Rough Week

Posted: October 2nd, 2020 | Author: | Filed under: Philadelphia Eagles | Comments Off on Rough Week

The Eagles are a banged up football team. Very banged up. What was the old poem…How do I love thee? Let me count the ways. Well, let’s count the Eagles who are hurting.

Yikes.

Well said, Mr. B.

You’ll notice WR was particularly hard hit. Greg Ward was the only member of the 53-man roster to practice. He’s a solid slot receiver, but if he’s your “weapon”…not good.

Fulgham and Burnett will play this week so the Eagles will have 3 healthy WRs. Again, nobody that anyone would think of as a weapon.

Maybe DeSean plays. Maybe JJAW. Feels like Hightower might be the most likely to return.

Doug Pederson and his coaching staff ar going to have quite the challenge as they have to put together a gameplan based on a limited number of receivers, and the guys have limited ability.

Normally the Eagles could make this a TE game. Unforturnately, Dallas Goedert is out with a broken ankle. Richard Rodgers will play in his place, but Rodgers is more of a complementary piece than a featured part of the offense. Maybe Hakeem Butler will make his NFL debut as a TE.

Making matters worse, the coaches can’t count on the OL to dominate. That group has been up and down this year. You can try to focus on the run. SF has been vulnerable there the past couple of weeks. You just don’t know how the OL will perform.

This is one of those games where you wish the coaches were in a groove. They would come out with the right plays to make the most of players like Burnett, Fulgham and Rodgers. There were times in 2017 when role players like Trey Burton and Kenjon Barner would be called on to deliver and they would. That seems like ages ago.

Last night we saw a pair of banged up offenses play in a 37-28 shootout, with Denver beating the Jets. You had QBs making plays. You had receivers making impressive grabs. The coaches took some chances. Some worked, some didn’t.

To be fair, there was plenty of bad defense as well.

Still, you saw teams playing lots of backups and finding ways to score points with limited weapons. It can be done.

The Eagles will be facing one of the top five defenses in the league so they are in a much tougher situation. Pederson does have three weapons to work with…Carson Wentz, Miles Sanders and Zach Ertz. That should be enough to get an offense going. It hasn’t so far this year. Wentz can’t get out of his own way and the coaches don’t seem to have the answer on a consistent basis. There is no sustained groove for this offense.

Maybe focusing on tempo will bring out the best in Wentz and the offense. Of course, playing fast can make it tough on the players when you don’t have a deep bench. Fulgham, Burnett and Rodgers could get a lot of snaps. They better be ready.

Pederson used to be at his best when facing top defenses. He was at his most creative and seemed very dialed in. It would be great for that guy to show up this week and call a masterful game.

It would help if whoever has the voodoo doll of Eagles players would quit sticking pins in. Enough. We get it. They’ve wronged you and they deserve to suffer.

Let them play. That’s punishment enough this year.

*****

SF got some good news.

The Niners are very banged up themselves, but they do get back a key weapon. Just what the Eagles LBs and safeties wanted to see.

Ugh.

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