More Playoff Talk

Posted: January 20th, 2023 | Author: | Filed under: Philadelphia Eagles | Comments Off on More Playoff Talk

The playoff game is now about 24 hours away. This week has been odd, with the Eagles coming off a bye and then playing on Saturday. Days just don’t feel right, but that will end tomorrow when the Eagles take the field to battle the Giants.

The Eagles made an interesting move today.

Let’s talk about what this means.

CJ Gardner-Johnson will split time between the slot and FS. He’ll play safety in base looks and the slot in sub-packages. Reed Blankenship will take over as the FS in those looks. Harris could come on the field in Dime looks. K’Vonn Wallace has done that at times. I don’t think the Eagles elevated Harris for the heck of it. They want him for depth, but also must be comfortable with him in a specific role.

Wallace has improved this year. I give him a lot of credit for that. Still, Harris is a proven veteran and that can be valuable in the playoffs. I assume Wallace will be inactive for the game. Josiah Scott is more versatile so keeping him active would make more sense. The Eagles could go light somewhere else, but that doesn’t seem as likely.

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Daniel Jones is getting a lot of praise for how well he threw the ball last week. He also ran for 78 yards. His legs were a weapon that helped the Giants to keep drives alive.

I thought Jones would be a factor as a runner in the first Eagles-Giants meeting of the year, but Jones only ran 4 times for 26 yards. I think he’ll be more of a factor this time. In the playoffs you do anything to win. The Eagles edge rushers need to keep him in the pocket. Jones is a gifted athlete. You don’t want him loose on the outside.

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I get the Giants being trendy after beating the Vikings, but the love for the them is getting out of hand.

https://twitter.com/gmfb/status/1616051911383474177

The current team isn’t like the 2007 Giants. This is a huge reach by Peter.

That Giants team had made the playoffs the previous season and had a good core of players. They started 0-2 and then went 10-4 the rest of the way. The defense was 7th in the league in yards allowed. They led the league in sacks and had arguably the best DL in the league.

The current Giants team started 7-2 against a weak schedule. They finished 2-5-1, with 4 of the losses coming to playoff teams. The Giants didn’t finish in the Top 15 in points or yards on offense or defense. The Giants haven’t made the playoffs since 2016 so the key players will be new to the playoffs.

I wonder how the Giants will handle the hype.

They seem like a loose, confident team, but they are dealing with a lot of praise for the first time all year. If they lose any of their edge, that won’t help them.

All of this hype might be doing the Eagles a favor. How are the poor little Eagles supposed to beat the big, bad Giants? You can bet coaches are using that kind of stuff to motivate the players.

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Here is your crazy stat of the day.

Wow.

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We don’t want to leave any angle uncovered. Deniz is the king of Eagles stats and he’s got your uniform breakdown.

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Is there any reason to be nervous?

The only thing that gives me pause is this being the first playoff game for this group. The Eagles were in the playoffs last year, but there have been some key additions to that team.

And the group last year didn’t exactly look good in the postseason, falling behind 31-0 before cutting it to 31-15.

One of the big issues is that they had no answers when the Bucs took away the running game. The WRs weren’t good enough and Jalen Hurts wasn’t good enough. Both of those issues are gone now.

AJ Brown and DeVonta Smith are the best WR duo in the NFC. Both guys have #1 WR capability.

As for Hurts, he made incredible growth as a passer this year. It will be exciting to see what he does this time around.

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