotten their pieces to mesh better, and it was all about just getting some playing time together, this is a good team.
As of right now the Eagle is both alive and dead.
So we’re one of the three pseudo-zombie teams in the league. I wouldn’t even be mad if we just threw hail marys all game, just win a game so they’ll have something to work with.
You’re exactly right Sean… There will be no middle ground (and I’m not sure there should be).
I don’t get the run to set up the pass thing. who cares about runs for 4 yards.
you have to pass to be able to run, with the db’s playing back.
not the other way around.
that’s a fallacy, no?
Once the OL gets its shit togeher, everything will fall into place, but there is No way that we Can get a win sunday if the OL has a poor game.. It’s possible to win sunday without the,WR playing better, It’s possible to win without the LB playing better, but there is NO overcoming another poor performance from the OL and getting a win……
..
What’s encouraging is across the board guys are making so many technical fundamental mistakes, that there is plenty that we can fix and do a better job of… It would be so much scarier if our Line was executing proper technique and still getting Killed..But it’s encouraging that there was so many fixable mistakes… We just have to hope for the Guys to clean it up in one week so that we can have a shot to win Sunday..
..
We are fortunate that schematically we should have a really good idea of what they do.,We played the Cardinals the past two years in q row while Bowles was coordinating that defense. Jets are running a similaru defense, on Offemse chip seems to think Chain Gailey and the Jets are running a very similar pffense to his,days in Buffalo, which is allegedly why QB Ryan Fitzpatrick is already,so comfortable n the Jets pffense, since they were together at Buffalo.
..
When you have corners REVIS, Cromartie and Buster Skrine, it’s pretty obvious that you can expect a ton of Blitzing because of how much they trust their CB to handle themselves on an Island…. if we can’t run the ball sunday, we will get Bradfird hurt… It’s going to be hard enough to pass against those corners with all the blitzing from their talented Front 7.. And if we are having a problem with our OL communication, what’s going to happen on the road against the Jets where it will be the loudest environment we played in so far this year? Those Jets fans won’t let us take over their stadium like the Falcons did, it’s going to be a very loud pro hets crowd… It’s friggin scary having to play against this defense with the amount of mistakes that need fixing in one week…. The OL and Chip have to get the RBs going!!!, we can’t win this game without the OL opening some run lanes for our backs..
..
if we can just get the,run going, it Opens up EVERYTHING for us…. Unfortunately this ismt the ideal defense to face to get this turned around
Just want Bradford to throw deep. Test them out early. It dont connect well its gonna make them want to keep their S back next time. I dunno there were times Bradford had time to throw but chose to checkdown. Run, short pass, screen, punt, repeat. Change it up man.
All I ask for is that the OL does its job in the run game…and that Chip has a package that allows us to run Against a 8man front..
..
normally when Eagle QBs see an 8 man front, we have built in options to try and exploit them in the passing game. This week we can’t see an 8 man front and abandon the run game because we think it leaves openings to take shots in the passing game. We can’t do that THIS week because they want us to do Exactly what we normally do, abandon the run and take shots at the CB. this team has 10 turnovers forced in two games, they would love us to become one dimensional so they can blitz us all game and force us to throw against REVIS. Cromartie or Skrine… doing what we normally do falls right into their trap… We have To do something diffent and we can’t let a certain amount of players in the box discourage us from running..we NEED to have a package ready that aLlows us to run against an 8 man front, PUT 8 BLOCKERS IN!
..
5 OL
QB
R1
TE 1 Celek
TE 2 Tobin
TE 3 Dennis Kelly
WR1 Ertz or Jordan Mathews
…
For Me, the single most important thng is to be able to run the ball sunday no matter what the Jets Defense presents.. There is a Counter for everything, start Counteimg and stop letting teams dictate to us what we are going to do… We haven’t yet found the proper balance between Taking what the Defense Gives us AND Dicatng/imposing our Will on the Defense… Wemhave to find that Balace, we can’t always just stick to the Number game. Need to have a counter ready that allows us to run against as many Defenders they put in the box..don’t get the run game going, and we will be 0-3….
…
Of course this also ties into you wamting to take shots downfield, both are needed, sort of the chicken Nd the Egg debate..
..
We have size, we have versatile playërs, we have 50 Million in our RB room, Find a way to run on the Jets or God help us
So I hate to pile on but… Are we going to get an analysis of Bradford to see if he is still being captain checkdown? If there’s nothing open down the field that’s fine but if he’s gunshy and eager to toss it to the guy in the flat… that’s something else entirely.
here: http://www.bleedinggreennation.com/2015/9/23/9375461/philadelphia-eagles-sam-bradford-deep-pass-film-review
here http://chipwagon.typepad.com/eagles/2015/09/the-eagles-passing-game-is-a-hot-mess.html
I really dislike that BGN article.
GIF1: Agholar has a half step maybe a full step if you’re being generous on the CB and the safety who was already cheating to his side presnap, turns his hips and runs towards Agholar’s deep route at the snap of the ball. So Bradford should throw into double coverage to a rookie WR on first and ten from our own 15 in a tight game.
GIF2: Damn near perfect throw, 25 yards in the air to the exact sweet spot in the cover 2 with enough loft to get over the CB and enough velocity and timing to get to the WR before the deep safety can get there. Cooper makes no attempt to adjust to the balls trajectory at all despite plenty of time to do so, and only needing to adjust about 1 foot more inside to be hit perfectly in stride, and instead decides to stumble and fall, allowing the ball to hit off his hands and drop to the turf. Exactly what you’d want your QB to do and an imminently catchable ball that Cooper simply drops. But, that somehow proves that Bradford can’t and/or won’t throw deep.
GIF3: Matthews is initially wide open but Bradford is executing a playfake, by the time he’s done with the playfake, Matthews is still technically open but running smack dab into the middle of two deep safeties and has two LBs dropping into coverage underneath him. Not an easy throw by any means. And, Matthews would inevitably get lit up by one, possibly both safeties. And, Bradford makes a nice 12 yard completion to Agholar instead for a first down.
GIF4: Slot safety fakes blitz and drops directly in front of Agholar’s curl route that the author claims is wide open, when, in fact, it would have been a clear pick 6 if Bradford had thrown it to him. Instead he fires a strike to the only open receiver on the play, Celek, who comes up just short of the first down marker.
BGN was biased, how’d you feel about chipwagon?
So much better than the BGN article. Much more fair in it’s analysis I thought.
The first play the review, Agholar is clearly open, Bradford has a clean pocket, quickly makes the correct read and fires to the open WR and is clearly off by a mile. The pass was over 25 yards in the air, which would disprove Mengels (BGN guy) assertion that Bradford doesn’t throw deep. The stills are pretty damning, but when you watch the play live it seems like more of a miscommunication than proof that Bradford isn’t an accurate passer. Agholar has nothing but open space if he keeps running straight down the field and the deep safety is occupied by the two other seam passes run by the two slot receivers. The reason I think Agholar might have run the wrong route is two fold. One the slot WR just inside of him breaks off his route and sits down in essentially the same spot as Agholar. I doubt the play called for two WRs to sit down in the same spot on the field. More likely the route concept was a seam from the inside most slot guy a deep sit down curl type pattern by the middle guy and a fly pattern by Agholar with the read for Bradford being if the Safety sits down on the middle slot sit down route hit Agholar deep and if the safety plays over top of Agholar his the sit down route. The safety sits over top of the middle slot WRs sit down, Agholar has a step and a half on the CB with nothing but green in front of him heading towards the endzone with no safety help over the top, Bradford fires and Agholar stops his route and ends up 3-4 yards from the other sit down route. If you look at where Bradfords throw ended up going, it flies right where Agholar would have been if he kept running and is probably a deep TD. Most likely a rookie mistake.
Second play is the game sealing interception that bounced off Ertz hands. The ball should have been about a foot or more out in front. But, otherwise, Bradford quickly makes the correct read, fires the ball confidently, and hits his receiver on the hands. Could have been a better throw. But, for god sakes, this is his first live game action in 2 years and he hasn’t gotten to play with Ertz at all in the preseason due to his surgery. Also, he makes the claim that Bradford has a clean pocket, which it certainly appears so in the still. Watching the video of the play though, as Bradford is releasing the ball, Peters is whiffing hard on his block and Bradford is about to get drilled by number 92. Still ball should have been caught and if it is, no one is complaining about Sam’s accuracy.
Third play: truly shitty off target pass. No doubt about that. But, quickly recognizes the correct read and fires on time, just misses the throw. But, it’s a 20 yard down field pass. So Sam does try to throw downfield a bit.
Fourth play: every time our WRs take close splits we run the same play with no variation…the mesh with a wheel. I’m actually surprised more teams haven’t audibled to zone coverage and stopped this play dead in it’s tracks. More of an indictment of Chip than Bradford, since he does the smart thing on 1st and ten and throws the ball away with no one open.
Fifth play: Just a disaster of a play and I just have no idea what he’s thinking. Seemed to lock onto Ertz right away. Misses Huff open in front of the goaline and Cooper wide open in the back of the end zone and throws an inaccurate pass to a blanketed Ertz. Just terrible all around.
Sixth play: we run a man coverage beater into zone and again no ones open. Bradford has good protection, and holds the ball waiting for someone to get open so he can make something happen. No one does and he throws the ball away essentially. Should have probably checked down to Murray who was wide open on the swing pass.
7th play: throws an absolute dime to Matthews 30 yards down the left sideline which is incomplete because of obvious pass interference which gets called and we move the ball down field. Can we stop saying he doesn’t ever throw deep, finally.
8th play: same play as GIF 4 above. Not sure what either of these two bloggers are looking at. Agholar is clearly covered by the slot CB that faked a blitz. Here though chipwagon tries to make it seem like Agholar was running a seam route and shows how much space is in front of him. Except it was a curl route and the slot CB was sitting right in front of him. He stops the still frame after Bradfords already thrown a ten yard strike to Brent Celek on first down and the slot CB has run away from Agholar. Brent Celek was the right read, the throw was accurate, on time and picked up 10 yards on first down. Not sure why it keeps showing up as an example of Bradfords passing ineptitude.
9th play: Throws a great pass to Austin on the seam route even though he’s covered, but he puts it in perfect spot so only Austin can make a play on the back shoulder pass. Austin drops it.
10th play: big pass play called back for offensive pass interference
11th play: throws a bad ass dime down 13 points in the fourth quarter to Cooper right in the perfect sweet spot of the cover two between the CB and safety. Great read, great timing, great touch, great velocity. The ball hits cooper in the hands and he drops it. Another throw 20 yards down field.
12th play: Right read, throws on time, puts ball in perfect spot where only Matthews can get it. Matthews drops it. Another throw 20 yards in the air downfield.
So all told, we have 1 rookie mistake by his WR, that otherwise would have probably been a long TD bomb. 4 drops on fairly well thrown, catchable balls. 2 shitty passes and or bad reads. Two throw aways when everyone was covered. 1 perfect deep pass that got us a pass interference call. 1 big gain pass called back for offensive pass interference. And one perfect throw that picked up almost 10 yards on first down to the only open receiver on the field.
So on our 12 most egregious misfires in the passing game last week, 8 were instances where Bradford quickly made the correct read and threw an on time catchable pass. 2 were throw aways when everyone was covered. And, 2 were solely on Bradford…The pass to Ertz in the endzone that was picked and the corner route to Matthews that he just short hopped. 7 times in those examples he threw the ball downfield 20 or more yards, and 5 of those 7 throws hit the WR in the hands, one Agholar stopped his route early.
So even though I thought it was a lot more fair. I can still use the same plays to show a totally different conclusion. Bradfords a little rusty. His timing with his receivers is slightly off. But, he’s getting absolutely no help from any of his pass catchers. The good news is that despite a few costly misfires, he’s mostly making quick, intelligent reads, picking the right player, and throwing the ball on time, and they’re mostly accurate passes. Maybe the results looked awful, but, perhaps there’s something to work with here.
It might be time to…..
GRIP IT
AND RIP IT
(can we start throwing this at each other spontaneously like Talladega Nights?)
we gotta get the run game going so Sammy can get it down field. grip it and rip boys!
I’m sure you’ve seen the links below, but in general, I’d say that QB performance is one of the most talked about and least analyzed topics in today’s sports landscape
Part of me hates posting this, part of me things it’s hilarious. DM looks more like Djax / Shady in terms of game day ferocity.
Yeah man DM got that fire in him.. Whos the girl with the shades?? Signal caller..?
I don’t know, but she looks disgusted too
dude gets fired up, I love it. Wish the coach would help him succeed a little. What a wasted highlight of him jumping clear over that defender.
I remember seeing that live, he stared at him for what seemed like an eternity and then they started talking to eachother..
so Murray is gone next year?
That is the first thing from Bradford I can say I really don’t like. The injury stuff, meh. He wasn’t being soft and they aren’t chronic injuries. But I want to see him in Murrays face there. He is the QB. Does anyone thing Tom Brady would have let someone be more intense than him? Luck? Peyton? Eli might, RGIII would, Romo might. I want a guy in the first set.
good thing is DM gets another shot at valley ranch. hopefully this year is a reverse of last year’s series against cowboys.
We win in Dallas but we can’t beat them at home for some miserable reason…
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We could make life much easier by winning the rest of our division games which has been almost impossible… Finishing 5-1 would be great, 4-2 acceptable, 3-3 a failure… Have to beat the crappy teams like saints, Bucs, panthers (Falcons may be best in that division)
No matter how many times you post the picture, Murray is still invisible.
If they would just stop being so dam cute in the offensive line blocking scheme, things would improve immediately. Stop pulling guards and opening holes. Put a hat on a hat and block the man in front of you. There were way too many defenders running past pulling linemen last week.
Get into the I-formation and put another blocker (no FB so TE or gunner) and go basic power running.
Also more (completed) passes will open up the run game. The receivers need to hold onto the dam ball!
Totally agree, seems like we try and be too fancy with the run game
Didn’t knew the zone run scheme was some fancy run game
So basically you want is to go away from zone blocking to man blocking which only two guys on the whole team has the strength to do
Twitter Speculation: Murray faked the injury to get out of his scheduled press Confrence. I know the guy doesn’t like to do press, and that this is the worst week imaginable to have to talk to the media.. But does he really hate taking
To the media THAT bad? I’d like this to be true, because obvipusly it would mean he is healthy to play in the jets game, but I have a hard time believing it could be true, but who Khow’s..
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REVIS Missed Practice today because of a groin.
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No idea why Chip keeps Down playing KIKO injury insisting on calling it a sprain when he is clearly not playing Sunday, but on the other handl they don’t mind listing Thornton as Out…Kiko ISNT playiing, Ced ISNT playing, Kemdricks probably ISNT playing…… I’m REALLY hoping Hart is able to play, no idea how serious his shoulder issue is.. MS2 gonna have to play, be nice to see him come in and give us a spark and make a positive mark oh this game..
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As long as it isn’t really serious, I don’t care if Murray has to sit out this week because until the OL gets it together, Murray doesn’t even matter other then Blitz pick up… No RB can make a difference playing behind our previous two OL performamces,,once the OL is able to open a hole, then I’ll worry about Demarco, but I woudnt fear going into a game with Sproles and Mathews.
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Worried about Taylor Hart, we need,hiim because losing both him and CED screws with our depth which we can’t afford since we have our,backüp LB in the game
given quotes already by his teammates and his body language during the game i’m sure they didn’t want him in front of reporters. that said rather him get rest. I’m really hoping CK doesn’t something interesting this weekend.
Have us prepared to get our run game going against anything the Jets defense can present… if we don’t run because they put 8 in the box, we lose..
it’s no secret that 8 in the box is coming this week, can’t let it dictate how we run offense, must have a package prepared that allows us to run on it..
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Of Course our Defense is going to have to be spectacular.. Holding them to 17 was great.
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it’s despicable seeing our Punt Blocked while our ST gives up a TD.. That may be the most frustrating aspect of it all.. our ST HAS to out play its Opponents. We put too much emphasis in it for our ST units to hurt us. get back to weaponizing our ST.
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Aa for Offense, Get the run game going or lose. without our Run game we can’t win.. Without a run game, we wil lose the turnover margin against their defense… And you can’t go on the road, lose the turnover battle and expect to win..we are a different team if we can run the ball, and it’s not just the Guards.all 5 need to step up and get it together
need tes to have a big game, both blocking and receiving in the middle of the field.
Every player on offense needs to be better then they were against Dallas
well, one thing they haven’t tried is the long pass. i would not be mad if they tried three straight long passes to begin the game, even if incompletes (oh, and not towards Revis,of course) so eight in the box stifling the run game. Revis stifling Mathews. So perhaps defense will be dictating for us to pass to Aglohar or Huff, oh boy. Please not Miles. Ertz then. Big game for Ertz, 11 catches, 120 yards. And of course the one thing that seems to work when everything else doesn’t – Sproles. Ertz + Sproles = open things up for run game.
Be interesting to see how they play. Will be it Cromartie on Riley? Revis also outside on NA and Skrine in slot? Who will guard ertz
Don’t know why people think Chip is somehow the only coach in the history of the NFL to be coy about injuries.
Btw, I thought NFLN said DRC might not play also?
http://nypost.com/2015/09/23/jets-mum-after-darrelle-revis-appears-on-injury-report/
Skrine will be in the slot
if INTERESTING = WIN then I’m in…
This is me CK and I have directv …. and this Coy Chip Kelly and have cable. I’ve complained about CK acting stupid and I guess that’s his new gig this year. Mr I have to monitor heart rates throughout the day, Mr you have to drink the drinks I say — has no clue about an injury to a player on his team? Not buying it…
I’m sure he’s hesitant to mention that Kiko has an injury to his ACL because he traded Shady for him and the media will then bring up some stupid questions asking if he regrets the move and it comes full circle back to Murray. I actually feared the worst when I first heard he wasn’t addressing the injury. Man i hope we turn this thing around at some point. We’ve come too far for it to end in total failure.
Chip is just as bad as the rest of the HCs when it comes to this injury stuff… Not fooling anyone
I’m sure the last thing Murray wanted to do was talk to the media about the Dallas game. You could tell he wanted that game bad and wanted to play well against his old team, especially after his former teammates down played his accomplishments last year, and so many people chalked it up to his offensive line. You know half the questions would be about that and his abysmal performance against them.
I’m hoping he is back at practice today which would mean he faked that injury, not that I blame anyone for not talking to our joke of a media
The general consensus seems to place the blame for the fumbled snap on Bradford, but that has to be on Kelce, doesn’t it?
The QB wasn’t looking, three receivers hadn’t set, hell even the guy next to him hadn’t gotten into his stance.
Yeah Kelce said it was his fault. He thought he heard the go to snap
False start is no play.
I haven’t seen that fumbled snap blamed on him too much. Seemed obvious the line was still getting set, QB wasn’t ready, Kelce had no business snapping that ball. Surprised people have seen it otherwise.
God I wish we chose Bruce Arians as the coach 3 years ago! We would have all our stars and he’s just a boss. You think Arizona will trade him for chip and a 2016 1st?
That’s going a bit too far right now
So the trade part was joking. Be honest though you def wouldn’t be mad if you woke up to news that Bruce Arians is the eagles coach .
I would be. I hate Arians
He’s just saying that because Arians has all those rings since he’s started in Arizona…
To be fair, he’s doing a good job.Still, he can go fuck himself, can’t stand that asshole.
Umm why?
You hate a coach that wins games and even with his 3rd qb. That’s why we don’t have any rings! If we had a legit coach like him he would get run outta town.
http://img.gawkerassets.com/img/17qebyddgyf4igif/original.gif
The trade part was a joke. You def wouldn’t be saying that if he was the coach though we would be winning. Chips has turned this team into a bunch of Boy Scouts that are softer than baby shit.
eww
[…] Lawlor puts the Eagles start into perspective on his latest IgglesBlitz.com blog […]
One thing I wanted to bring up. While Bradford had a miserable day on Sunday. I think we should pump the breaks on all the “he’s a total bust” and “he’s the same crappy QB he was in St Louis” talk. For starters, let’s remember that he hasn’t played in 2 years and just started doing 11 on 11 work at practice in August and is learning a new system, in an offense right now that looks completely out of synch, has 5 new starters. A rookie and a Riley Cooper as the starting outside WRs. And, two way over matched guards playing in front of him. Let’s calm down and give the man, at the very least, till the bye week to make a full evaluation of his play.
This article at BGN really annoyed me. http://www.bleedinggreennation.com/2015/9/23/9375461/philadelphia-eagles-sam-bradford-deep-pass-film-review
Check out the 4 GIFs presented to illustrate how Bradford is a gun-shy check down Charlie, that refuses, as well as simply cannot throw the ball down field.
GIF 1: The commentary tells us that Agholar is allowed to run down the sideline free and Bradford with a clean pocket chooses instead to check down. In reality, while Agholar makes a nice move to beat the jam, he’s hardly wide open and allowed to run right by the CB as the author claims. The CB misses the jam but is still able to run stride for stride with him even if Agholar does have a step.
Second, the deep safety, is cheating towards Agholar’s side and immediately on the snap turns his hips and runs backwards in his direction. This is a first and ten play from our own 15 where the author of this article wants Bradford to throw into double coverage to a rookie WR who’s only got about a step on the CB and has a deep safety sprinting over top in his direction to break up or intercept the pass if it’s thrown. Finally, it’s pretty clear that it’s only a half field read for Bradford with a wheel route and a seam route as the initial reads and a dump off to Sproles as the check down option if both are covered.
The wheel and seam are both completely bottled up and Bradford does the
right thing and checks down to Sproles, just as the pocket starts to collapse
on him. I have no issue with Bradford on this play. I’m more concerned with the play design to be honest. Check out the way the defense initially lines up to defend this play before Sproles’ motion into the backfield. There’s 3 receivers to the right with 2 CB in press coverage and the LB closest to Sproles sitting in the middle of the field 5 yards off the ball and 2-3 yards inside of Sproles. There’s the match up you want. Instead we motion Sproles into the backfield and run a three man route combination into an area of the field with 4 defenders playing zone coverage.
GIF2: Bradford immediately recognizes Cooper coming open in the soft spot of the cover two, pulls the trigger, throws the ball 25 yards in the air with good loft to get it over the CB and into the soft spot before the safety can get there to defend the play. The ball hits Cooper in the hands after he makes no attempt to adjust to its trajectory and he simply drops what should have otherwise been a big gain on a deep pass. This somehow further proves that Bradford won’t throw deep and can’t throw deep. Not even sure how to respond to that. The author states plainly, “Morris Claiborne [let’s Cooper run right past him] and Bradford can’t make them pay.” No, Cooper sucks at doing WR stuff like catching footballs, and Cooper couldn’t make them pay. Bradford did exactly what you want him to there.
GIF3: Bradford hits his first read for a nice accurate 12 yard completion and a first down. While Bradford was executing his play fake Jordan Matthews was initially wide open down the seam. But, by the time Bradford is done with the
play fake, Matthews while still technically open is running directly towards 2
deep safeties sitting on his route and has two underneath defenders dropping
into their zones in front of him. Could the pass be completed? Absolutely! But,
it certainly was a much more difficult pass, that needed to be lofted over two
LBs, but still get to Matthews before the safeties converged to inevitably
deliver a huge hit so he took the easy 12 yard completion for a first down. Bad Bradford.
GIF4: The author tells us that Agholar is wide open on his curl route. Unfortunately, this is not the case at all when you actually watch the GIF. The
slot CB fakes a blitz and drops directly In front of Agholar and only leaves
that area after Bradford already throws the pass elsewhere. It would have been a sure fire pick 6 if Bradford threw to Agholar. The only two players
on the play that are open are the RB in the flat and Celek who sits down 2
yards short of the first down marker, so Bradford fires a strike to Celek who
comes up a yard shy of the first down.
The article concludes by admitting the Cowboys often sat in a cover two preventing deep routes and that only 11 times in the game did the
eagles even send a WR on a route that was more than 10 yards down the field. Immediately after this, the author concludes, that Bradford “by choice and by ability, presents no vertical threat” and “has been the
same player he was in St. Louis, and that isn’t good enough.”
What a piece of crap that article was.
Good stuff. I hope you posted this over at BGN.
My computer over here won’t let me post comments on BGN for some reason, it’s blocked. You’re welcome to cut and paste it over there, because I’d love to let them know how weak that break down was. I’d be more than happy to take Mangel’s spot as their resident all-22 break down guy. If they’re paying him for that bullshit, I’m sure I could throw together something in my spare time that would at least be mildly based on reality.
At this point, the All-22 analysis craze has lost its shine for me. Too many times their bias/ignorance is front and center. Chip Wagon is the only one I make a point of reading anymore. I tend to learn more from reading D3FB’s short comments than I do from most of these All-22s.
you’ve been spitting hot fire all day, welcome more commentary. I will say i think the second GIF should have gone to Matthews, i also think the WRs need to recognize zone coverage and sit down in the zone instead of running through it into defenders — part of that is scheme part of that is just experience.
Not sure on that second GIF — he looks kinda open but those passes take time to get there, and both safeties would have converged in a hurry. Risky throw and even if caught Matthews probably gets hammered. And this was after some drops on deep passes. With the way the offense was going, a 12-yard completion for a first down was just fine by me.
plus it seems like the Matthews option is such a bigger gain of yards because he keeps running down the field between the safeties, but if that ball comes out soon enough to hit him when he’s truly open and before the safeties can get to him, he’s not getting much past the 30 and definitely not past the 40 yard line. Agholar got to the 33. Are those few extra yards worth the risk? I certainly don’t think so.
Thanks, man. I’m working an over night shift in a hospital with no cable tv and nothing going on right now…this is the only thing keeping me sane, haha.
I’m assuming you’re talking about the third gif with Matthews on the seam pass. And, you’re probably right. In a perfect world a stud QB will drop that ball in there. However, it’s anything but an easy pitch and catch. It’s definitely the riskier throw. Presnap with two deep safeties you’re probably already thinking of avoiding that one, but there’s certainly space to get him the ball.
I just can’t completely fault a guy who makes a nice read and throw for 12 yards and a first down at the expense of a much riskier throw in between 4 defenders that would have probably gained 15 to 20 yards.
Is 5 extra yards really worth all the extra risk. Agholar gets to the 33. Matthews is the most open between the 25 and 30 yard line and is essentially covered by the time he crosses the 35. Bradford finishes the play action as Matthews is in between the 25 and 30 yard line. So Bradford would have had to finish the play action, set his feet and get the ball to Matthews which has to cover about 20 yards in the air, while being lofted over the dropping LBers, but still have enough juice to get to Matthews before he hits the 35 yard line and the safeties either destroy him or pick off the pass.
More Jernst, his posts are excellent.
Thanks, BC! I really appreciate it!
What I suspect is that Bradford has always had vision and placement problems. The pretty looking throws to a spot in ideal situations fooled everyone into thinking he had franchise level play. Foles was probably a better player even if not “the savior” but likely a guy you could have won a championship with.
This will not go down well and everyone will over react on Chipper.
you ust have missed foles vs. deadskins
If you can stomach it, rewatch the Cowboys game, preferably the all-22 and count how many times Bradford makes a quick intelligent decision and throws a catchable pass to the receiver and then ignore the outcome of the play all together. He’s a little rusty, his timing is a little off, but you’ll see a bunch more instances of otherwise pretty decent QB play than you probably thought initially.
Bradford was 23 of 37 last week for 224 yards. He had four 20 plus yard passes hit off his receivers hands and fall incomplete. With some better play from his pass catchers you’re looking at 27 of 37 for at least 305 yards. That’s 73 percent passing and over 300 yards.
The missed deep throw to Agholar looks to be a rookie running the wrong route mistake as he stops his route at nearly the same spot as the slot receiver even though he had a ton of open field in front of him and no safety help over the top. If it was indeed Agholar’s mistake, you can add another 40 yard TD to those stats and his line looks something like 28 of 37 for nearly 350 yards (76% completion percentage).
And, that’s with a run game that provided him with negative 2 yards rushing. The team looked like complete garbage, and yes we’re using plays that were dropped or where receivers ran the wrong routes to boost his stats. The truth is we didn’t have a first down for most the first half. His play wasn’t good enough.
But, looking just at how he’s reading defenses, whether or not he’s making quick decisions, whether they’re the right decisions or not, and whether or not he’s putting a catchable ball on those receivers’ hands and judging him solely on that regardless of outcome (the skills that demonstrate whether or not he can be successful in the future) show a lot more signs of promise than most people are admitting right now.
When you take into account that this is his first 2 games back after a 2 year hiatus, he’s learning a new offense, that he just started taking 11 on 11 reps on in August, after rehabbing his second ACL tear, with a 5 new starters on offense, no rushing game whatsoever, a rookie, a Riley Cooper and Jordan Matthews as his only receivers, and maybe we shouldn’t judge him so soon.
Maybe. I argued the same thing with mcNabb. When I looked at the chip wagon post, it looked more to me like long term problems in the guys head.
Shame on those other people for over reacting
Memory – it’s a terrible thing to waste…..
Louis Riddick coming at chips neck talking about how it takes 10minutes to watch film on the Eagles and come up with major tendencies in the run game..
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Depending on the quality of your team dictates how important giving away your tendencies are.. the Cowboys last year really didn’t care that everyone knew they were running the ball, they went out and executed anyway…. You can get away with Defense knowing what you are doing if you have better playërs then the Defense…. Since Barbre and Gardner aren’t going to have some major Talemt advantage over the opposition, we ARENT in any position to let the defense know what we are doing, especially when the players around the Guards ARENT playing that well..
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Lane Johnson confirms we bsically ran two running plays in the cowboy game… Year 3 of your offense, you need more variety then that….we definitely need some element of surprise to help these players out especially while they are still gelling…..
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You can’t get anything going, the defense knows what you are doing, Call a fucking Reverse to Agholar, or a friggin Flea Flicker to help bradford take a shot down field. If Defnses ARENT biting on Playaction. Take it a step further and call a friggin Flea Flicker… call a Double pass, call somethng that you haven’t ran in the last 15 games…. We are wasting so many plays not getting anything going, call a trick play to try and get as part. there is NO BETTER time to EVER run a trick play them now that we have become predictable and haven’t dailed up a trick play in years..
Re: Trick plays / Shaking things up.
This is where Andy Reid was so good (and gets so little credit). You rarely saw the Eagles offense go into a long-term malaise. And when the team really needed it, you could always count on him to produce an “extra special” game plan.
If Chip has any capacity for this, he needs to break it out this Sunday.
Yes and No…. it’s true that Andy had a lot of success whipping out trick plays, but he also had a tendancy to get predictable with it.. For Example, by year 4, ever single Eagle fan knew when andy was about to call that shovel pass in the ENDZONE….but for the most part you are right..
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I don’t think there is ever a better time to try a trick play then NOW simply because it’s been so damn long since we put a trick play on film
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We are struggling to get the run going, and we are struggling To get the ball to the WRs, what’s wrong with trying to solve both problems and attempt a reverse to Huff or Agholar? If Agholar can beat the defense to the edge, turn the corner, his breakaway speed with those Long strides he takes has shown the ability to outrun defenders…. I would suggest a double reverse with Huff, but huff is a knucklehead, keep it simple with him, I don’t trust him enough to get cute with Huff
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Going into this season when everyone thought we would be a great team, most of EVERYONEs projections included allowing SAM to play behind a dominante run game, which would make SAM deadly on play action passes down field… Two games in and our Play action fake is less credible then Andy Reid’s was,. We can’t gain any yards rushing so why would any safety bite on our play action? It’s not working, so instead of abandoning it and waiving the white Flag, if the play action fake ISNT fooling anyone, take if a step further and call a flea flicker. We haven’t shown flea flickers on tape, and once the ball is in the hands of the RB safeties can’t ignore that… Of course we will need our OL to sell the run and hold their block for like 3 seconds to be able to pull off a flea flicker.. But run one out of a heavy set with 7 guys staying in to block if you need to.
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What about the Double pass? It was good enough for the Great Tom Brady Patriots offense in the Super Bowl, why wouldn’t we take advantage of the fact that everyone knows WR screens are such a big part of our offense.. Everyone is waiting for our screens, might as well use that against them, throw a backward pass that looks like a screen to a WR, and let the WR throw it down field to another WR…. The Problems is im not sure which of the WR we could trust to throw the pass? Brad Smith would have been perfect for this type of play..
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Even if the flea flicker or double Wt pass DOESNT work, as long as we don’t completely botch it by throwing an INT, even a failed attemt at least puts it in our opponents head and give them something else to worry about..
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We are allowing defenses to be too comfortable. We are playing to all the tendencies that they are expecting, we łet defenses dictate to us whether we will pass or run by the amount of defenders they put in the Box. We have to find a better balance of taking what the defense gives us AND imposing our Will… We can’t let the defense dictate whether we will run or throw and take what they want to give us 100% of the time.
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Element of surprise is Important, but it’s also important to be able to execute well enogh to tell the Dfense exactly what you are doing. And
I also wish chip would steal the Westbrook shovel pass that Andy Reid used to always run, and use that shovel pass in tne redzone with Sproles, should work well with our zone blocking scheme, OL all going to the right looking like its a stretch play or a sweep, get the entire defense flowing to the right and shovel pass it to tiny Sproles up the middle with LB out of position
That shovel pass became so predictable but it still almost always worked.
Yeah and it worked great for a while until Reid went so overboard with it…
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love to see chip add that to our playbook for Sproles… Actually, There is probably a lot of ways Andy used Westbrook that I would love to see chip use for Sproles. Now that we have two RBs Murray and Mathews, we can pretty much exclusively use Sproles the way Westbrook was used.. Chip already meshed a lot of west coast offense into his eagle playbook, be great to see us add some of the Westbrook plays into our offense for Sproles.. Need to see Sproles move around more, even splitting him out wide the way we did with Westbrook
One major thing that Andy did well that I wish Chip could do better is disguising screens. Andy was so creative with different types of screens that fooled defenses. It seems like that the defense is on top of most of our screens right away.
Part of that too was how good McNabb was at executing them. I’m as critical as anyone (well, not the McNabb haters) of McNabb’s deficiencies, but he was fantastic with the timing, delivery, etc., of screens. I didn’t appreciate it enough at the time, but watching Reid’s offense with Vick, when the screen pass virtually disappeared from the playbook, made me really appreciate McNabb’s skill in this area. I have a feeling this is not a strength of Bradford’s, based upon what I’ve seen.
ya McNabb was great at timing the screens. I just want more creative run plays, I love when coaches do that. There are a lot of options from different sets to keep a D guessing
I was saying this all last year. Great point. I’m so disappointed in the disappearance of the screen game from our offense. In 2013, it seemed like every week we’d see a screen break a huge gain and we’d get an awesome all-22 breakdown of the alley way our lineman created and the ambush player turning back down field and blowing up the pursuit. It was a thing of beauty.
By the time we got to the end of the season, particularly in our last two games, especially the Saints playoff game, it seemed like teams had figured out how to sniff the play out and blow it up.
That offseaon, I said, one of the biggest things Chip needed to do was figure out how and why it was getting blown up and get the screen game going again. 2014 started and we trotted out the same screen plays a couple times and they all got sniffed out and blown up. After that they just sort of disappeared from the playbook.
One thing I’ve noticed with Chip is that if he calls a play, sometimes only once even, and it doesn’t work, he scraps it. I’ve even heard him say basically that in press conferences. Reporters have asked him why he doesn’t run a certain play or type of play anymore and he goes, why ran it that one time 6 weeks ago and it didn’t work.
I was always surprised we never saw the swinging gate extra point again. Seemed like it was inches away from working, but Lane just choose to block the wrong guy. If he had blocked the right guy it would have been a free extra point on the score board. Chip flatly stated that since it didn’t work that one time it was scrapped from the playbook.
I remember him being asked about why he didn’t run Foles who is 6’6″ on a QB sneak on one of our 3 failed plays from the one inch line to lose the game. And, he again flatly stated that he ran a QB sneak a few games back and it didn’t work so he wasn’t interested in trying it again.
The total effect of all that scrapping of plays seems to be a playbook that has been widdled down to 6 plays that he just tries to dress up differently with formations and motion.
What was that play that Reid ran every so often, something like flip 60 or flip 20? The line would all go right and we would quickly flip it out to Westbrook going left. I believe Westy scored a long td to ice a game against the Giants once using that play.
Something like that may work nice when the defense is reading the O-line and crashing down the line.
Aren’t you talking about the shovel pass? ohhhhhhhh I think you are talking about the play where we would fake the hand off to one side and do that
Flip pass to Westbrook, sort of like a toss, but the ball rotates end over end? If you are talking about the latter, that flip play always pops Into my head over the years and it’s a play we didn’t use enough of.. We didn’t play that out running it a million times like the shovel pass…. If it’s the play I’m thinking of, I loved that play, basically like a toss, but the ball rotates end to end(north and south)??? Awesome misdirection play sort of combining a toss and a shovel pass
It’s called “Flip 90.”
Among T-Law’s favorite plays.
Made popular by the Rams and Marshall Faulk.
Thank you. I knew it was flip followed by a number and it was driving me crazy. That was always among my favorite plays as well.
Question: Has a eagle rookie EVER made a bigger more important play then Jordan Hick legally knocking Romo out for two months?.. It wasn’t a cheap shot, it Wasnt illegal, and let’s not pretend that every single defense isn’t entering every single game tryiing to knock the QB out… You can bet that Every single team that plays the Eagles all talk about how Fragile Bradford is and they will all enter games against us trying to knock SAM out the game..
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Rookie in his first game action came up with a HUGE, perfectly legal hit knocking Romo out for at least 2 months… That’s so BIGTIME! Hicks single handedly bought us an extra 2 game Safety net.. We can probably afford to lose 2 games more now that Romo is hurt, then had Romo played 16 games..
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for a team getting off to an Ugly 0-2 start, it’s so BIGTIME to see the rookie come into the game, and Buy us some extra margin for error that can’t possibly come at a bigger time..
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I’m pretty Damn excited about Hcks.. Kid is a cerebral LB who diagnose plays well, for a big, thick stocky kid, he moves much better then you would think, showing ability to cover downfield… And my favorite aspect of his game is that He isn’t out there just trying to make tackles, he is delivering the BOOM, making sure you feel him when he gets his hands on you… He was layng some punishing hits all over the field
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Who would have ever thought Hicks would be makng the biggest rookie impact so early in the season….. This kid has IT, he is going to be a player.
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And if we have to start a rookie LB in a crucial week 3 matchup, he could Never find a better position then having MUFASA Linning up next to him. hicks is smart enough on his own, but MEco will make sure he knows exactly what to do on each play, basically Wind him up, poïnt him in the right direction and łet him explode..
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This was a pretty important play made by a rookie recently:
http://www.gannett-cdn.com/-mm-/85e3a35840e5678b8b9f0a4decd3d9605bbc7c40/c=0-0-1720-1293&r=x404&c=534×401/local/-/media/2015/02/02/USATODAY/USATODAY/635584478465910056-C06-FINAL-02-70511688.JPG
I just noticed that you said an eagle rookie. Oh well.
I was working from home on Monday morning and had First Take on in the background (big mistake) and Bayless was actually arguing that Jordan Hicks’ hit on Romo was dirty and he should be suspended. LOL.
Lol WTF? How? I don’t even see how one could make an argument for it being illegal… Wish Jordan Hicks would hit skip Bayless like that..such a donkey
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Because of Jordan Hicks, 9-7 will win the NFCeast
Yeah, it was ridiculous. Eric Allen was on with the clowns and he was just looking at Bayless like he was nuts and saying to him “Romo still had the ball when he got hit.”
I Imagine that Skip Bayless is at an all time high on the absurd Meter this week, loving our early season problems. I assume skip is extra unbearable this week, can’t even fathom some of the crap that must be coming out of his mouth this week.. If we fall to 0-3, next week will be ugly
I mean, he got in for the strip sack. Which was a great play, he showed the traits we drafted him for. But Romo happened to break his clavicle on that play. He didn’t exactly go Dawkins on Romo, it just happened, that’s football. We don’t need to dance around celebrating an injury and propping the rookie up as a hero and dub him the Romo slayer or anything.
This will be a big week for him. There will be 1 rookie on the field and the Jets know it. Expect their game plan to target him. This week is the test.
Yeah that’s it… Take the Romo play out of the equation, still showed a lot to like in the Dallas game, especially for a kid who never imagined he would be playing defense week 2 when he was burried on the ILB depth chart..
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You don’t have to prop anyone up, doesn’t change the fact that the rookie single handedly gave us an extra 2 game safety Net…
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Did you see how veteran Thornton basically played patty cake with Romo, lightly touching him with two hands when he had an easy opening for a kill shot? Then watch how Hicks was out there playing rough and violent, he was trying to hit Cowboys hard all game.. Consistently play the game Rough, and good things will happen for us
Yeah, I liked what I saw from him. The rest have been a little up and down at ILB, kicking of the rust. Kendricks especially has been invisible. Honestly Hicks might have had the best ILB performance so far in this young year.
Think we clearly sacrificed being ready to play too much so that we could emphasize getting To the season healthy. maybe this strategy could work in normal years, but it clearly was a mistake when we have so many new
Starters… 3 successful drives in the preseason may have been a bad thing., maybe if the offense struggled in the preseason we would have have gave them more work?
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Going into this season with so many changes, chip clearly knew that we would have to grow over the course of the season to hopefully become the team he thought we could be. Obviously we would he much better at the end of October them what we would see in mid September, but the hope was that we would still be good enough to win games and not fall behind early in the season while we gel and grow into the team we are capable of being.. So far it has been a miscalculation, for example clearly we weren’t seeing The best Kendricks and Kiko were capable of, and that they would need to get 3, 4 games under their belt together before we could see them explode into the tandem they are capable of being..
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Which certainly makes it impressive how prepared Hicks was… after watching Hicks play, no one would say that the moment was too big for him, or the game was too fast for him, and that’s a very good sign especially when he entered the game at a time of such adversity and human nature says he probably wasn’t as prepared as he would be going into the Jets game knowing he will be playing Defense
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It was week 2, he was burried on the depth chart at a position that was one of the strengths of this roster, not only did he probably not expect to play on defense, but Hicks is a 4 core ST player for us.. last week he knew he had to prepare to play ST, so human nature suggests he probably prepared more for his Certain ST role, then he prepared for playing Defense when there were 3 or 4 healthy LB ahead of him…. Yet he still looked like he knew what he was doing out there, he still diagnosed plays well which has been a strength of his, even the play he got beat by Dunbar, he showed speed and agility to be able to stay with a poor mans Darren Sproles type 40 yards down field.., while he was thrust into action the first time, with the game moving as fast as it ever would for him, he handled his reads and responsibilities while not forgetting to play the game with Physicality and vIolence making sure Cowboys were going to feel him when he got his hands on them…
Very encouraging first Taste of NFL defense. Excited to see how he can build on that performance this week knowing he will be called upon to play defense…
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If the Eagles would have came back to win that game, Hicks would be getting a ton of praise
I had the same thought about the preseason going so smoothly might have worked against us. Turns out there was plenty to work on. But we lost 2 weeks of critical time to get it right. Now we have to fix it on the fly while rehearsing game plans and studying film on our next opponents, and it’s cost us 2 games. Uhg
To make matters worse, we chose getting to the season healthy over getting to the season prepared, and now players are dropping like flies, two weeks in and we already went thru all our ILB depth which was one of our deepest positions…. We need a good win where all our players stay healthy to get this thing turned around..
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We have reached rock bottom of the run game, hopefully we take Giant steps Sunday towards getting this mess corrected..
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2-0 is soooo Not the end of the world even tho the stats say otherwise.. When they say only 12% of teams that went 2-0 made the playoffs, those teams weren’t playing in a division as pathetic as ours,, the friggin redskims are in the best shape going into week 3… Right now I can’t even fathom this Bizzaro world where we miss the playoffs and have to sit home watching Lurt Cousins in the playoffs… Gotta save us from that nightmare..
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If we win our division games, it’s enough to win this pathetic division but division games are never easy even when we are the nfcLeast
Agreed. So carefully bubble-wrapped the players, now they get injured anyway and they don’t look ready.
The running game, even against a better team, almost has to get better, statistically. Not good, but better. Closer to their average 98.5 yards allowed per game than our, what? 7?
if only a defense could get to sam, might actually help this team
I would love to see this come back into the fold.
I hope they won’t be selling any snow cones in the vicinity of the Pope when he comes to Philly, it’s an angry place right now.
played out reference… weak
Snow cones is actually new Mr Donald, nice to know your bitch groupie agrees with you.
snow or snow cones come on man… don’t be a goofball you know its the same thing just in a paper cone.. your reference is weak and your rebuttal is even weaker..
Really? The reference is weak and I”M a goofball by someone who goes by name of the DONALD with that avatar. You’re right, you’re a genius
you dont like the eagle with the trump hair? think its hilarious.. and you are WAY to serious man.. take it easy.. and yes its weak dude the snowball snow cone stuff is way old.. ask anyone whos a philly fan.. we hate that reference..
I hate the snowball reference too, you’re right. Apologies man. Also, in my blindness I didn’t notice it was an Eagle, good job LOL
haha all good.. classic debate fodder! GO BIRDS!!!
There is plenty to be upset about. There are plenty of REAL issues that need to be fixed, so its really annoying to hear some of the stupid crap people are dwelling on this week..
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1) if I hear one more person mention Herremans name I’m going to scream, eagle fans have been ripping Todd for the past 3 years now, and now getting rid of Herremans is added to the list of mistakes by the same people who have wanted Herremans gone for years? Come on… With so many issues, I’d rather address the real ones.. You are welcome to argue that Andrew Gardner isn’t the answer, but neither was Hereemans at this point (still not ready to assume Gardner can’t get it together)
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2) After how had the Cowboys game was, we performed as bad as we could imagine while the game was till close and up for grabs. offense was a giant Turd. The defense did a solid
Job keeping us in the game for 3 quarters while our offense stunk it up. Our defense HELPED the Offense on plenty occasions, but at NO point did the Offense help our defense.. Yet when the game was finally out of reach, defense was completely demoralized and exhausted, people are making this
Big deal about the TD Byron Maxwrll gave up is absurd.. Did I like seeing it? Hell no… but you wouldn’t make a big deal about the worthless TD Jordan caught late in the game, so you can’t put any more stock into the TD a demoralized Byron Maxwell gave up… the TD Jordan Mathews scored and tne TD Byron Gave up were both completely irrelevant. Can’t ignore one, while making a grand issue out of The other..
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One thing I do take away from it because giving up that TD wasn’t the first time it happened is that we NEED to tighten up our Technique when we are blitzing the house (zero blitz)… The Eagles defense under Jim Johnsom was Fantastic at the all out blitz. Our technique was flawless.. 3rd and 10, we blitz the house, WR makes a 6 yard catch, we tackle him short of the first down, bring out the Special team., our technique was flawless when we blitzed the house and this current eagle team needs to tighten up, we are making mistakes In simple technique, good news is, we can absolutely improve upon it.
One thing I noticed with the National media earlier this week is that they were discussing the 0-2 teams. When talking about the Eagles, they would go on and on about how Chip let 2 talented veteran guards go in the off season and then they would move on to the Colts and start talking about how bad their offensive line is. So they basically are saying that not having Herremans is a major cause of our problems and having Herremans is a major cause of the Colts problems.
Great observation.
yea i notice that a lot too. The usual suspects of talking heads who don’t like Chip’s philosophy are crowing about them starting 0-2 but a a lot of their other picks (Saints, Colts) are 0-2 and have played just as hopeless….don’t hear them bringing up those teams much
Yea Herremans is shot! He absolutely needed to be replaced. I just wish we had done so with someone much better than Gardner.
We tried….Orlando Franklin chose not to sign with us.. Kinda weird that we had interest in one of the most expensive Guards, didn’t land him, and then not turn our attention to anyone else.. Was there really no other guard they had interest in?
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I don’t agree with not drafting OL multiply years in a row
Yea, I find it hard to believe that there was literally not a single guard that could have been had in FA that was better than Gardner. The plan of having Tobin, Gardner and Moffitt, who had been out of football for two years compete for the spot and hope one of them was a diamond in the rough was a plan predicated on hope not any realistic chance of succeeding.
Often, continuity is of major importance on a line. Herremans may be declining, but honestly the difference last year when he got injured was extremely noticeable. Our line got much worse last year once he had to be replaced (and we are using the same players to replace him this year). We had just gotten Kelce and Mathis back for a couple games and the line seemed to be settling down.
Herremans may well have worked well with Kelce and Johnson, and had that down, but he may still be struggling coming to grips with new linemates in Indy. In other words, he would probably have been much better on the Eagles than with the Colts. Hopefully both lines can get more cohesive as the season plays on. Kelly was spoiled his first year with a healthy, cohesive line and may not have realized how good he had it. Salary wise we had to move on from at least one of Herremans/Mathis and get younger, so I can’t fault letting him go, but I would really have preferred we keep Mathis (unless we had drafted some young guys who could step in and grow). If the line gets it together this year then they could be better off next year (rather than disrupting again after letting Mathis go then), but honestly with Barbre and Andrews it feels like they are just stopgaps anyways until we can draft some replacements, so we will probably go through something like this again.
You make a good point, and if anyone in the media was actually bringing up a nuanced point like this, I would have no problem. But with the bobble heads in the national media it feels a lot more like “Herremans is great, Chip is an idiot for getting rid of him” and then a few seconds later “Herremans is terrible, no wonder Luck is having so much trouble.”
I agree about Mathis by the way.
I have a feeling that the team really struggles against the Jets interior line… it is all on Bradford and the WR.
yeah this is not a great matchup for us. But frank gore was pretty successful at running the ball — hopefully we can get that going.
even if the line plays better I dont see too much success running the ball. I guess if what you say is true, thats better than I thought. I didnt watch much of that game. I do think it will rely on SB and the WR group to make plays to win this game. Only see the run game doing so much vs that line. At some point hes gotta make some throws if they want to free up some runs.
Doubt you can pass your way to a win this week. You NEED to get the run game losing against a Todd Bowles defense that will blitz us all friggin day because he trusts his elite corners. asking Nelson Agholar, Huff and Jorfam to carry us against Revis, Cromartie and Skrine who have led their defense to force 10 turnovers in two games is a BAD Idea, Losing proposition.,.YEs Bradford will need to make throws but the Jets aren’t the opponent to be passing 50 times against..
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I don’t think we can even win this game without getting our RB’s heavily involved..
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chip needs to have us prepared to run the ball against anything the jets provide, no matter how many defenders they keep in the box..
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Truth is, we won’t win unless the entire offense plays better then it has. The Run game and the passing game have to be much better then last week or we will be 0-3.., I don’t think we can overcome not being able t run the ball with our young WRs against these Corners with a DC that will blitz us all game long
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OL, Bradford, have to be much better then last week, and the WRs need to stop dropping balls if we want to compete in this league.. One of two improvements aren’t enough. We need to improve across the board this week, last week was that bad on Offense.., can’t keep leaving the defense out to dry
no doubt, they have to hit on both just to have some success against that D
Preferably early on the first two drives… Life is so much easier if we can move the ball the first two drives and get a lead which not only allows us to implement our tempo which is needed against that stout defense, but if the offense can come out strong and have some success early, it would be huge for us psychologically and wipe away any doubt from the 0-2 mess..
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That also needed to force 10 turnovers to win two games.. Don’t give them Any turnovers and I’m sure their offense will have its struggles.. Going to have to eliminate penalties and that’s not easy in a loud stadium with a jacked up fanbase…
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ST needs to stop costing us and start benefitting us
You can’t get the offense going if the OL
Continues to struggle.., everything is effected by our OL performance… There is NO offense over coming its OL getting it butt kicked..’doesn’t work that way, ESPECIALLY when you are asking Jordan, Huff and Nelson to attack Revis, Cromartie and Skrine
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We will continue to lose until the OL get it together
Well, I guess I was thinking the Jets have a really tough interior line and we don’t match up well. We have better tackles
jets Defense is pretty stout across the board and the interior of the line certainly isn’t a sweet spot especially with those 2 ILBs behind them.. To complicate matters you can’t find a better trio of corners and Bowles blitzed more then everyone when he ran the Arizona defense, throwing is dangerous against a jets defense that has 10 turnovers in two weeks and running up the middle certainly isn’t easy..but we have to start winning our share of battlers at the line of scrimmage just to get the run game going enough to not abandon it..
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If I had to point to the weak links to the Defense, I guess Id go with Ertz and Sproles attacking safeties Pryor and Gilchrist, but Ertz has been quiet. Not sure how he feels since he came back from the injury quickly.. It’s really hard to look at the matchups on paper and feel confident about this being the game we get our 1st win, fortunately games aren’t played on paper… jets team needed 10 turnovers to get 2 wins, I assume those games would have been much different had
Their opponents not coughed up the ball 5 times each…. If we can find a way to not turn it over and not kill ourselves with penalties on the road, showing that type of discapline would make me assume we also would have executed better then this past week…
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You don’t want a team like the jets to play with a lead, things become so much easier for us if we could just have success on the first two drives
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I don’t know when the last time was that I was so nervous for a September game
Assuming that somehow we can snap the ball properly…
Good news is a team can look drastically different from one week to the next and that there is NO DOUBT that our OL is better then what they have shown, even tho the past two games will test our faith.
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Our OL has played worse then that of the Giants, and there is no way we aren’t a better OL then that midget mess..hopefully this is the week we get our head out of our ass and play to our potential…
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We are Fortunate that there are tons of small fixable mistakes across the board, we are unfortunate that we will have to make these changes against such a tough jets DL.. But I have no doubt whatsoever that we are capable of so much more then what we have shown. Teams can look like night and day from 1 week to the next.,.Hopefully this is the week we get things going, we NEED to rebound and get us back on track getting to 4-2 or 4-3, but getting the 1st win is going to be the hardest, once we get that first win, we can loosen up a bit, start having some fun on the field.
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1 stinking win can change everything, even better it comes against a quality
Defense like the jets… Philly is acting like the sky is falling, but as bad as its been, one game can change everything.. iF this offense starts to click and put some points up against a tough Jets defense and get a win on the road, EVERYONE will forget all about the 1st two games and our confidence will be back. hopefully this is the weekend it turns around, because the difference between waking up on Monday 1-2 instead of 0-3 is staggering
billick calling eagles a powder keg, media talking so much nonsense.
I cant disagree. Its been an ugly week, imagine 0-3. This city will implode, at least the fans and media reaction will even if the team hasnt.
yeah chip doesn’t have a bunch of good will saved up. 76ers can suck for years b/c the coach/gm says were rebuilding but if eagles aren’t going to SB…
if the fans had been in a coma through week 1 and 2, yeah. But I’m not sure how many of us expect a win against the Jets at this point. We want the win, but it won’t rock the city as some unexpected event.
Locker room could be a different story, who knows.
I dont think the week to week or opponent expectations matter that much. 0-3 is 0-3, it will still be bad imo
I think the media and fans are reacting to the 0-2 start much different then the eagle players.,,’The sense of urgency is probably the same, but the locker room isn’t anywhere near as panicked as fans and media are, Thankfully
Fortunately it’s a crock of shit,,, if you put this much emphasis on charechter and you can’t keep it together to endure am 0-2 start you have to be the biggest joke the NFL has seen, and. I don’t believe that in the least bit… From everything I heard from Media that actually has been around our players all week, all I heard about was how even keeled we are, “business as usual”.. The reports I saw said are locker room doesn’t even have a hint of desperation or panic, but on the other hand our players aren’t foaming at the mouth either talking about how pissed off they are and ready to kick someone’s asses.. Reports are you don’t see either extreme in our locker room this week, and that the mood is very “Business Like”
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But guys like Lane Johnsom have confirmed that they are having what he described as a “Come to Jesus meeting” this week.. The message has been that everyone needs to stay together, trust the process, check their feelings at the door and be completely honest with themselves and each other
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Bullick is full of shit, he hasn’t even been around are players, we put as much emphasis on Charevhter as anyone and these fools would have me to believe that an 0-2 start is going to crumble our entire culture? Get real
Come to Jesus meeting = player only meeting? Those are not always so productive from what I’ve read. Agree though – character is tested when your back is up against it, at least that’s what Mrs. Vermeil said in INVINCABLE…
It always depends. If the players get together to call each other out and tell everyone to play better meeting, it never works. If it’s more of a circle the wagons, us against the world, type meeting. Those aren’t so bad.
Chip Kelly emphasized player leadership, time to let them work.
Yeah, playërs only meetings which can be very productive or completly useless depending on how willing our players are to be completely honest and accountable with themselves and each other.. With as much emphasis as we put into cHarechter these past 3 years, getting rid of selfish playërs for high charchter guys who have a team first mentality we should Have a team full of guys who can be honest with each other in a supportive team first way without turning it into pointing fingers…
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Its up to our player to make the meeting mean more then juat lip service
he meant powder puffs
I think Sammy B can’t be afraid to run for yards if d has everything locked up, doesn’t need to be 20yds but luck was able to get some first down or at least improve the yardage situation or at least scramble and hope WRs can shake free.
I don’t disagree generally speaking, but it doesn’t even seem like we doing the same run plays. Were we even trying to “Read” the DE? I feel like Celek was always getting manhandled by the DE… If we haven’t been “reading” no our zone plays, we might have to get back to having a READ option on our run plays with Sam keeping it once or twice when he has a ton of open field ahead of him.. ideally now that it’s his 3rd game, action slows down a bit for him and he can keep the ball, run and have the presence of mind to slide before the defense gets to Tee off on him…
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I don’t care how they do it, but we have to get the run going and be prepared to have an answer allowing us to run no matter how many defenders they keep in the box
Yeah. I have seen no read plays. Which I am fine with to protect the qb. I am fine with max protect with a statue throwing as long as receivers are good enough and passing accurate. But max protect does no seem to exist in Kelly’s scheme. So if read option is what is scheme used the past two years with success time to risk the qb and try some reading. But that would be a negative about Kelly’s scheme, maybe a fatal flaw if his scheme only works if qbs asked to do risky plays
I’m really concerned about not having a max protect and letting teams force us to abandon the run by putting 8 guys in the box… the problem is the package plays all have Run/pass options so as soon as our QB reads 8 guys in the box we check out of the run and go with the pass option.. that’s going to get us killed against the Jets corners and Todd Bowles who blitzes more then anyone.
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I just want to surprise one team by switching it up To a Max protect, heavy, Jumbo 3TE package and running right over their 8 man Front.
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JUst one time line up
QB
5 OL
TE1 Celek
TE2 Tobin
TE3 Dennis Kelly
WR1 Zack Ertz out wide
Murray or Ryan Mathews
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Heck we can even screw with defenses, make Celek inelgible on the Right side, and make JP eligible on the left side, and fake a screen and throw it 10 yards to an Open JP… patriots beat the Ravens with it, and last week the Ravens used it to score on the Raiders… I
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I’m not suggesting Abandoning our offense, but we need to keep sprinkling in new plays that opponents DONT have on film each week..obviously in year 3 we aren’t Gettimg away with running the same things just dressing them up different..
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Add a 3TE Max protect package at least for running on 3rd or 4th n short instead of running away and punting cuz we can’t run for a yard
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Catch a defense off balance with a trick play
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As soon as we gain yards on two straight run plays. Take a play action shot deep
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Chips idea of Max protect is keeping Celek in to block.. What happened to big people beating up little people? Put eight 300lb men in the game if that’s what ur takes to run the fuckin back..keep adding an Extra 300lb lineman til we successfully run the damn ball”… And get the damn ST going while we are at it….getting a punt blocked is a disgrace
Luck runs a 4.6 40… Sammy runs a 4.6 30…
i’m ok w/ 5yds and slide instead of 10yds and slide or a sack. I don’t expect him to be vick picking up 20-30yd chunks.
concur – crack off a few 1st downs will POTENTIALLY keep the D honest – not like now – zero respect for that part of the O.
Id just like to see him complete some passes in a first half. You know, see some open WRs would help and maybe, just maybe a first down or two. First things first
That what we said about Foles and Sanchez as well. They just won’t do it.
sanchez does it
The context as I see it is the Eagles can still salvage this season. Beat the Jets this week, then Redskins the next and, boom, the team is at .500 and the ship is afloat. Then comes a string of favorable games: Saints, Giants, Panthers, Dallas after the bye, Miami, Tampa Bay, Detroit. Not a powerhouse among them. Chip’s moving parts synch up and we’re gunning for a playoff spot.
Of course, lose this week by struggling against a very tough Jets D and all bets are off. 0-3 generates a brand new context.
we should just win out
Good idea. You should email Chip and let him know in case he didn’t think about it!
I already did
We should be all good then. The rest of the season should be fun!
I hope his spam blocker blocks better than our OL…
I’m going to save your post, so should it happen we will elect you King!
I don’t agree with the luck point at all. He’s faced 2 top 5 defenses, if not the best two in the league. We’ve faced Dallas and atl. Impossible to compare the two starts. And yes Brady but up 40 on buffalo but there army many defenses that they wouldn’t put up 40 on
If Eagles are 0-7 at the bye week, does Chip Kelly get fired before their 8th game?
And don’t tell me “oh that will never happen” Cause you same Koolaide drinkers told me Sam Bradford was going to start 19 games this year.
Before the 8th? As opposed to during halftime of the 8th? Give us our options!
It’s the bye week you fukc.
Are you sure?
Stop feeding this little bitch troll please.
I rarely do but this time I chose to play. Besides, my responses aren’t what keep him returning.
I drop you on your head if I please
lol Now that is funny. You’re still a little bitch and the same one that changes there names just to troll and one that begged me one day to stop responding to your comments. lol Just quit while you ahead little boy.
Asshole.
Would like to see ways to get jets linebackers to pay the price for being aggressive against the run. Play action, pull ball back and do a quick strike to Matthews or Errz. Pull ball back and brafford roll out to pass. Play actio then bubble screen to sproles.
sproles!!
This!
Can someone who knows more than I do tell me if we are still running packaged plays with run/pass options? Are we running any plays where the qb reads the defense either before or after the snap?
We are not doing this at all. There’s been no package plays run that I’ve seen and we only saw the read option with the QB having the option to keep the ball, twice at the end of the Cowboys game. I think the Suggs hit and the subsequent clarification of the rules, which apparently allow you to hit the QB like a he’s a runner (in the knees, head, wherever) even if he doesn’t have the ball, just handed off and is standing still, has Chip spoked a bit about exposing his QB to that kind of punishment.
F the jets
we finally have a game no one expects us to win.
I smell a victory coming.
its better to be an underdog
Oddly this is making me feel much better
http://chipwagon.typepad.com/
From the first 2 games, it looks like offensive LOS is the locus of major breakdowns. QB gets a portion of the blame, as do receivers who drop catchable balls. Last season, ineptitude of replacement OL was a molehill compared to this mountain. Chip may have been a tad cavalier about getting quality guards, but that alone does not exonerate the current OLine from pathetic rating. I would love to be a fly on the wall when Stoutland and Kelly are talking shop.
On the other side of the ball, Eagles D has been everything I could hope for after 2 games. Before that garbage TD pass from Wheeton, the Dallas offense had amassed a total of 6 points! If I am not mistaken, 6 points was what the Falcons scored in the second half of the opener. There is still a glaring need for a dynamic edge-rusher, but so far, nobody can use that to explain our record. Kelly was embarrassed, yet praised the D. Week three is looking very interesting from a fan’s perspective.
I talked to the fly on the wall, they basically said, “these guys suck at guard”
Eagles offense’s growth is stymied by practicing against our read and react two gap defense that is not scheming to defeat our offense. Gives offense false sense of security during practices and preseason games teams aren’t scheming against us. True for every team but might be even more harmful to eagles since their scheme is more unique than most
I hope this week in practice chip is having our d imitate what teams have been doing against them. Hope is that the o line gets used to real defenses they will keep facing before too late
Scout team imitates opposing D every week.
Would love to see us bust out some constraint plays to start the game this week to back the defense off from aggressively attacking our blocking schemes. Right now, you’re seeing teams slant the end inside and loop the LB outside to provide contain when we run sweep.
This makes both Celek’s and whoever is responsible for the looping LB’s blocks much more difficult. Celek needs to pin the end inside which would seemingly be easy if he crashes inside, but because he has to worry about the chance the end plays contain, he’s gotta move right at the snap first and then come back and block him inside if he crashes. And the guard responsible for the LB has to cover a lot more ground to do so, while fighting through the traffic created by the crashing end.
If we hit them with a pop pass to Celek in the area the looping LB just vacated, they suddenly can’t just run that defense with wreckless abandon and might be a lot more inclined to play it straight up the next time around, where the DE has outside contain and the LB has to ensure Celek isn’t releasing to catch a pass before attacking the run.
i would feel much better about the game if i overheard chip talking this way. My fear is chip is just talking about “better technique” and “we have only been one block away” kinda stuff. need to force the defense to “play it straight up”, let us do all of the slanting and stunts. Seems the eagles offense has gotten in trouble, since the Giants nut stunting, from the defense figuring out that they need to take the initiative against a Kelly offense, and move as much as the oline moves.
With Kiko presumably being inactive this week, who will be active: Najee Goode, or Marcus Smith?
both.. different positions. curry going to DL id guess
Bair will be active to replace Thornton. I’m assuming they’ll bring up one LB to replace the ST spot, but that’s a complete guess.
From what I’ve read its Bair and Curry at DE to replace Thornton if Hart can’t go. Marcus Smith should be active and would play STs. I would assume Goode and Jones will also both be active with Goode as the first ILB of the bench and Jones backing up at ILB and OLB.
So we’re Giants fans tonight? Bleck
and Falcons. Lets get this division to 1-2 and a disabled Dallas team to 2-1
is there a harder team to root for? not for me.
Cowboys…and patriots?
My Rankings
1.Cowboys: straight up- The Enemy, the actual team. Their fans are weenies, but I hate the team it self. Jerry Jones acts like a wholesome Texan, but he’s more like Mr. Burns. They love to collect addicts and batterers. Anything to win.
2. Giants: The Rival, particularly in the Reid era, they were the other organization that was well run in the NFC East. Rivalry: hate but respect the team. Hate the fans. They are the number 1 most obnoxious fan base growing up in North East PA. They are the fan base I hate above all others.
3. Very distant third, Patriots-Redskins tie: Redskins are too much of a joke to care about, it’s just anything good for them is almost never in our interest. Patriots I should hate more, but I actually kind of like Gronk and Edelman, and even a grudging respect….and definite envy for Brady. They remain in the can’t route for them category because Belichick is an evil genius who cheats, Kraft is basically the reason for Goodell, and they’re always favored to win.
5. Cardinals: Arians is a jackass (I fully believe he would be beloved in Philly if he was here, but he’s not, so screw that guy)
for me the hate goes:
1 giants
2. skins/ cowboys
3. cardinals
4. all others
Oof, gotta hear why Skins Cowboys are tied. For me growing up and currently, they just aren’t relevant enough to be in the same category as the despised Cowboys. Not saying you’re wrong, I’m actually interested to know. Is it the Gibbs era of dominance? The fans? Snyder? Or just that they can be permanently terrible but somehow it seems like those a-holes always show up and play us like they’re a 12-4 team (rather we always play them like we’re a 4-12 team).
they are just tied for me because they are in the division and I get nervous when we play them because its always close.
the giants are just the worst. the fans the team all of it.
the skins are relevant no matter the record because like all division teams we have to beat them. and its always tight.
fair enough
excellent work here, I think I agree except Pats are not distant at all. They are a solid #3 in my book
Very fair, I just really like Gronk and Edelman, the players and the personalities. Makes the NFL more fun. And I have to admit, the league is better with Brady in it. Otherwise we could just rename the league the Rodgers Football League. Without that, honestly, they would be #2. Like back in 2007 before all of what I just said. I was grudgingly routing for the giants in that Super Bowl. That actually happened. God I feel dirty now.
The Cowboys paragraph is an excellent description. You can’t live in Philly and hate any team worse than the Cowboys. Cowboys fans from Philly who ask me how many Super Bowls the Eagles have won is a joke. If you base your pathetic life on how well a team plays, have to jump on their bandwagon to make your life better, it’s time to get counseling. They are worst scum fans of all sports. If you live in this city then you damn well should be rooting for the Eagles.
If you’re from another city and an Eagles fan, you deserve an award, you’re jumping on the Titanic in most cases. Kids are easily duped, fathers need to take over at that point and teach them about what loyalty is. Your city, your team.
I wonder if 20 somethings feel the same hatred for the Cowboys. Born in 1990, start remembering football in 2000, now 25: this person can barely think of an example of the Cowboys making the playoffs.
You’re 25, can barely remember the Cowboys making the playoffs, and we still have people around here bragging about those Super Bowl teams. Amazing when you look at it in that time frame. It’s not so much the players,, they are drafted or they take the money and go to where they go. It’s not the Dallas fans living in the Dallas area, that’s their team. It ultimately comes down to what we have around here, not from Dallas, claiming that team as theirs.
I’m not much older than that. I remember the latter part of the dynasty. I remember they were low lives. All talent and not a shred of dignity. I remember Jimmy Johnson was a slick talking arrogant jackass who was probably only hired because he had the same initials as his boss and it stroked his ego. 94 I briefly fell in love with the 49ers because they beat Dallas in the championship game. Ricky Watters went off in the superbowl and then became an Eagle, and my favorite player. Much of this is probably inaccurate because it’s a child’s memory (I was in second grade, give me a break), but it sticks with me.
I counter you with this, younger fans don’t remember a time when Dallas as a respectable organization. The days of Tom Landry and an actual team rather than a collection of stars. A time before Jerry Jones. They’ve always been scum bags since we could remember.
Inexplicably, our OL managed to perform worse than the Giants which is not easy to do… hopefully The rock-bottom-bowl was a sobering and embarrassing experience for us and proud lineman like JP and Kelce get it together and go get our respect back with a quality outting that allows our RBs to get going…
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If the 5 Turds blocking for Eli playing better then us isn’t a motivating wake up call, I don’t know what is
My hope is the Giants are way ahead in the 4th quarter and then blow another lead, with the Redskins pulling ahead by a small margin. Then the Redksins have some kind of stupid turnover that results in the Giants bumbling into a win. Come to think of it, the Skins and Giants could change roles in my scenario and I’d still be happy.
I’ll call the night a success as long as both teams come across looking bad and feel crappy after the game.
Living in central jersey like I do, nothing would make me more happier then to see the Giants go into the 4th winning like you said but then become the 1st team in NFL history to blow a 10+ point lead in the 4th quarter to lose 3 weeks in a row.
Just curious, but where at in Central Jersey?
I live in a town called Woodbridge. I also work in Manhattan so all I hear all week is Jets and Giants, the worst. You from central?
How did you did decide who to root for? That’s around the cut-off point for Eagles/Giants fans right?
Well I lived with my uncle in Atlantic City when I was younger and he was the one that put me on sports. So naturally he was an Eagles fan which I became as well. Moving up this far north though really kills me, I don’t listen to sports radio at all because of my hatred of the giants lol
Heard that. Good for your Uncle dude, he put you on the right track. Don’t worry about the sports radio thing though, it’s not any fun listening to here now anyway. If things start going good though, hit it up on the internet. I would suggest any Eagles fan google ‘Listen to Wip’ on Saturday morning and hit up Didinger from 10-1. He’s usually with Macnow, who isn’t so bad himself, but it’s all about Didinger, a great football mind. Well, my opinion. Also, Glen compliments him well.
lol I agree he put my on right track is right. Oh I love WIP I usually have it playing on my office computer daily, well not recently since the eagles have been horrendous. Where you from brother, Philly?
Right outside Philly. If you’re familiar with the TV stations NBC and ABC across from each other. I’m about 20 minutes south of there with normal traffic flow in Drexel Hill. Saint Joe’s is 10 minutes from me also. Again, that’s normal traffic flow, that shit longer with construction, lane closure, crap like that.
Ok I do know where you are. I am little familiar with the Philly area I have a cousin that lives in South Philly and my best friends sister lives in North Philly. Ha traffic no need to remind me about that, at one point I used to drive to work in Manhattan until I realized the traffic sucked so bad that I gave that up and I take the train.
Oh shit, driving in Manhattan, good move with the train. That saves you from headaches I bet. Migraines. lol
If you saw the movie Silver Linings Playbook, with Bradley Cooper as a deranged, manic Eagles fan and DeNiro as his father who is banned from the stadium for beating up opposing fans at the Vet? Anyways, that diner used in the movie is right around the corner from me. Sat in Jennifer Lawrence’s seat, I was that close to that ass. LOL
Good story made me laugh did you have cereal too?
No I should’ve though. I liked it the first time, but after a few more times really loved it. It was one of those eh at first, then just loved it. “She’s pop” “Gotta say she’s knows her shit” “You think I messed up the Eagles’ juju?” Then she ran down the whole list of real scores from that year, Phillies and Eagles. DeNiro, “I gotta say, I’m liking her a lil bit now, lil bit” LMAO…
Funny part it, when they run out of the diner, they are 5-7 miles down the road. They make it look like that scene was directly outside the diner but it goes from Haverford down to Lansdowne. Past the Upper Darby High school, the part he runs up to the school and terrifies that lady is the Catholic school on the side called Bonner. Or Prendie, i don’t know my catholic schools. lol
Great movie.
Yeah, I live in Basking Ridge, NJ and work in West Orange, so I am constantly surrounded by Giants and Jets fans.
ohhh I know exactly where you are and yea you understand why pain surrounded by all the giants and jets fans. Are you going to the game this weekend? I’ll definitely be over there.
Man, you put away too much thought into that game. Just be happy that one loses and the other gets a worse draft pick.
No way, my employer pays me to post on Iggles Blitz.
I wish…
Meh.. Doesn’t really matter to me. On one hand I don’t want to see the skins potentially get a 2 game lead over us, on the other hand it be nice to see the Giants 0-3 especially to share our misery for we lose Sunday….., im way more concerned with Dan Quinm and the Falcons beating the Cowboys. After beating us, I’ll be pissed if Julio, Roddy and Matt Ryan lay an egg against Dallas… They better step up, take the gift that Jordan hIcks gave them and beat t
Murray sat out of practice again, but it sounds like a day to day injury. still could end up playing..
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Chip actually admitted that Kiko isn’t playing
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Thorton isn’t playing..
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Anyone see any Taylor Hart updates? Really hoping he can play and start so we can bring Vinny, Beau and Bair off the bench with MS2 coming off the Bench as our #3 OLB…. With Hicks and Murray starting, and Brad Jones also playing some snaps with Mufasa on a pitch count… Hopefully Billy does a Good job off getting Mufasa off the field when teams are passing so he doesn’t get targeted
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It would really suck to be short Thorton AND Hart….we wasted a great game by our defense, hopefully our defense can perform again in New York even tho we are short like 4 or 5 quality players from our front 7..
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the NFL season hasn’t brought us any fun yet, but we are 2
Games back from A banged up Dallas team with 14 games left.. Plenty of time to turn it around
Was reading that the jets are banged up as well – with some questionable guys. According to Dan Haznus (NFL):
Revis questionable. Also, the Jets are banged up coming out of their Monday night win over the Colts. Eric Decker (sprained knee) and Chris Ivory (quad/groin) could both be game-time decisions. Wide receiver Chris Owusu underwent arthroscopic knee surgery and could miss four weeks.
I heard Kerley might get the start. I imagine he is a personal favorite of yours.
possibly no revis for the game sunday?
does it matter?
I think it could
I wouldn’t even feel good if we put our best WR against Dee Milliner
lol Sarcasm aside, it really doesn’t matter if Revis doesn’t play since Cromartie and Skrine can lock down the Eagles WRs.
Their DL is going to make this an ugly game too.
Not as ugly as our OL can make it!
we are the bad news bears of the NFL right now.
Didn’t the Bad News Bears lose the championship game due to a bad coaching decision?
I’d take that, because it meant we were there.
That’s exactly right. I’ll take the Bad News Bears analogy because that means we are moving in the right direction. Does that mean the Eagles go to Japan next year though?
Don’t give Goodell any more crazy ideas.
“let them play!”
see this is good.
every game is now a huge challenge.
we are no longer overconfident.
we are scared!
this should help
big huge game coming for Nelson
now that’s funny!
But, does Skrine have to move outside? If so, who covers Matthews? I guess you can just cover Cooper with a wet towel and play 11 on 10. But, I think it’s huge if Revis doesn’t play.
He has the same kind of injury as Murray, I’ll take the trade off if need be.
That’d be huge!
Nice, but I’m only concerned if we’ve “upgraded” our WR gloves with stickum.
Wow. I know this isn’t our team, but geez this is bad.
https://twitter.com/RapSheet/status/647195988495585280
poor little fella, we have no time to be sad for other teams players, until they are ours
I hope Bradford is staying after practice to throw
Graphics are starting to get very impressive.
Madden ’16 came out with this screenshot before the preseason even started. It’s so inaccurate, there’s no way Maxwell would play that tight of a coverage.
Here’s my take for Sunday. If the Eagles don’t come out fired up and pissed, then the season is over. It’s one thing to have a bad game in Atlanta. It’s another to get embarrassed at home against the Cowboys.
unfortunately getting embarrassed at home by the girls is common every year
Last year wasn’t embarrassing to me. It was infuriating, because they left a lot of plays on the field.
This past Sunday was embarrassing because they looked inept on offense and that’s supposed to be their strong suit.
last year the first play, kickoff was an embarrassment though… worse thing I ever saw
The botched snap right after the forced fumble by Hicks was pretty bad.
Speaking of Hicks the kid has shown a knack for pressuring the passer not only on.Sunday but pretty consistently in the pre season as well. I’m excited to see what he can do this Sunday.
This is one of the worst things i ever saw. That horse was running full tilt and kept coming back down on that leg. Remembering can still bring me to tears.
http://www.strangefarmer.com/images/content/6825.jpg
good news is we do get another shot at them
Yup… It seemed as though Murray was the only one fired up last week pregame.
Go Giants??
Ugh unfortunately
I’m hoping for a Miracle in the Meadowlands Hog Edition
Predictions for tonight?
pain
I pity the fool!
I hope the final score in tonight’s game is 4-2.
New York is destined to give up at least 10 in the 4th
The steelers got a draft pick for Wing? I feel ripped off.
Think Kelly is nervous about Sunday?
I hate to admit it, but neither Washington nor the Giants look dysfunctional tonight. And not just less dysfunctional than us, but actually functional.
They both look pretty boring — slow methodical offenses mostly — but yes both functional.
Maybe thats what its about. Slow and methodical but have that homerun threat like OBJ.
http://chipwagon.typepad.com/eagles/2015/09/execution-yes-but-how-much-is-scheme-to-blame.html
Good new writeup from this blog.
This is a must MUST read
I thought it looked like the options this offense is predicated on we’re either not being explored or were taken away by Bradford’s lack of running ability, making it easier to stop. Chip wagon does a good job of exploring/exposing this. I am not a “sky is falling” guy so I think Chip will figure it out and correct it.
I keep thinking back to last year when we had the subs in on the OL and it was terrible, and wonder why we expected a different result this year with the same players. Then I realize it was Kelce, Lane, & Mathis hat were out.
why does beckham and WRs in general always act like they just cured cancer after every catch? Dude that’s your job.
Its a game… let them have fun
Rob and PPK I posted below in case you missed it about the movie in the reply below, plus about the spots in Delaware County where they filmed. Great Eagles movie about OCD, mania and Eagles fans and juju. It’s my freaking life except I’m not ‘Hot” like Bradley OOoooo LOL
Best part of the movie after they got in a fight in the Linc parking lot and DeNiro is pissed. LOL
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PwwAhX3fwlQ
DeNiro is so awesome. Some friends and I have been revisiting some of the all time great movies, and we happened to watch God Father part 2 last night. DeNiro was so young and thin and all his parts were in Italian, but all the mannerisms are still there lol.
Yep, he’s also aging like a normal human being not like some of these Hollywood types that blow their face up. Stallone comes to mind. wtf…..I know DeNiro has been criticized for some roles he has taken since around the 2000’s, maybe he does take too many offers, but this movie is a gem and him at the top of his game. He’s awesome as a mobster of course but there are so many others. Midnight Run, Raging Bull, plays an incredible role in Cape Fear, what a transformation he did there. Love that guy.
Saw him on Jon Stewart not too long ago. Such a sincere guy too. Did a documentary in honor of his father. His father was an artist and DeNiro wanted to display his father’s talents. Also, shockingly enough, turns out his father was gay, and that he didn’t come out until later in life. Glad he waited til after he made little Robert.. LOL….Didn’t see the documentary, but the interview is awesome, you could just see in his face the conflicted feelings he had to go through, the real emotions. Maybe part of how he builds up some acting emotions recalling moments about his father. Not only a great actor, but he really seems like a sincere and good guy.
I hope our Lineman are all watching the joke of a Giants OL actually open up holes in the run game against a quality front 7 skins defense.. going into this year the gIants had one of the very worst OL, since then had like 3 injuries to the OL and they are still to able to occasionally win their line of a scrimmage battles. You can’t play worse then our OL played against Dallas…, it’s still unbelievable just how bad the OL was. wtf has stoutland been doing all summer?
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Wonder if our practice styles hurts us when we are trying to incorporate young inexperienced lineman like Gardner in that we don’t really allow our OL and DL to go at it in practice. Chip always talks about the cooperation with those two units.. Unfortunately opposing DLs are not cooperating with us like we practiced..
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We sacrificed a lot of our ideal preparation to try and get to the season healthy. Since we paid the cost for health, hopefully our guys stop going down with injuries and start enjoying the good healthy we paid for..
29 is still young?
Yes
Yes, especially young in NFL experience
Looks like Giants will go into the 4th quarter with a lead.. Hopefully these morons don’t Pisa it away again
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Can’t believe I’m watching the worst OL in the league run the ball against a solid skins front 7… You can’t tell me Justin Pugh is better than Jason peters
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I’m still in disbelief by just how incompetent the OL looked. Stoutland and the players should be as embarrassed as they ever been
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If we can start generating a run game, OL improves to the point where Bradford starts to trust it, give Bradford time to set his feet and we have seen that when his feet are set he is like an accurate sniper having target practice
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And allegedly teams started to pick up on his snap count. Needs to change up his cadence to help our OL not allowing the DL to get a good rush off by timing oursnap. Help our OL by changing the QB cadence so the OL knows when the ball is being snapped and the devense doesn’t
I love the fact that you’ve typed the word Pisa enough that your autocorrect went with that over piss! But, yea, I agree. Our offensive line needs to get it together and fast.
The Crown Jewel of the NFC East, the Washington Redskins, are going down in flames tonight
I said it about Indy on Monday, but thanks, Washington, for making me feel better.
See how happy Manning looked winning after those two disasters? Our turn Sunday to feel good and have a nice week for a change. No waiting until Monday freaking night, 4 freaking 25, this will be the first game, @ 1 pm, going for 2nd place! Wow, I’ve lowered my standards, but let’s start somewhere!
Don’t know if it’s been discussed on here but somebody really needs to slug Bart Scott in the face with a 2 x 4 for the ish he’s been talking about Chip this week.
The New York Jets D/ST leads the NFL in creating turnovers, with 10 through the first two weeks of the NFL season. (copy n pasted, not my stat)
Ten turnovers in two games is an absurdly scary stat. That would put them on pace for 80 for the season.
I checked – the record for turnovers recovered in a season is the ’61 Chargers total of 66. They would eclipse the record by 14. In other words, they would top the record by more turnovers than the ’82 Ravens, ’06 Redskins, or ’82 49ers created in their entire respective seasons.
In fact, if you combine the season with the most interceptions (still the ’61 Chargers), 49, with the season with the most recovered fumbles, 31 by the ’63 Vikings, you get 80.
’82 Ravens?
Um, right…
(fixed it, thanks)
The Ravens were nasty in ’82. They didn’t give up a single point all season.
As bad as our offense has been, certainly scary to face a Defense THATS been forcing 5 TO per game… However it could also be used as an opportunity. those teams needed 5 Turnovers to secure those two wins, it’s safe to say that no matter what two teams are playing, odds are in you turn the ball over 5 times you are going to lose….If a team can play a clean game against the Jets, take care of the ball, not kill your self with Penalties, the game becomes much harder for Fitzy and that offense..dont give away the ball 5 times, don’t bal them out with dumb penalties and that Jets offense will start to show its Wharts
Calm down, we posses the ball for such a short amount of time that they can’t possibly generate more than one or two turnovers.
That’s a good thing. It means their defensive production is inflated. Turnovers are not a consistent metric.
Figures. I turned the game off last night with around 3:30 to go, thinking it would just be kneel downs. I missed the 41-yard touchdown and the KOR. It was probably the very play i turned off…
Traveled all week for business so I was glad to miss the reactionary over-the-top talk this week hammering the same generic points. Same people who said Kelly is an idiot are the same people who thought a month ago that preseason football really means something predicting great things for this team this year.
As for other towns, it common for the fans to embrace negativity because that is what drives people to call in & ultimately people to listen. WEEI in Boston is notorious for that. Even with a team that is 2-0 with a non-suspended Brady all callers could seemingly do is complain endlessly about the secondary (Fletcher is a hated man there already) and the weakness of the defense. Part of that is who calls sports talk radio in the first place along with who they let on the air but still puzzling to listen to it as an outsider.
Like listening to my friends who are Red Sox fans piss and moan now since the Red Sox haven’t been in the playoffs the last 2 years. Never mind they have won 3 World Series the past decade including just 2 years ago.
As for WFAN, they seem to think this upcoming game is Kelly’s Alamo. Either he makes the adjustments, wins this game, and the Eagles get right back into the worst divisional race in the NFL or things start to tailspin for him with finger-pointing if the offense lays another leg.
Sounds like you’ve got it all figured out, cool.
For what it is worth, Francesa thinks that Longhorns are going to hard after Kelly this year especially if things turn out sour with Bradford in a 4-12/5-11 season for the Eagles.
Made several interesting points including the fact that Eagles will be in limbo at QB, already a lot of rumbling about upgrading from Strong at UT, and UT has the alumni/resources/ability to match or exceed his pay in Philly, and enough of a lure to get a guy like Kelly.
Ridiculous. Chip likes the NFL, no way he goes back after one year with complete control. Hot taeks coming in hot hot hot.
And……..Harbaugh going to INDY from MICH? As if there isn’t already ENOUGH drama – we need to manufacture more…
Francesca is a fool, always has been, always will be. I don’t think he is going anywhere unless he is fired. And if they are that bad, he can drop Bradford and draft “his” QB in the draft
Also Texas would be morons if they dropped Charlie Strong this quick, guy has only had a year of resurrecting that program
Kelly hates everything around recruiting and boosters and no college can match what ever pay the Eagles can give
I think Chip really likes professional football. He’s able to focus just on coaching which he loves and not be bothered with boosters and recruiting. He’s got (at least at the moment), full control of the roster, the draft, everything. He’s got some nice pieces in place regardless of what happens this year. And, Chip strikes me as a guy that’s so obsessed and consumed with football, that he’d want nothing more than to succeed on the biggest stage there is, in the most competitive league there is. Chip loves dissecting the game, figuring it out and deploying an offense that can beat any defense. Right now he has a challenge. And, while I’m sure he’s disappointed in the way this team has played and how much they’re struggling. He strikes me as a guy that wouldn’t be able to sleep until he figured this thing out and proved he wasn’t a failure as an NFL coach.
“Sunday’s foe, the Falcons, are allowing just 80 rushing yards per game through two weeks, but the Eagles and Giants are hardly running teams.”
Ouch, that hurts for chip
OK, now for something really important…
I can only play 3:
DeMarco Murray
Jeremy Hill
David Johnson
Darren Sproles
??
just give up no good options.
Well, if I gave up I’d probably not be an EAGLES fan
do you wanna start demarco or sproles is your real question? then do the other 2 as well.. dj might have a breakout game never know hes been scoring and he might get some extra touches now too..
Yes. I still have demarco in…
is it PPR if so sproles might be nice but who knows.. few days off demarco got might be what he needed.. i dont recall.. but did demarco take days off during the week last year in dallas to save his legs? maybe he needs that here if he did there..
they gotta get mathews the ball — almost have too many backs.
agreed.. Deuce needs to get the split right..
Murray will play Sunday for those who havent seen it.
Will the offensive line play too?
They play each week – it’s a question of level of play.
Nothing matters with this oline
Hmm, maybe the “he’s faking an injury to avoid talking to the media” crowd had it right…
Thought probably crossed Chip’s mind once or twice. “Chip tweaked a hammy riding his bike in…”
Reading Chipwagon’s new article. Football is such a beautiful sport when it’s broken down like that.
Between the Eagles and the Presidential race I may not have any TVs left working in a few weeks.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?t=75&v=8_jUJIlKFrw
0-2 but doggone it we are undefeated in videos that get me so effing pumped up!
GO Birds!
Holy crap, seriously who is better than Dawkins?! NOBODY!
Greatest Eagle of all Time!
Hopefully, with the eagles offense so woeful this will become a “couch shopping” week for Jets players. Some weeks, the sunday opponent will be respected, so players will put off other everyday life things during the week to put the extra time to studying film or resting. Some weeks, the sunday opponent is not respected, “it will be an easy win” so players will spend time during the week getting all of the little things in life that they need to get done, like buying a couch.
The first two weeks this year, the Falcons had every reason to deeply fear the Eagles offense, and they were very well prepared and very amped up to play against the Eagles. Cowboys will always put off anything during the week to prepare for the Eagles and vice versa.
The Jets defense have lots of reason to be full of themselves, and they have lots of reason to have zero fear of Eagles offense. I can only imagine Jets defensive players watching game film of the Eagles while eating popcorn, laughing and yelling, saying they cant wait to see the film in the 3D version, live on their home field. This is the attitude the eagles need in an opponent right now, in order to gain some advantage and build some momentum.
or sconce shopping
if your in the igglesblitz fantasy league. julio jones is on the trading block. will also include cj anderson and davante adams. looking for rb1 + your best offer
We are quite thin on DLine and ILB for this game.
Does Bair start or Vinny?
I am guessing Hicks and DeMeco start at ILB
id rather have hicks and goode. demeco is not an nfl player anymore
They just got Goode back doubtful he starts
well if im the jets im throwing everytime demeco is in the game
Yup, hopefully it is just Hicks on obvious throwing downs.
well when demecos in he better be blitzing every time. ill be petrified to see him drop into zone or try and cover a rb/te
DeMeco is old and crusty like underwear worn for two days straight.
good one!
your life must be awesome if the best way to spend your time is trolling this blog.
im not trolling this blog. demeco is old and sucks. Im not allowed to be honest?
if this was your only post then sure!
shut the fukc up
thanks for proving my point!
i didn’t prove shit.
only a troll would tell someone on a blog like this to shut the fukc up. this is a blog of intelligent respectful people who want to contribute to an engaging dialouge about the team they love.
I am smart. you are dumb. I will write whatever the fukc I want. YOu can fukc yourself.
IgglesBlitz Community: This is the perfect example of a post that should be flagged.
yeah but GEAGLE could never live if we dind’t allow that.
I have my issues with GEAGLE, particularly his verbosity and tendency to lash out at weird moments. But he’s no troll.
You spent about 5 posts,bitching about a troll instead of ignoring him, bothering Tom with Flagging childish posts when he has NEVER banned a single person.. You contributed to about 50 childish posts that have NOTHING to do about the eagles, and you have my name in your posts? LOL that’s Rich… Please take my dick out your mouth… One day, just one day Id like to talk Eagles wthout Geagle this, GEAGLE That as soon as I visit the site……. When you see your name in one of my posts, then you can feel free,to dick eat… Until then, please keep my name out of your posts.l . I don’t care what you have to say, I don’t need you to defend me from anotjet crumb….unless you have a decent eagle opinipn to offer, im not interested… Enjoy your day…
IgglesBlitz community, this is a perfect example of a post worthy of flagging.
Flag away you child… Who the fuck are you to even be telling a troll how he should post on this site? Who the fuck are you? No one, irrelevant… You helped contribute to about 50 posts of childish trash, I doubt tom who has Never once banned anyone wants to deal with your childish flags while his mother is sick.. Fuck off you turd, your posts on this thread are no better then the troll you are trying to bully.. Keep acting like a bitch behind your computer screen, bitches like you got slapped in the real world, back to deep throating you go.
..
You are irrelevant, you are no one.. You don’t like a post, minimize it and shut the fuck up, instead of adding to the troll trash, you are no better then him, fuckin flag groupie.. lol “i flagged you!!!”… Lol OK lmao fuckin pussy . Lucky you have a computer screen or if be face fucking you like the bitch you are ,.. Lol “I flagged you” bwahahaha flag Fag!!! Lmao I flagged you… Bwahahaha fuckin classic. What a bitch
IgglesBlitz community, this is a perfect example of a post worthy of flagging.
Don’t get face fucked on a Friday
With Thorton and Hart out, do we pull from the PSquad? Raciti?
i think we use bair as the starter and do less subbing on the d line. cox and logan will earn there game checks on sunday
None. No need to roster shuffle. Hart and Ceddy should only be out a 2-3 weeks.
Cox-Logan-Bair start, Curry and Beau work in as relief. We’ve only been keeping 5 active each week and MSII is back to take some snaps at OLB allowing Curry to kick back inside for the moment.
If we have another injury up front or someone goes on IR this week then Mikhalik gets called up.
Do you see situations where Beau comes in and Logan moves to DE?
They can certainly do that.
That makes sense but I thought Mihalik was released with an injury waiver and not eligible to return until later in the year.
Acho was waived and inelligble to return til week 9.
Mikhalik is on the PS. He can get called up at any point. But he will be exposed to waivers when they cut him again to return to PS.
prediction :
1. Eagles lose AGAIN.
2. Demeco gets injured covering an RB lined up at WR
3. Offensive line gets NOTHING going.
4. Sam Bradford FINALLY get sacked and taken out of the game due to injury.
5. Team goes 0-7 and Chip Kelly gets fired during the Bye week – THANK GOD!
this is why your a troll. if you hate the eagles this much why do you come to this blog?
how is that a troll?
your asking for eagles players to get injured…
I am predicting players will get injured. I am not asking for that.
I predicted last week Kiko would get hurt and he did. GO look it up.
hahahhahahah wow. your godamn nostradomas in this bitch.
Hey tough guy. I can drop you on your face.
When everyone was predicting the Eagles would go to the Super Bowl and Sam Bradford was goin gto start 19 games I am the ONLY one who came out and said they were Preseason Super Bowl Champions. I have been right since day 1 on this farce Chip Kelly. He will be gone next year. and I will be buying a stadium seat license on the cheap.
Chip Kelly made this bed and took a shit all up in it. He sucks. I am sorry you fell in love with him, but I didn’t.
Nah you were trolling then and now.
You should stop calling people tough guy and saying you’re going to do things because in reality you are bitch and you wont drop anybody. So stop talking like you’re tough.
I actually am tough and I can drop pretty much any guy on their face
You’re not tough just stop. I know females that’ll beat you up lol. My 13 year old son would beat you up. You can tell a lot by how you comment and you are absolutely the little bitch type to piss on themselves if someone stepped to your face.
Lmfao…. This comment is so stupid it’s funny. Who says shit like that?
Post your prediction tough guy
im not happy with chip either. but id rather the eagles do well always. my predictions? were not nearly as bad as we’ve shown. I still dont think we beat the jets but i believe that chip kelly can bring us a championship in the future. atleast im willing to gamble on that over him getting fired and us going into complete rebuilding mode. our oline is not nearly as bad as they have played. bradford honestly hasnt looked as bad as everyone is saying. and hes not getting help. if our oline everts to the mean and starts gaining positive yards on the ground and our receivers start catching balls i believe we can beat anyone
THe oline is 2/5 people who shouldn’t be starters an undersized center and a 33 year old with two achilies tears. To get rid of Herremans and The other guard is completely irresponsible and on top of the they havent drafted a offensive lineman since 2013. Chip Kelly shouldn’t be the GM and shouldn’t be the coach. This is not going to change next season. The gimmick doesnt work. I have said it since day 1. Andy Reid was such a better coach than this guy.
herremans has looked like trash in indy. i didnt like the mathis release but the guy didnt buy in. peters was amazing last year and was still a 32 year old with two achilles tears
harremans was looking like ass last year. Chip shouldn’t have dumped Mathis but he’s gotta take his knocks too he’s only been a HC for 5 years or so. Andy has been a coach for 3x that. Doubt any coach that’s been a coach for any period of time doesn’t have things he should take back.
Further i’m sure chip and stout talked about the perceived drop between last years guards and this years guards and thought it ws worth it. Cap wise, they were expecting 2 big contracts next year (sammy and cox) after dumping $$ trying to fix the CB spot.
They dumped 11.3 million dollars into Sam Bradford and he is no better than Nick Foles. These moves are atrocious.
he’s way better than nick foles
yeah just compare their win loss record, then report back to me.
That has nothing to do w/ coaching / scheme? He looked real good against washington
I am not sure what it has to do with anything. Alls I know is Nick Foles has a winning record when he starts and Sam Bradford has a losing record when he starts. That’s a fact.
Who cares if he buys in. He played well. You just dont go cutting guys because you made an enemy with a player. It is so irresponsible. Chip Kelly gets in spats with his players then cuts them. See DJax, McCoy, FOles, Mathis, Cole, Herremans, Cary Williams, etc. etc. etc.
I predicted over a week ago that you would turn out to be an a$$hole. Winner.
boring guy
sorry guys ill stop feeding him.
My Prediction from last week :
1. Eagles lose AGAIN
2. Bradford gets hurt
3. Eagles offensive line shows its true colors AGAIN
4. Witten scores two TDs
5. KIKO ALONSO – concussion
6. Byron Maxwell smoked – AGAIN
7. Cowboys offensive line steamrolls the Eagles’ joke of a defense
8. Shady McCoy has more yards than Demarco Murray – even though McCoy wont suit up for the game due to injur
most of those were wrong.
number 1 wasnt.
Yes, please do stop. Just flag and move on. This guy needs to go.
Post your predictions if you aren’t scared. I have predicted two losses. And I was right. I am smart. You are dumb.
I predict you are dan Snyder
Eagles win or lose?
winner
Eagles win this week.
Oline shows signs of life
Jordan Matthews 2 td’s
Ryan Mathews 1 td
I will bet you none of those happen.
the Eagles are going to come out and look like a completely different team this Sunday. it will be a tough game because the Jets Defense is really good and well coached, but the eagles will WIN this game.
eff the jets
Everyone flag this post because he said “eff” the jets. I am a fukcing nerd.
brilliant again
done.. you doing anything else today?
Where’s that fucking nerd leagle saying report this guys come on.
Chip Kelly’s biggest mistake was cutting this guy. It’s all been down hill from there.
http://bloximages.chicago2.vip.townnews.com/pressofatlanticcity.com/content/tncms/assets/v3/editorial/a/5e/a5ee1190-ecaf-5c88-9044-5f2dd27c64ee/4e7ea0396285b.preview-300.jpg
Then they have some guy write that DJax is a gangster. What a disaster.
How often do you gaggle Jackson’s and McCoy’s genitalia in your mouth? You ride them like you love them. Hop off of them you clown there gone.
http://www.sbnation.com/2015/9/25/9386463/eagles-chip-kelly-sam-bradford-darren-sproles … wow celek. embarrassing….
….
Westbrook now giving advice on how to run the team. Um, no thank. How about just fix what’s broken (cough: celek) and move on instead of re-doing the whole scheme…smh….
That’s a must read article. Celeks technique on that first block is putrid. And, he’s totally caught off guard by how far inside the DE crashes on the second. Looks like he’s moving right expecting the DE to play contain and trying to get outside of him, while the DE crashes hard to his left and I don’t even think he gets a hand on him. That’s terrible.
On the first sweep to the left check out the two guards, they’re both completely useless.
http://www.ozy.com/rising-stars/will-burton-reading-the-minds-of-nfl-coaches/64690
“The North Carolina State fifth-year senior built a statistical model
this summer that predicts whether an NFL team will run or pass with the
kind of accuracy — about 75 percent — that could win Super Bowls (or at
least a lot of bragging rights). The model factors in all the stats you
might expect, like time remaining, point difference, yards to go and
play downs, but Burton, just 23 years old, thinks he has come up with
the real trick: combining the right mix of stats and historical data
dating back more than 15 years.”
Once relegated to dorky online blogs, those who know how to grapple with
Big Data are becoming hot commodities. The Pittsburgh Steelers hired a
numbers wrangler in August, the Miami Dolphins added one in March, and
there are probably about “10 to 15” franchises with significant stat
departments, says Shane Reese, a Brigham Young University statistics
professor who works with college, Olympic and pro teams. “We’re going to
continue to see people investing serious resources,” he says.”
NFL is lagging all other professional sports in terms of analytics adoption. Bill James made a similiar comment just a week ago in the NY Times.
You even get to play with the statistical tool also:
http://opal3.stat.ncsu.edu:3838/jbpost2/NFLPlayPredictor/
CSNP:
Linebackers Kiko Alonso (knee) and Mychal Kendricks (hamstring) and defensive ends Cedric Thornton (hand) and Taylor Hart (shoulder) all missed practice Friday for the third consecutive day. All are officially ruled out for the Week 3 game.
Oops – sorry, I see below…
hart has been officially ruled out? FUCK!!!! Bair or Vinny will have to start at DE… Unless they want to move Bennie the beast to DE and start Beau at the Nose, but then we have no backüp NT for the second unit.
..
Losing Thornton is bad enough. Losing his backüp too? That’s rough,. Our Front 7 was going to be a,strength, it had Talemt and depth, now we are down two DL, and two ILBs… thank God we,drafted an ILB in round 3 who looks like he belongs and the momemt ismt too big for him… Who the hell ever thougjt we would be appreciating the Drafting of Hicks in the first month of the season?
..
MS2 gonna have to make some noise and give us a boost off the bench..
..
Thankfully Ivory ismt going to play
That’s a lot of defenders on the bench. I really don’t want to watch a shitzpatrick lead offense have it’s way with our defense. Here’s hoping Bair and Vinny can hold down the fort, and Hicks looks as good as he did against Dallas, and that Ryans can somehow play the entire game without having to man cover anyone.
i’d like to see for some plays, or screw it, the whole game – Lane as left Tackle, JP as the left guard, then kelce, gardner, then Kelly as right tackle. if more of an obvious pass play have Celek help Kelly. If run play have Celek next to Lane.
and if we really wanted a yard, have Beau as fullback to blow up the linebacker that has been sitting in the hole the past two weeks.
thought Chip was a mad scientist, hope he feels he has nothing to lose this week and goes for it.
We NEED continuity IMO MUCH MUCH more then we need to make a bunch of changes and have to start the gelling/continuity over from scratch…
AGREE. MAKE BRANDON GRAHAM A FULL BACK AND DENNIS KELLY A TE.
Sam Bradford a corner and Najee Goode a WR!
The cats sleep with the dogs and the dogs sleep with the cats
Total chaos!
I think you’re onto something with Bradford at CB. It worked in “Remember the Titans” when Denzel put Sunshine at CB in the state championship game. Why not try it!
That makes no sense. There is no continuity as it is so why shuffle players to playing positions they never played before.
because i am desperate, as a fan. of course, the more rational thing is to work on continuity.
Doesn’t make any sense.
Embarressing that chip allowed Bradford to use the same Exact snap count every play for an entire,game: “Down, set, Go” and the ball is ALWAYS snapped.
.,
The one stinking advantage an OL is supposed to have against the DL especially at home is that the OL gets to know when the ball will be snapped, while the Dfense has to guess… When you use the same snap count every single fucking play you are pissing that advantage away and allowing the DL to time every snap and explode off the ball… how about you make life a little easier for a friggin OL that is struggling, and use the friggin snap count to not only cause penalties, but to give your OL which is struggling, a slight advantage to explode off the Line if scrimage… How can you struggle so badly to run the ball, and not fuckng address this bonehead issue? NOw we are on the road in a loud stadium and we don’t get to use the snap count as a weapon the way we could have last week to Help our struggling OL.
…
No wonder the OL is struggling to open a hole in the run game, when we are allowing the DL to perfectly time every single fuckin snap and explode off the ball, instead of using our snap count to allow our OL to explode off the ball before the DL does, and use our snap count to use the opposing DLs aggression against them, force them into penalties while we should be getting free plays to take shots down field.
..
This is absurd KOTITE level stupidity,,im Embarressed that we let the Dallas DL time every snap perfectly and get to our OL, instead of the other way around.. our OL should be exploding out of their stance before the DL moves…. Game of inches, this is a huge advantage, especially when it happens every single fuckin play… I can’t get over Bradford not changing a single snap count all game all so we can hurry up. Get to ball snapped so our offense can get back to the bench faster smh… Embarressing.. Even worse, how the fuck did Kelce screw up the snap, when the count was the same all game long….”Down, set, go….”
Its just embarrassing
I Blame Chip, Bradford, and if those two had their heads up their ass, how the hell could Stoutland not speak up and stop allowing the Dallas DL to tee off on our OL, when it should be the other way around with our OL exploding off the ball first, while our opponents have to react…
..
This is dumber then McNabb not knowmg you can tie, and it’s dumber then Eli/COUGHLIN clock stupidity against Dallas..
that is pathetic wow. I figured they were on a fast snap count that was easy to guess but not the same one every time. I would have thought in up tempo that would a great advantage esp when a D is tired out to get them to jump. All this time we were told about Bradfords intelligence also but better not get too complicated with snap counts, might be too much
This is so bad, I almost feel guilty about ripping the OL in the run game.. It’s a pretty BIG DEAL…
It does seem like our offensive line is hesitant and waiting for the defensive player to move before reacting. It looks real bad on tape.
Tommy has gone silent. Either he is violently ill or he is working on a DGR. With the way last week’s game went, I am not sure which we should hope for.
I think we know why Megan needs more space from her ex…
http://www.usmagazine.com/celebrity-style/news/is-megan-fox-sending-ex-green-a-message-with-i-need-more-space-shirt-2015249
Her left hand looks like she spent the summer with JPP.
Too much wanking?
Not enough fingers.
I thought 5 against 1 would be enough?!
I never thought she was good enough for Tommy.
Wouldn’t working on a DGR cause a violent illness?
Even thinking about reading a DGR is upsetting my gut.
Geno smith is back. When the schedule was released I was so excited about getting to face,Geno early in the season before they had a chance to bench him, then the donkey went and Got himself Knocked out over $600′ chump change, which to Geno is Like the REAL LIFE equivalent of getting Knocked out over 6 bucks….I feel ripped off that I don’t get to see our defense beat up on GENO, hopefully Jordan Hicks comes thru, knocks Fitzy out of the game early… That way if our Offense gets killed, ATleast I get to see Geno under fire….
..
Jets are just as banged up as us going into this game,, REVIS being out would be a godsend,,..I’m hoping he is uncomfortable enough to look at his 2-0 start, see our young WRs and Miles Austin who left his hands in Cleveland, and decide not to risk further injury and sit this non division game out, but that’s probably wishful thinking… no Ivory or Decker is nice,,
..
Devin Smith however is back and ready to make his rookie debut, It’s No Secret that in his first game, Devin will run ALL GO ROUTES. That’s It… chan Gailey has been going 4 WR and taking shots down field all year, so you can bet that will continue until guys Like ROWE, BIGS, Maragos. Prove that our Dime package can hold up… Devin is gping tp come n the game, and try to use his 4.3 speed running straight down field, every time he is in the game, so there is No Excuse why our Safeties or Corners should let the rookie get behind him and make plays down field. You know exactly what he is going to do when you see him in the game and with Ivory out, you have no business biting on play action…. I ask for two simple things:
.
1) Bracket Coverage on Brandon Marshall for the entire 60 minutes. TAKE Marhal AWAY from Fitzgerald and we will force a bunch of turnovers..
2) DO NOT LET THE ROOKIE GET BEHIND US! He is running straight every single time, Thurmond can’t have those Nate Allen mental mistakes when he would let guys run past him and get Behnd the defense.
..
Just take care of those two things, and we will force the Jets offense to struggle and turn it over
..
on offense, of REVIS plays you can forget about throwing outside. Just forget about it.. Our best chance of passing against this defense is getting the LBs and Safeties matched up against Ertz, Sproles… Those two will have to have a monster game for our offense to succeed this week,.
..
And since we can’t throw outside aganst Revis and Cro, find other ways to get our young WR’s involved, like Reverses. Maybe Line up in the backfield and run your routes out of the backfield so the corners can’t jam a kid like Agholar.. Those corners are willing Tacklers, so in the screen game, why not get back to the stack formations where Lane Johnson splits out wide with Agholar behind him, and throw the screen to the WR with Lane as his lead blocker…. Unless you plan on throwing to the TEs and RBs all game long. Gotta find other creative ways to get something from our WRs this week
..
ST has to make a positive impact on this game.. If our ST out plays their Dallas counterpart, that game could have been different, even as terrible as we played..
..
Picked a bad week to need to get our run game gpimg against tbis Jets front 7. But f we abandon the run, with as much as Bowles blitzes, bradford wouldnt survive this game,,, better be abke to run the ball
great post
Can we please keep some context, thanks.
http://media.giphy.com/media/S25yCLKmbZOhi/giphy.gif
PAGING GEAGLE……………………..
GEAGLE!!!!
https://twitter.com/EliotShorrParks/status/647519106598617088
You couldn’t pay me enough..#howpathetic
I know you’re a fan.
Wa-wa-what?! All the times you wrote about wanting to ask reporters about their dumb questions and dumb reports and dumb conclusions, and you are going to pass?!
I don’t respect him enough to care… He is probably the worst media member ever allowed to cover the Eagles, and me sitting down with him would just end with Elliot getting punched in his mouth, FYI I’m in Europe for the next 10 days… Much bigger fish to fry pal
I might do this. Get into the mind of the beast.
He’s pretty brave.
I’ll go for the free drink alone.
Silly Mike. GEagle ain’t leagle.
Not enough time in the day, Parks…
what a tool
Where I most want to see growth from Chip Kelly HC and Chip Kelly offensive play caller is a real-time adjustment philosophy vs dogmatic stick to the game plan approach. If Chip covets Belichickian results as a HC/Personnel guy, he needs to evolve to the BB level that isn’t afraid to adjust on the fly. I know Chip is capable, and I’ve seen him go contrarian in his game planning a few times at Oregon, but it just seems Chip has gone conservative in his approach and execution as a coaching staff. I really think Billy D is hesitant to make in-game adjustment calls based on Chip’s overriding foundational game planning and execution philosophy.
These next few games will really test Chip, the staff, and the core players of this team. Let’s hope they’re up to the task.
I wonder if the seeming conservatism is a function of wanting to get the plays right before they expand the playbook. It is debatable whether focusing on execution too much makes the execution harder because of predictability, but I could see that reasoning being possible.
This is exactly what I think is going on. Chip wants to build all the big plays off of the key run plays in this offense. I think he’s trying to get those plays moving and once that happens, that always seems to be when the creative play calls start coming and the constraint plays and counters and big plays come out.
I might be wrong. But, I’d love to see him start the game with the counter and constraint plays and show the defense something they’re not expecting, to get them on edge and see if you can force them to play you more vanilla and straight up. It might just help our guys execute a bit and gain some much needed confidence.
Allegedly Kelce went up to Chip after the Dallas game and appologized and said he was embarressed by his performance…
..
We are going to learn a lot about Marcus Smith and Jordan Hicks. and we also will get a glimpse of life without Thornton since we will soon approach time to make Longterm decisions on our young Defensive Front..
..
We woill need a big game from our defense inspite of the injuries. need to win the turnover battle on the road, easier said then done against a defense averaging 5 TOs a game… Damn sure can’t afford to have ST fail us again..
..
its a travesty if we don’t get this turned around and waste a great opportunity with our division at an all time low… With all the changes, we are so fortunate that the division is so weak, compared to last year where we wouldn’t have made the playoffs had we gone 11-5… You don’t need 12 wins to win the NFC east this year, and to not take advantage of that and fight thru this early season adversity would be a real shame..
I hope Smith produces something on Sunday. We really could use a nice sack, a great coverage int, something.
He could start with just a tackle. First entry in the stat book is the hardest.
I’ll be happy with a few good presssures and a couple tackles in limited reps.
I’ve figured it out! The collective shittiness of the first two games has caused Tommy’s mind to snap, and now he believes that his name is EaglesFANqq.
It explains the lack of posts and DGR’s, and now that his brain has ruptured, all the aggression he’s felt towards imbeciles he runs into maintaining his superlative site is spewing forth as internet toxic bile, gushing and spraying in waves of grotesque filth. He probably doesn’t even remember he runs the site!
Please, Philadelphia, win a game in convincing fashion so we can begin to mend Tommy’s cracked cranium, before it’s too late.
Moist.
Hard to argue with logic like that. I had wondered why the new poster is so crazy.
Paging D3FB– Is this Gardner with poor execution on his block, the defensive slant being the best call to kill this play, or just Barbre not playing to his assignment again? It seems to me Kelce was supposed to be pulling and never should have been touched by the DT.
https://cdn.streamable.com/video/webm/yonn.webm
I’m no where near as knowledgable as D3FB when it comes to blocking schemes and technique, but it looks to me like Gardner is supposed to cut off the DT and ride him in the direction he wants to go…away from the play. And Kelce is supposed to pull and pick up that LB that makes the tackle. You can see that if executed properly Kelce leads through that hole and Murray is off to the races.
Take that video, place your mouse on the play button and just keep double tapping it so that you can see the play unfold frame by frame. What you’ll notice is that Gardner wastes a good amount of motion getting over to the left. He actually first stands up and steps to the right, which is inconceivable given the DT’s alignment. And, then is slow to get his head in front of the DT. In fact, he never gets his head in front. Instead, his head is behind and he just drives the DT into Kelce and ruins the play.
That’s a great shot that shows how one crappy guard can kill an entire play. If he fires out of his stance and cuts off that DT, Kelce is able to knock out the LB and Murray has a huge hole, a head of steam and only one safety in front of him, with 15 yards between him and the safety.
I saw the same thing as you, but that’s why I was asking someone that might have the inside knowledge. It strikes me that the DT was Gardener’s responsibility, but that his assignment is always to step playside with the other lineman, which caused him to miss the block. This is the exact problem Kelce had with the nut stunt last year, in that he makes the step playside like he’s supposed to and his assignment isn’t there. If it’s just Barbre going to the second level again when he isn’t supposed to, that’d be… typical. If it’s a case of the other guy getting paid, too, well, that I can accept. It we’re that committed to only running IZ, that’s how they’re going to play it until Chip adjusts. I guess that’s the answer I’m looking for.
There is one of two possibilities:
The less likely of the two is that it’s a zone and Gardener just forgets what the hell he is supposed to do. Even with the NT blowing up Kelce into the backfield, Kelce keeps him engaged so if Gardener just follows his zone path he gets Lee and it’s a big gain.
The one I’m fairly confident is that due to the DT’s shooting the A gap, Stoutland gave Kelce permission to check the blocking assignment for him and the guard at the line. Instead of Kelce having to try to get vertical movement on a guy who is trying to shoot that gap (which is a pretty hard block to execute he’s at best going to get lateral movement and cause an early cut by the RB). So instead of C-RG both executing zone blocks it’s a line call that tells Gardener to pin the DT and Kelce to quick pull around up to Lee. It’s a quick counter to them shooting A-gaps and if that was what they checked to it’s a great idea. However I’m not sure how much it was practiced, because Gardeners footwork is a fucking mess. He takes a false step and is too concerned with the DT not shooting the gap and fighting across his face. What he should have done if that was the call was to put his facemask across the body of the DT, shove his right hand on the DT’s left hip and wash him down the line. Instead he’s tenative, gets Kelce blown up and leaves Lee free to scrape over the top.
Either way Gardener has a mental error or is too hesitant to execute a basic down block. The play works flawlessly either way if Gardener executes his block the rest of the line does a good job.
I didn’t want to have to do this, Tommy, but you’ve left me no choice:
How did the agent know the royalty check he was being handed was from JPP?
It was only four figures?
Hit refresh.
One positive going into this game against the Jet’s: I think our defense matches up well at this point with the Jet’s offense.
Maxwell, has had a bit of trouble with playing man against WRs with speed. His less than ideal straight line speed was hidden in Seattle’s mostly zone cover 3 scheme, but has been exposed a bit now that he’s asked to play more man coverage. The Falcons really attacked him with long crossing patterns that crossed the entire length of the field when they got man coverage and their WRs had the speed to make him pay.
However, Brandon Marshall is the type of WR that Maxwell should do well against. His strength is his physicality, size and route running, which Maxwell should be able to match up well against. Coming out of college Maxwell ran the 40 yard dash almost a full 0.1 sec faster than Marshall. He shouldn’t be able to pull away from him as easily as Julio Jones and Roddy White who are both faster than Marshall.
The Jets don’t have great receiving threats at RB and TE, which should somewhat mitigate the loss of our two speedy ILB. Hopefully, we can hide DeMeco’s pass coverage limitations against an opponent that doesn’t necessarily have the weapons to exploit it.
Chris Ivory being out is also a blessing as we’re down to our third string DE on one side, in addition to our back up ILBs. If the Jets can’t get the run game going and have to rely on Fitzpatrick to beat us without Eric Decker, I like our chances to really shut down their offense this week.
Unfortunately, we saw last week that shutting down the oppositions offense isn’t always enough to win. I don’t like the matchup of our offense versus their defense nearly as much. Or really, at all. Facing their front 7 with this offensive line has disaster written all over it unless there’s a complete 180 in their execution from last week. And, our WR’s don’t present much of a problem for their DBs.
I expect Sproles and Ertz to make a handful of plays though, and Jordan Matthews is always a tough match up in the slot. If one other player shows up big this week (Nelson Agholar, I’m looking at you!) we might be able to do just enough to beat a team that I don’t see putting up many points on us.
Ultimately, I think special teams will have a big impact on this game. The Jets lack a return threat in both the punt and kickoff return game. Kerley is averaging 6.5 yards per return on 2 returns this year, and has never been a huge threat as a returner. Kellen Davis has returned only 1 kickoff for 13 yards this year. While opponents are averaging 26 yards per kickoff return against them. Let’s hope special teams comes alive and gives us a big boost this week. That might mean all the difference.
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